Help Bring the Children back to Mr. Munn's Schoolhouse through Restoration and Preservation

Oxford Historical Society, Oxford, CT 06478

Links to download PDF forms:

2020 Membership Form,   Bylaws,   Collections Policy

 

2020 Newsletters: Jan/Feb

Thanks You Video of Schoolhouse move in 2019: https://youtu.be/7NIQizOSFs4

2019 Newsletters: Jan/Feb,  March/April,  May/June, July/August, Sept-Oct   November/December

Resources on Oxford History

 
Oxford Historical Society

Help the Historical Society Earn Grant Money to preserve our Historic one-room schoolhouse              
                                             
Voting has begun for the 11th Annual Community Awards Program so please help us earn grant money!  We will receive a $25 donation from the Ion Bank Foundation for every vote (*) we receive! 

Every vote counts! If you are an Ion Bank customer, please visit IonBank.com to vote until March 31, 2020.  If you know of friends and family with accounts at ION Bank, please forward this email to them.

Ion Bank provides a wonderful opportunity for area folks to help preserve the 1850's one-room schoolhouse moved last year to the Historical Society's Twitchell-Rowland Homestead museum on Towner Lane. All money received from this campaign will help us to repair and restore this unique piece of Oxford's rural heritage.

Another way you can help spread the word is by following @oxfordhistorical on facebook, and sharing our Ion Bank notices on your social media pages. Everyone can help! If you're an Ion Bank customer, please vote for the Oxford Historical Society. If you're not eligible to vote, you can still help to spread the word. Every vote we receive helps get this historic treasure ready to be a living history center for children and adults.

* Voting is open to all Ion Bank customers.  One vote per customer, however, for accounts with multiple owners, each owner may vote.  Customers with multiple accounts may only vote once.  Each customer can vote for only one organization.
Current Newsletter features info on Mr. Munn's Schoolhouse: What Did it Look Like?
  Details on the early history of Oxford schools are relatively few. There is a chapter in History of the Town of Oxford by Norman Litchfield and Sabina Connolly Hoyt that offers a quote describing a school of the period: “A continuous desk ran around three sides of the room, leaving an aisle next the wall. It had one long continuous bench, over which the scholars had to step, in order to be seated. In the open space in front was the teacher’s table.”
   It wasn’t until 1899 that the Board of Education expended $8.20 for 26 desks.
   “The school had but one room, which at first was heated by an open fire place, but which by about 1820, had a cast iron stove. It was the duty of one of the older boys to see to it that a good supply of firewood was on hand throughout the winter, and each school morning he had to be on hand early to build the fire so as to have the room fairly warm before school opened.
    “Generally there were two terms, winter and summer. “The winter term began the week after Thanksgiving Day and continued twelve to sixteen weeks...school kept every day in the week except Sunday.”

Download current issue of  Making History Every Day in PDF format to see some paintings of typical one-room schoolhouses, interior and exterior.
Or, see the newsletter contents HERE in HTML
Oxford Historical Society
 
munn

Honor an Educator; Move a Schoolhouse

    The Oxford Historical Society offers area residents an opportunity to honor an educator, while supporting the preservation of the 1850’s one-room school known as Mr. Munn’s Schoolhouse. Originally built as a private schoolhouse, it was later used by the Oxford's First School District as a “select school,” where advanced students could be prepared for college.

     The building, formerly located at 561 Oxford Road, was moved to the Historical Society's Twitchell-Rowland Homestead Museum campus at 60 Towner Lane. There the Society will restore and preserve the building to offer children and adults the experience of a day in a one-room schoolhouse.

     To support the move, the Society has launched the “Honor an Educator” program. Supporters can make a $5 donation to the preservation program in honor of an educator. In return they will receive a special note card to be sent to the teacher they wish to honor. Donors will also receive an acknowledgement of their tax-deductible gift to the Society.

     Forms to “Honor an Educator” may be found HERE on the Society's website or picked up at the Town Clerk's Office. They are also available at the Homestead Museum on the first and third Sundays of each month from 2-4 p.m.

      Donations through the Honor an Educator program will enable the development of a hands-on, living history program that will teach today’s students about education in Oxford in the past, and honor the heritage of educators who have helped Oxford’s children become useful members of society. Your support is appreciated.