Westport still has a 1-room schoolhouse.
It’s not used anymore — but Marguerite Webb’s photo of a handsome part of the old building was last week’s Photo Challenge.
The school is Adams Academy, on North Morningside Drive. Madison Malin, Jacques Voris and Mary Palmieri Gai were the “06880” readers who identified it.
The town of Westport now owns the Greek Revival structure, which has official historic designation.
As well it should. From 1837 to 1867, the magnificently named Ebenezer Adams ran an eponymous coed prep school there. During his tenure, 637 students graduated. None were refused admission to college.
In 1868, Adams sold his academy and its 1-acre property to the Green’s Farms Association. They operated the school — less successfully — for the next 14 years.
A bank foreclosed the mortgage in 1882. Wealthy Long Lots resident Robert Martin bought it. The West Long Lots school district operated it as a public school until 1898.
It later became the home of grades 1-3, for the consolidated West Long Lots, East Long Lots and Green’s Farms districts.
The academy was abandoned in 1917, shortly before Greens Farms Elementary School opened on South Morningside.
It’s been used as a town park, a home for the needy, offices for the town guidance department, and headquarters for the Westport Historical Society.
Now restored, it is one of our town’s most hidden — and historic — treasures.
(Click here for last week’s Photo Challenge. Thank you, Woody Klein, for that background information. To learn more about Adams Academy, click here.)
Patricia McMahon provides this week’s Photo Challenge. It’s a gorgeous image, and very intriguing.
(Photo/Patricia McMahon)
If you know where in Westport you’d find this, click “Comments” below.
Parking lot, Compo beach!
Sent from my iPhone
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Possibly at Compo, but I can’t picture exactly where.
Somewhere near the beach, which is not exactly the answer you want.
Burying Hill Beach?
My uncle, Adolph Backiel, who was born in 1909, attended Adams Academy, located on North Morningside Drive.
Beautiful.
Close guesses, but not correct. It is definitely near a beach.
A house lawn on Beachside Avenue maybe?
Cockenoe Island.
They are in the driveway of the former Positano’s on Hillspoint Road. I would presume they were put there to prevent patrons from parking on the grass behind Positano’s.
Correct! You got it, Elaine. Well done!
I am interested in the reference to “The Greens Farms Association” which says it was purchased in 1868. This is a different GFA from the one that exists today!
Art Schoeller
President
Greens Farms Association
Art, It also says they operated the school for 14 years. It would be interesting to find out who the members were back then.