The education of all children through a public school system
was a primary concern to the Puritan settlers of Massachusetts. The
Puritans believed all children should have the ability to read the
bible in order to participate in religious services. Laws were
enacted making it the responsibility of the parents to perform the
education in the home. The first public school of any type for
Winnisimmet, began on February 7, 1709 when Reverend Thomas Cheever
was hired to teach in his home in the Centre {Revere}, four days a
week. Over the next one hundred years schools were held in church
vestries, private halls and homes.
In 1830, the United States began to experience an influx of
European immigration, especially in the Northeast. The population of
the Town of Chelsea in 1830 was 770, by 1860 it had risen to 13,395,
Revere and Winthrop had been set off in 1846. The problem of
schooling had to be solved.
The first schoolhouse built in the Ferry Village {Chelsea}, was a
one room, one story, wooden building, with a sloping roof, located on
Washington Avenue and Chestnut Street. The front door faced
Washington Avenue through a small porch. The building was
approximately twenty-five feet square, surrounded by trees and with a
large wood shed in the rear. It was plainly furnished with each row
of desks a little higher than the other. The backside of each desk
acted as the backside of the seat in front all facing the teacher
whose desk was set on a platform. Blackboards were on three sides of
the room.
Narrow windows were set up high from the floor. Pupils brought
their own lunches. Wednesdays and Saturdays were half days. The
school was erected in 1833, remained at this location until 1840,
when it was moved to Central Avenue, opposite Garden Cemetery. The
building was used as a primary school at this site until 1860. The
following year the building housing the school was sold. In 1837, a
two story schoolhouse with four rooms was erected on Park Street
{present day Police Station}. The building was used as a school until
1873. A primary school was started in Prattville in 1839. The school
seats were once tree stumps with a board on top and no backs. The
school was closed in 1846, for lack of students; seven students at
time of closing. A two story wooden building was erected on Maverick
Street, corner Shurtleff Street, in 1843. The building was used for a
boys’ grammar school. Also in 1843, a primary schoolhouse was built
near 100 Broadway. In 1853, the school was moved to Mulberry Street
opposite Pine Street. The building continued as a primary school
until closed in 1873. In 1850, a two story, eight room, brick
building was erected on Second and Walnut Streets; the first high
school building to be built in Chelsea. Only four of the rooms were
used for the high school and the rest, used for primary school.
By 1871, the primary classes had been moved out and all the
rooms were used for the high school. A new high school building was
built in 1872 on Bellingham Street. The school building on Second
Street was heightened to three stories and enlarged, and became
solely a primary school. Known as the Cary School, the building was
demolished in the early 1940’s. In 1853, the town hall was
constructed on Central Avenue corner Shurtleff Street, with six rooms
designated as a schoolhouse. The rooms formed a girls’ grammar school.
A two story wooden schoolhouse was erected in 1855, on
Shawmut Street corner of Middlesex Street {Congress Avenue}, and
known as the Shawmut School. In 1857, the city purchased the old
Marine Hospital building on Essex Street {Quigley playground) The
building was made a grammar school, and called the Shurtleff School.
The school was destroyed in the Chelsea Fire of 1908.
A four story brick building was erected on Walnut Street
near Fourth Street in 1860. The building contained fourteen spacious
rooms with a large 500 seat hall on the fourth floor. Originally
called the Walnut Street School, a grammar school for boys, it became
known as the Williams School.
Ten school buildings were built from 1833 to 1860, housing
secondary / grammar school classes and one high school. Beside the
school buildings, twenty-two primary school classes were organized in
church vestries, private halls, or temporarily vacant school building
rooms. Schooling of the children of Chelsea was always a high
priority from the early days of the Puritans to the school
administrators of the present day.
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