Historic Treasure Trove Found in School Attic
During the construction of Schoolhouse Lofts, Utile’s conversion of a 19th-century brick school in Worcester into 28 condominiums, the construction team discovered a file cabinet in the attic containing continuous school attendance records dating back to 1897, the year of the first class in the school. The early books, bound in twine and written in ink script, reveal not only each child’s address, birth date and birth location, but also the parents’ nationality, the teachers’ level of experience and salary. The development team contacted the Worcester Historical Museum, which has taken the school records and are cataloging them, as well as all ancillary materials found in the cabinet, for their archives and for the use of future researchers.
As the archivists noted, the remarkably seamless records track the life of one Worcester neighborhood through an entire century. A letter from President Herbert Hoover, entreating the teachers and children to “refrain from heedless eating” during WWI shortages, and an early version of the Pledge of Allegiance were copied from the archive and framed, and now hang in the converted school. Various media outlets carried the story, including NECN and the Worcester Telegram.
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