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Restoration
Hook Schoolhouse
A Rediscovered Treasure
by Richard Barons
Every historian is a detective. Whether the search plows through ancient documents or artifacts, it is the removal of layers of folklore and miss-information that brings out the fascinating facts of history. It was detective work that truly surprised the education staff at the East Hampton Historical Society when our architectural historian began to remove layers of ceilings, floors and other additions to a little schoolhouse we have moved to one of our Main Street properties.
It was our latest educational initiative to save the small schoolhouse (hat had been moved several times, since it was built) to keep it from being destroyed. We call the building the “Hook Schoolhouse”, because it likely sat on the green where the Hook Mill stands today. We figured it dated from about 1800 and could be used for a living history demonstration about mid 19th century schooling. This emersion style of school tour seems the best way to introduce students to the various ways of teaching during the last few centuries.
We had already discovered that our own Town House (a building that was both a school and Town Hall)  was much newer than we believed. History told us it dated from the 1730’s; research told us it was built about 1790. Our plan was to place our “new” schoolhouse behind our Town House and set the stage for two classes switching back and forth between both buildings while reliving how school was taught in two different centuries.
Surprise! We now find out that our “new” school dates from about 1740 and is one of the rarest 18th century structures in East Hampton Village. In design and detail it is very sophisticated. Boxed beams, plank ceiling, double front doors, transom window, fireplace and beaded plank interior walls are just some of the colonial features that make this little building very special. It will be restored to represent the teaching layout and style of our very oldest school tradition. Tables will surround the walls, butting-up to the walls. Benches will place the students backs to the headmaster who will stand at this high legged desk and lecture from the center of the room. There will be few books, and those will be handwritten. Each student will have a hornbook. These hornbooks each have a lesson mounted on a flat piece of shaped pine, that the student holds in his or her hand. The pine is carved with a handle.
The Town House will now represent the age of the bound and type-set book and take the students back to the time of the Civil War.
We are very excited about the path that our new building is leading us. Everything about each discovery adds costs to our slim budget, simply because we never dreamed we would be building a fireplace, creating paneled doors and shutters or reproducing a very elegant molded cornice.
Any help that can be given to help us complete this project will guarantee that one of the neatest small 18th century structures, on the East End, will be revealed and used to bring to life part of East Hampton’s incredible history. It will make Main Street more beautiful and be a fun place for people in enter and sit-down with the ghosts of kids from almost 300 year’s ago.
This is a project we can all be proud of.
Restoration in Progress
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