March 22, 1932 – School Building Being Torn Down

Second Street Building, Opened About 1847, and Abandoned Years Ago, Being Razed

SEYMOUR – One of the town’s old landmarks, the Second Street School, located on the upper section of Second Street, north of Bank Street, is being removed by workers engaged by the Mutual Aid, Incorporated, who have been given permission to raze the small structure. The building is a one room school, and for many years has not been used for school purposes. For a time there was some litigation threatened as to the rightful owner of the land there, but no real test developed.

The school building is one of the old time structures, and there are several residents in town who recall with many fond memories the years that they spent in the school. One of these, a Bank Street merchant, attended studies there 62 years ago, while another well known businessman confessed that he had been a pupil of the school 56 years ago.

The school from what can be learned was erected about 1847 and it grew out of a select school, which at the time was established at a site south of the plant of the H. P.& E. Day company on the bank of the Naugatuck River and on the old road extending from the Broad Street bridge to a point a little west of the quarters of the Citizen Engine Company. It was taken for the district school and was moved to a lot west of the fire company’s quarters. At the itme of the building of the car shops of the American Car Company, the school house suffered other movings, until it was finally located on its present location. The American Car Company later removed to Chicago.

Shortly after the erection of the Center School, which when built was the high school, the Second Street School building was abandoned for school purposes. Since that time it was frequently used as a store house. Of late years, however, the building has been given over to many uses, and it was showing traces of decay. It was decided by the town and school officials to raze it, and the job was turned over to the Mutual Aid.