Home Page

Northshore Unitarian Universalist Church
A liberal, welcoming congregation serving the North Shore of Massachusetts since 1966

  We Are Unitarian        
      Universalists        

A2 The Old Putnamville School

The Old Putnamville School

 “The children of Putnamville had the benefit of a school as early as 1777; a schoolhouse was built on a small ledge near the corner of North and Locust streets, and here many of the men and women who afterward made Putnamville one of the busiest and most prosperous sections of the town, received their early education. Not long after this, a new building was erected (1787) very near the old one. This later one had an interesting and varied history. After generations of use as a schoolhouse, it became the shoe factory of Elias Putnam (1812), having been moved to another part of Putnamville, and a new schoolhouse erected on the site. Here it was the scene of many hot political as well as religious debates. Here, when liberal thought in the churches began to show itself, its advocates, the early Universalists, held their first meetings. And when its usefulness as a factory was ended it was moved to Tapleyville (1832), where it was remodeled into a tenement house, remaining standing until the Tapley school was erected (1896).”

— from Tapley, Harriet Sylvester, Chronicles of Danvers (Old Salem Village) Massachusetts 1632-1923 (Danvers, Mass.: The Danvers Historical Society) 1923