The Evans One-Room Schoolhouse

This modest white building is the Evans Schoolhouse, a surviving example of the small district schools that once served the rural families of Glocester. Built around 1867 by local resident Daniel Evans, it originally stood on Evans Road in East Glocester and served as the school for District No. 2.

During the nineteenth century, rural towns were commonly divided into school districts so children could attend classes within walking distance of their homes. Each district maintained its own small school, usually consisting of one classroom in which a single teacher instructed children of several ages and grade levels. Younger pupils learned basic reading, spelling, writing, and arithmetic while older students worked on more advanced lessons in the same room.

The Evans Schoolhouse had two entrances; one originally intended for boys and the other for girls. Inside, the building would have contained rows of desks, a teacher’s platform, blackboards, and a stove that provided the only heat during Rhode Island winters. The simplicity of the building reflects the limited resources available to rural school districts, but it also demonstrates the importance local families placed upon making education available to their children.

Daniel Evans took a particularly personal role in the school. In addition to providing the land and constructing the building, he hired its teachers and provided them with room and board. In a rural community where teachers often came from outside the immediate district, offering a place to live was an essential part of maintaining a school.

The school remained in service for approximately seventy years. After Glocester consolidated its small district schools during the 1930s, the Evans Schoolhouse was returned to the heirs of the family that had originally provided it. It stood unused for many years and gradually deteriorated.

Beginning in 2000, the Glocester Heritage Society undertook an effort to save the schoolhouse. The building was relocated to town-owned land near the Glocester Town Hall in Chepachet and carefully restored.  A dedication ceremony was held in June 2003 and was attended by nearly one hundred people, including six former students who had once attended classes inside.