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Building Contract for Deerfield Street School

(c) Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield MA. All rights reserved.
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Contracts for buildings most often do not survive. This contract of January 7, 1813 describes fully the brick schoolhouse that Dennis Stebbins and his brother Joseph, Jr. intended to build on the Town common. It is very specific as to size, material, and furnishings. It mentions fireplaces, plaster walls, and the position of the staircase. The school was used for educational purposes and, in addition, for lyceums, lectures, and, after 1824, for town meetings. It served the town until 1841 when it burned. The woodcut by John Warner Barber of the Deerfield Common, 1839, shows the brick school building at the left, south of the 1824 meeting house.

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