New Canaan There & Then: A Local Gem—The Little Red Schoolhouse

‘New Canaan There & Then’ is sponsored by Brown Harris Stevens Realtors Bettina Hegel, Joanne Santulli, Dawn Sterner and Pam Stutz.

Steve Karl was four years old the first time he visited the one-room Little Red Schoolhouse on Carter Street in town.

“I remember the tiny wooden desks lined up in neat rows,” he recalled. “I remember the outdoor manual water pump in the front yard that we loved to play around with. I also have a vivid memory of the oil painting of Aesop’s fables above the entrance to the classroom, facing the students.” 

That mural, and four others, were the product of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration and painter Justin Gruelle, who was part of the Silvermine Group of Artists, in 1936.

The Schoolhouse was also distinguished by the large cast iron potbelly stove, fueled by both wood and coal, sitting in the middle of the classroom and providing the sole source of heat.

The Little Red Schoolhouse, founded in 1868, provided education for the New Canaan youth and is still standing today. The Red Petticoat, written by Joan E. Palmer, was based off of the Schoolhouse during the American Revolution.

Built in 1870, the Little Red Schoolhouse was the last operating one-room school in Connecticut, and today is owned and preserved by the New Canaan Museum & Historical Society.

Karl was never a student at the Schoolhouse—it closed in 1957—but his great aunt was the indomitable Mary J. Kelley, the (only) teacher at the school who taught there (District School No. 3) for 47 years. 

As described in “Mary J. Kelley and the Little Red Schoolhouse,” a 2004 compilation produced by the Museum, Mary had a lot on her plate:

“Some modern educators argue that more than thirty children in one class are too many. But Miss Kelley did not have thirty children in a class, She had thirty children in five classes. In one room! Class size had little meaning for her. 

Every day, or perhaps every evening, she prepared lessons for those five classes, Grade One through Grade Five, and they were already written out on the blackboard by the time one arrived at school in the morning.”

A class might have two children, or it might have 10, the number determined by the neighborhood families (including lots of Kelleys and Karls) living down the unpaved Carter Street.

Little Red Schoolhouse, part of an ornament collection at the New Canaan Historical Society.

So much for strict student-teacher ratios.

Miss Kelley was described by one former student as “levelheaded, with good common sense, practical, positive, very responsible, fair, caring, and generous.”

And she was way ahead of her time in her pedagogy. Her teaching methods included independent study, advanced placement, student teaching assistantships, ongoing remedial lessons, and a pass-fail grading system. 

She also had an honor code: “Honor and Honest is the Rule, Here at the Little Red School.” 

Sixty years after the fact, one graduate sheepishly admitted to cheating on a third-grade spelling test: “I looked at someone else’s paper to see how to spell ‘pigeon’ and Miss Kelley saw that. She didn’t say anything; just walked down the aisle and as she passed my desk she gathered up my paper. The test continued and I simply sat there for the rest of the hour, empty-handed except for my pencil. A great life lesson—I never made that mistake again.”

For those wishing to visit the Little Red Schoolhouse, please feel free to call the Museum (203-966-1776) or email info@nchistory.org to arrange a tour.