Who Knew? Geer Hill School
Sitting where a sloping hill meets Colonel Ledyard Highway, north of Ledyard Center, Geer Hill School is a remnant of what once dotted Ledyard’s landscape: one room schoolhouses.
Ledyard may have the most remaining in the state, according to president of the Ledyard Historical Society Kit Foster. At the turn of the century, according to the “History of Ledyard,” there were no fewer than 14 separate school districts across the town — neighborhood schools that inspired loyalty. Alumni would “extol the noble qualities of the men and women that have been educated in their school.”
“There were 12 or 13 (and) everybody walked to schools,” Foster said. “Of those, three of them survived.”
Those three include one in Ledyard Center run by the historical society, a two-room schoolhouse in Gales Ferry, and Geer Hill School.
The Geer Hill School building, located at 922 Colonel Ledyard Highway, is owned and maintained by Ken Geer, born almost a decade after the school closed in 1949. He took over for his father, Robert, who attended the school and devoted his life to preserving the landmark, Ken said. When Robert died in 2010, a portion of his funeral donations went to restoring the schoolhouse.
While not normally open to the public, Geer said he swings by to unlock the door for pretty much anyone who asks.
Every year, the town’s second graders go on a field trip to where some of the original alumni dress up and show what it was like to go to school 100 years ago. Typically, Geer said, while it isn’t normally left open, he’ll hold an open house the weekend after because so many kids want to show their parents.
The Geer Hill School dates back to 1700, when the land was deeded for the purpose of educating the children in the neighborhood, Geer said.
In the school, grades one through eight were taught in one room with one teacher in charge. Older students were sent out of town to schools like Norwich Free Academy in Norwich or Groton.
Inside, about a dozen benches and desks surrounded a communal stove that needed constant stoking.
Annual reports from visitors and committees chronicle the condition of the schools and the students, noting the good “some of the most advanced scholars in town” in 1887, and the struggles in 1900: “matrimony and measles have interfered somewhat in our schools, bridegrooms proving more alluring than Ledyard salaries...”
By 1900, the number of students in each schoolhouse had declined, and eventually all students in town were consolidated in the first large school, Ledyard Center, at mid century.
While the need for neighborhood schools declined, Ken Geer said that the method of schooling everyone together helped students to learn at their own pace: if a student wasn’t challenged by the material, or needed help catching up, they could listen to the lessons a grade level above or below them.
“Older kids helped the younger kids,” he said.
And anyone that wants to come check it out may do so, Geer said — he’s just a phone call away at (860) 625-6635.
Those of us who live in southeastern Connecticut drive the local roads day in
and day out, passing by landmarks but not really seeing them. So, we've gathered a few spots in our towns that we think you might want to know more about.
What: Geer Hill School
Where: 922 Colonel Ledyard Highway, Ledyard
Why: This one-room school house was one of more than a dozen neighborhood schools that dotted the Ledyard countryside early in the 19th century.
Comment threads are monitored for 48 hours after publication and then closed.
