Gilmanton Academy is a historic school building on Province Road in

Gilmanton, New Hampshire Gilmanton is a town in Belknap County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 3,945 at the 2020 census. Gilmanton includes the villages of Gilmanton Corners and Gilmanton Ironworks. The town became well known in the 1950s after it was ...

. Built in 1894, it is a well-preserved example of a 19th-century academy building, and was one of the last to be built in the state. The building, now housing town offices and the local historical society, was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1983.

Description and history

The former Gilmanton Academy building occupies a prominent location in the village center of Gilmanton, at the back of a semicircular drive between the Congregational church and the public library. It is a 2-1/2 story wood frame structure, its main section covered by a hip roof and wooden clapboards. A projecting gabled section to the front, and a hip-roofed section to the rear, combine to give the building a roughly cruciform shape. The inner corners on either side of the front projection are filled by single-bay two-story blocks with a lower profile. The front gable facade has fluted corner pilasters, which rise to an entablature and fully pedimented gable. The entrance is recessed in the center bay, which is also articulated by pilasters, with the recess topped by an entablature and broken gable pediment. The building was erected in 1894, and was the third main building for the Academy, which was founded in 1794 as a private school. It is one of the last private academy buildings to be built in the state, which had ten years earlier required towns to fund secondary education, leading to a decline in enrollments at such private schools. The building was designed by Bodwell & Sargent of

Concord Concord may refer to: Meaning "agreement" * Pact or treaty, frequently between nations (indicating a condition of harmony) * Harmony, in music * Agreement (linguistics), a change in the form of a word depending on grammatical features of other ...

, one of whose principals was a Gilmanton native. The school closed in 1910, and the building was leased to the town for use as a school in 1916. It served first as the town's public high school, and then as an elementary school, until 1966. It is now owned by the town, and houses the town clerk's office. The unincorporated and uninhabited township of Atkinson and Gilmanton Academy Grant in northern New Hampshire is named in part for the academy, to which it was originally granted.

References

{{NRHP in Belknap County, New Hampshire School buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in New Hampshire Colonial Revival architecture in New Hampshire School buildings completed in 1894 Buildings and structures in Belknap County, New Hampshire National Register of Historic Places in Belknap County, New Hampshire Gilmanton, New Hampshire

Description and history

See also

References