Beverly Grammar School


The Beverly Grammar School is a rare historic First Period schoolhouse at 50 Essex Street in Beverly, Massachusetts, USA. The building, now a modest private residence, contains internal evidence that part of it was built c. 1716 for use as a schoolhouse. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1990.

Description and history

The former Beverly Grammar School building is located in a mainly residential area just north of downtown Beverly, on the west side of Essex Street between Charnock and Monroe Streets. It is a small single-story wood-frame structure, with a side gable roof, central chimney, and clapboarded exterior. It has a five-bay front facade, with narrow one-over-one sash windows in the outer bays, and a projecting entry vestibule at the center. The interior consists of two chambers, a larger one on the left and a smaller one to the right.
The building's internal structure is consistent with documentary evidence that its left side was built about 1716 as a schoolhouse. It has no evidence that it was built with a chimney, and the right-side chamber is a later 18th-century addition. Portions of the lath on the right side are decorated with what appear to be drawings by children, a suggestion that they were originally part of pupils' desks.