The Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Elementary School is a historic gem valued by residents of Great Cranberry Island.
Although school operations were suspended in 2000, the building and grounds continue to see much use by the general community.
Having housed classes, going back to 1905, for children in kindergarten through eighth grade, residents now seek to ensure that the facility remains viable for future generations, both for general and educational uses.
Two years ago, the Cranberry Isles School Committee brought the subject of rehabilitation to residents at the Great Cranberry Island town meeting. It was decided to commission a survey of the building and develop a master plan. The goal is to perform repairs and upgrades in a responsible way that is also aesthetically compatible with the historic building, said Chairman Barbara Meyers.
“As we got into the project, we realized that this building is really, in my opinion, the nicest building the town of Cranberry Isles owns,” Meyers said. “It’s a fantastic building and we have a responsibility to maintain this building as a town asset, whether or not it’s being used as an active school.”
Longfellow replaced Great Cranberry’s two previous schools. The school, like a number of others around the nation, was named after the popular 19th century
poet, who had roots in Maine and on Greening Island, a short distance from Great Cranberry.
Longfellow’s operation halted due to lack of students. Although the student population was 20 or more students as late as the 1980s, enrollment was down to two in 1999, its last year of operation, said the historical society’s president, Phil Whitney, whose grandmother, Ella Bates Spurling, was Longfellow’s first teacher, and whose mother, Dorothy Spurling, taught there in the mid-1930s.
Student population in a small island school can shift quickly due to factors such as families moving on or off the island, and students graduating.
“One or two families coming on or off can make a tremendous difference,”
Meyers said.
Since Longfellow closed as a school, students have commuted by boat to the Islesford school, which was renamed the Ashley Bryan School earlier in 2012, in honor of the island’s famous artist and children’s book author. This year, nine children are enrolled at Bryan. The school committee anticipates that number may increase slightly over the next couple of years.
For now, the school committee has agreed it’s important to keep the students of both islands together in one school—economically, socially and educationally—and there are ways that the school can incorporate work on both islands, Meyers said. But there’s some thought that Longfellow may need to be ready to reopen as a school if enrollment climbs again, or if a child is unable to commute to Islesford.
The facility comprises two classrooms, a bathroom, and a kitchen area on the ground floor, and a gymnasium/assembly area on the second floor. During the winter of 1989-1990, a separate addition was built onto the school to house the Great Cranberry Island Library for the general public. At one time, the town used a portion of a ground-floor room for a small town office.
Since school operation was suspended, other groups have used Longfellow. The Cranberry Isles Historical Society opened the Preble-Marr Historical Museum there in 2000, before it moved the museum to permanent quarters to Cranberry House in 2008. The Great Cranberry Futures Group maintains the gym, which has built-in basketball hoops, for the community. The Heliker-LaHotan Foundation leases space each summer for its artist residency program.
Now the goal is to ensure the building and grounds are in good shape both for general and school purposes, Meyers said.
Ben Fulves, owner of Heartwood Builders in Bar Harbor, was hired to develop a master plan and manage the project.
The plan is designed to bring the school into conformance with the building codes of the state of Maine, said Fulves.
The projects involve removing sources of fire danger, including upgrading and repairing the electrical system, repairing interior and exterior staircases, fixing doors so they operate properly and allow for entry and egress in the event of a fire, and enhancing fire protection in the mechanical room, where the boiler is located.
The plan also addresses life safety issues at the Bryan school.
At a Sept. 5 workshop, the school committee reviewed three floor plans drafted by architect Jeri Spurling. The plans addressed various space considerations related to the placement of bathrooms and Americans with Disabilities Act requirements. A key safety feature under consideration included a separate entrance for students so that children and library users were not using the same entrance.
Next steps include submitting a schematic for the interior to the Office of Maine State Fire Marshal’s Office for approval, followed by an examination of and potential improvements to the exterior.
The school board anticipates returning to town meeting in March 2013 to request another cycle of funding to complete the initial phase of the project, said Meyers. That phase could be complete by fall 2013.
A separate historical detail is the massive cast-iron bell now stored in the school’s loft. The bell is an artifact from the bell tower that was once attached to the school. It’s not clear when the tower came down—it may have been the 1930s. The historical society has great interest in preserving the bell, but has not yet approached the school board on the matter, said Whitney.
Laurie Schreiber is a freelance contributor living in Bass Harbor.