Antique School at Antiques Museum
By Georgia LoPresti 
Photographs by Ethan Ash

The Connecticut Antique Machinery Museum houses a true New England relic: the schoolhouse of the Cream Hill Farm Agricultural School. Originally built in Cornwall, this one-room school and farmhouse was moved to Kent, piece-by-piece, in 1983. 

One of the oldest schools in the country, Cream Hill was founded in 1845 by Dr. Samuel Wadsworth Gold and his son, Theodore. Its innovative program appealed to families from the Northeast and abroad. For 24 years, the boarding school taught boys, ages 8-18, educational classics alongside scientific agriculture and the “ethics of manual labor.” 

Gold’s curriculum provided “the highest possible improvement of all the powers of the individual, physical, moral, and intellectual.” Students cultivated 100-square-yard plots, growing vegetables while also completing their academics.

A 24-by-24 foot classroom was where over 36 subjects were taught, for an annual tuition of $330. Glass bookshelves lined the wooden walls, displaying Gold’s collectibles and reference books. The upstairs had three large bedrooms that served as the students’ dormitory. 

The school closed in 1869 after the doctor’s death. Principal Theodore Gold then pursued work with the Connecticut Agricultural Society, edited The Connecticut Homestead, and served as secretary of the Connecticut  Board of Agriculture. He was also a trustee of the Land Grant College in Storrs, which evolved into the University of Connecticut.—camamuseum.org