Lengthy effort to save historic school rewarded

Ashland Elementary: The sale was supposed to have been final in late 2006 but was delayed by questions about financing.

ASHLAND - More than seven years after voters rejected a school board request for $44,000 to tear down the landmark Ashland Elementary School, the key to the historic building was turned over to the Tri-County Community Action Program, which plans to rehabilitate the building and use it for a variety of activities, including the local Head start program.

"This is a tribute to the vision and persistence of Tri-County and to the Ashland Historical Society," said Jennifer Goodman, executive director of the New Hampshire Preservation Alliance.

Last fall, the school, which she described as "an architectural gem," made the list of seven most endangered historic sites in New Hampshire. The 1877 school, which has been described as the best remaining example of Victorian-era school architecture left in the state, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

In 2001, when voters rejected the school board's request for money to tear down the old school, they supported a petitioned warrant article submitted by the Ashland Historical Society that called for the sale of the building to the Tri-County Community Action Program.

The school board balked at the plan, and it wasn't until shortly before the 2004 school district meeting that a purchase and sales agreement was finally signed.

The sale was supposed to have been final in late 2006 but was delayed for another 18 months after the school board raised questions about whether TCCAP had 80 percent of the funding needed to complete the $1.2 million renovation project, as stipulated in the agreement.

The objections were finally resolved last month, and the school board voted to complete the transaction.

The restoration and renovation project received a $300,000 grant from the state's Land and Community Heritage Investment Program in 2002, and earlier this year, selectmen approved an application for a $500,000 Community Development Block Grant for the restoration and renovation effort.

David Ruell, president of the Ashland Historical Society, presented a check for $29,697.42 to Larry Kelly, executive director of TCCAP, which he said represented money raised in the community to help save the school.

Ruell said the school was built in 1877 -78 for $10,978.13 and served the school district into the 1980s, when it was used for storage.

He said that among those who attended the school was Dr. George Hoyt Whipple, who in 1934 won the Nobel Prize for medicine.

Kelly was presented with a key to the building by Miriam Brown of TCCAP, who is a member of the Ashland School Board and also works for the agency.

Brown, who had recused herself from the board's deliberations regarding the school, will head up the rehabilitation and renovation effort. She said a new fence will be installed on the property, replacing the one erected by the school district several years ago, and that she is already holding discussions with renovation contractors about the project.