A courageous undertaking, an epic move and it happens Tuesday

Steve Collins of Lebanon, Maine, dumps slabs onto the grounds of the New Hampshire Farm Museum where the Plummer School will be transported to a new foundation; at right, Farm Museum Executive Director Jon Hotchkiss (Rochester Voice photos)

MILTON - One of the most historic and epic projects in the Greater Rochester region in decades, maybe centuries, comes to fruition on Tuesday around 9 p.m. when Milton's Plummer School, a one-room schoolhouse that opened in 1801, is moved less than a mile north on White Mountain Highway to the New Hampshire Farm Museum where it will be fully restored and serve as part of the museum's mission to preserve New Hampshire's rural past.
Janet Hotchkiss, a Milton Historical Society member who is also the program director at the museum, is one of the major cogs in the mission to move the historic school so it can be preserved for future generations to enjoy.

The replica outhouse features the original toilet holes and a plank of wood where students carved their initials

"I grew up in Vermont and have always had a love for the old one-room schoolhouses," she said.
A retired educator with a deep reverence for teaching and preserving the past, Hotchkiss said earlier this week that the school that closed in 1911 hadn't been used for many years and would deteriorate beyond repair if left unattended.
"I saw this wonderful schoolhouse down the road," she said. "And I felt it was better to let future generations enjoy it instead of losing it to the ground."
So several years ago she and her husband, Jonathan Hotchkiss, who is the executive director for the museum, got together with the Milton Selectboard, and the town ended up putting a referendum on the ballot to donate the Plummer School to the Farm Museum.
It passed in a landslide town meeting vote last March.
Since then many people have helped with shoring up the structure including John Katwick of Milton, who fixed the roof and kept an eye on the structure.
Janet Hotchkiss said another major supporter was Norm Vetter Foundations of Rochester, who poured the foundation and provided drainage at its new home on the New Hampshire Farm Museum property.
Once the 28- by 34-foot structure is moved there will still be a lot of work to be done to bring it up to display standards including removing lead paint, replacing doors, fixing cracks in windows and repairing some of the original desks.

The poured foundation provided by Norm Vetter Foundations of Rochester.

"It's been a lot of work, but I really wanted to get this done," Janet Hotchkiss said. "Children need to experience rural life from the 1800s."
Among the stunning details volunteers have worked on is a replica of the school's outhouse, which was built by Steve Collins of Lebanon, Maine, who is on the Farm Museum's Board of Trustees.
Jonathan Hotchkiss said that a slab of wood where students from the 1800s had carved their initials, and the outhouse's original toilet holes were also preserved.
But this mammoth project didn't occur just with sweat equity.
It's taken a lot of money, too, not only for the refurbishments, but also for the mile-long trip the venerable schoolhouse will undertake on Tuesday night.
Numbers indicate that the move may cost as much as $150,000 including payments to the transport firm, Eversource for taking down wires ($19,000), police details the night of the move ($10,000), Fidium ($4,000) and other costs that have not been detailed yet.
A fund-raising campaign is currently under way to help defray the cost of the move and the rehabilitation project that lies ahead before the schoolhouse can be open to the public.
When it is, Janet Hotchkiss said they will regularly have programs where a group of schoolchildren can spend a day at the schoolhouse where they'll get to read and learn from the school books from the 1800s.
"We have some of the original desks, the original potbelly stove, the teacher's bell and teacher's desk," she said. "We'll also be developing school programs that have recess where the students will play old-time games they played back in the 1800s."

Robert Edmond Jones (Wikipedia)

Not only is the school going to the New Hampshire Farm Museum property. It's also going back to the former Jones family homestead, where five generations spent their lives before donating the property to the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests. They later transferred the property to the New Hampshire Farm Museum in 1979.
Many of the Jones and Plummers attended the Plummer School, including Robert Edmund Jones, who was born in 1887. He went on to graduate from Harvard in 1912 before launching a career in drama and set design, according to Janet Hotchkiss.
That career spanned four decades that focused on New York (Broadway), and California (Hollywood). His book, The Dramatic Imagination, is highly regarded as "the definitive work on modern stage design in the first half of the twentieth century."
According to the New Hampshire Farm Museum website, "Robert Edmond Jones returned to Milton upon retirement and spent his remaining years at the family farm on Plummer's Ridge with his sisters, Alice and Elizabeth. He died at home on Thanksgiving Day, 1954, and is buried in the Plummer and Jones Cemetery adjoining the Plummer Homestead."
Janet Hotchkiss said she hopes to have the Plummer School exhibit up and running for museumgoers by this fall.
The Plummer School, the New Hampshire Farm Museum and the Jones and Plummer families have been intertwined yet again, all for the betterment of the New Hampshire Farm Museum and the thousands who visit it each and every year to get an up-close view to New Hampshire's farm life past.

Special note: Many area residents are expected to turn out Tuesday for the Plummer School's historic move, which will be completed some time between the hours of 8 p.m. and 4 a.m. on Wednesday. Motorists and those who want to watch the move should be aware that White Mountain Highway will be closed to the public between Town House Road and Industrial Way during these hours.

To make a donation to support the project click here.