NHFM official heartened by $$ pouring in to help with 1-room schoolhouse move

The Plummer School sits beside White Mountain Highway as it awaits its next move to the foundation, background left. (Rochester Voice photos).

MILTON - Reports about the historic moving of the circa 1801 one-room Plummer School to the New Hampshire Farm Museum has led to a boost in membership and donations to help with the school's refurbishment before it is opened to the public later this year.
Museum Program Director Janet Hotchkiss said she was overwhelmed with the amount of support the project has received, not just from the Greater Rochester region, but all across the country.
She said the museum had received around $2,000 in donations just in the week following the school's move on April 2.
"Many of the donations are in the hundreds of dollars," she said. "I just saw one this morning that was for $250 from Texas."
Hotchkiss said she was also grateful for Strafford County Commissioner Leslie Feliciano, who called her to offer any support she could give.
"To see donations coming in like this is so wonderful," Hotchkiss added. "I am thrilled because we're able to preserve American history."
Much of the funds received will go to painting the one-room schoolhouse, fixing windows and doors and returning the 19th century gem to its original shine.
The Plummer School was donated to the museum following a Milton Town Meeting vote in 2025.
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.
Museum Executive Director 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.
A fund-raising campaign continues 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, 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 used back in the day.
"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."

Museum Executive Director Jon Hotchkiss said the school will be moved to its new foundation as soon as the ground dries up from recent rains.

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