BPL recently posted this pic of the “old Thornton Street School.” This is the first time I’ve heard of the school, but it’s there on the 1852 map, when Thornton Street was Edinboro St. The 1849 map doesn’t show any buildings on that part of Edinboro St., but an 1893 Boston Schools document lists the building as having been built in 1847 and having two school rooms. In 1893, the building was an elementary school in the Dillaway School District, which taught only girls (boys were in the Dudley District Schools). It was located just south of the blue house on Thornton that is currently undergoing renovation.
Here it is on the 1931 map at the ripe old age of 84, across the street from the newer, larger Abby May School built in 1893. That’s where the trail runs cold - I can’t find any maps between 1931 and the relative present and don’t know when it was destroyed. If you’ve got any info about this mysteriously small yet long-lived school, please share!
Coincidentally, I just ran across a description of the Abby May School from the 1893 City Archives in Google Books. The Abby May school also gets a brief mention as “the new primary schoolhouse” in the other 1893 document I cited above.
Old Thornton Street School, Roxbury, ca. 1920-1960, School building photographs circa 1920-1960 (Collection # 0403.002)
This work is free of known copyright restrictions. Please attribute to City of Boston Archives. For more photos from this collection, click here