The Rural We: Ed Dorsett
The president of the Morris, Connecticut Historical Society previews the old school house's 250th birthday celebration.
When Ed Dorsett agreed to be the president of the Morris (Connecticut) Historical Society, he did not anticipate that he’d be devoting so many hours working on it. He spent his career as a high school math teacher in Litchfield County Schools, and has been retired for 23 years, but now, he says, he’s turned himself into a history teacher. He's part of the committee planning the Morris Historical Society’s 250th birthday party for the Mill School House on August 7, which will be a day of activities celebrating the town’s history.
At the time that my wife — also a retired teacher —and I moved to Morris, it had a very active historical society, and I was a member. But then it went on hold, and nothing much was happening. We got it going again during the pandemic — we’d sit outdoors and have a meeting. In a moment of weakness, I agreed to be its president.
Morris was originally called South Farms, and encompassed the southern part of Litchfield. The circa 1772 Mill School house was built for South Farms, and was a working school until about 1914. The most famous pupil was John Pierpont, a Civil War chaplain, and the grandfather of the banker JP Morgan. His lineage comes all the way to our little school in Morris.
In 1910, the city of Waterbury started blasting for the Morris dam, so the Mill School was moved a mile north. In 1914, the school was closed and sat empty for about 25 years until it was bought to use as a cider mill — a second story was built for the apples. It went vacant again, until 1979, when the widow of the cider mill owner donated the schoolhouse to the Morris Historical Society, to be restored and preserved as a historical landmark. In 1980 the school made a two-mile journey from East Morris to Morris Center.
Now it’s on the National Register of Historic Buildings. You walk into it, and it’s like walking into a school room in 1914. There are five original old desks, a period wood stove and period stuff on the walls. We want to get back to bringing in kids from the elementary schools again, and we recently gave a presentation about it at some senior centers.
Sunday is going to be a wonderful day. It’ll start at noon in the Morris Town Hall with a reception and a birthday cake. The Reading Room, Library, Town Hall, Congregational Church, James Morris School, firehouse, museum and Mill School will be open for visitors. At 2:30 the Morris Beach and Rec is sponsoring a bluegrass concert on The Green. There will be a raffle drawing as a fundraiser to benefit building repairs. It’s going to be a real celebration of Morris.
