Peirce School

The Peirce School is a historic school building at 88 Chestnut Street, corner of Austin Street, in West Newton, Massachusetts. The brick building was built in 1895 and operated by the Newton Public Schools as an elementary school from 1895 until June 1951. It originally served grades one through eight, but at the time of its closing, it was a kindergarten through sixth grade school. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on December 6, 1979.Origin of namePeirce School,, was named for Cyrus Peirce,, a Unitarian minister and educator, who was the first principal of the first Normal School opened in the United States in Lexington and served as such from 1839 until 1842 when he retired because of poor health. In 1844 the Normal School was moved to West Newton and located on Washington Street on the site now occupied by the First Unitarian Society in Newton, which is also on the National Register. Peirce moved to Newton that year and resumed his leadership of the school and served until 1849, when he again retired because of ill health. Peirce lived the rest of his life in West Newton. The Normal School he headed is now Framingham State College, in Framingham, which considers him as its first president. Now Peirce moved to temple street.