Number 8 Schoolhouse
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American Legion Hall (Number 8 Schoolhouse)
c. 1845, Thomas A. Tefft. 1986–1988, renovations. 38 Commons
Little Compton created ten school districts in 1844, and immediately built new schoolhouses for each. Only this building, the most sophisticated of the lot, survives in anything like original condition. Henry Barnard, the famed Rhode Island educator and school building reformer, visited Little Compton at the time as a speaker and consultant on educational reform. He and Providence architect Thomas Tefft were collaborators, and designs similar to this one appear in Barnard's book on school buildings. Now encumbered by an addition linking it to the town hall, the schoolhouse deserves preservation; few of the surviving one-room schoolhouses in the state have its architectural pretensions.
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