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(Photograph by Curtis B. Johnson, C. B. Johnson Photography) -
(Photograph by Curtis B. Johnson, C. B. Johnson Photography)
Having outgrown its old quarters, Barton Academy built a replacement building that was one of the handsomest early-twentieth-century schools in the state. Organized in 1853 to provide secondary education to local youths, in 1886 the academy was incorporated jointly with Barton's grammar school, over-taxing its two-story frame home. The eventual new building provided eleven classrooms, a library, a laboratory, physical education spaces, central heating, and large windows. A. L. Bragg of St. Johnsbury built the school, but the designer of the sophisticated Colonial Revival building is not known. The red brick school is trimmed with ivory-colored brick and sits atop a high, rusticated granite basement. The building features heavy twin interior chimneys, a finely proportioned central pavilion with quoins and a broken pediment, and a Palladian porch that screens a recessed entrance. There is a finesse and logic to the composition that makes this village school more than a pastiche of derivative details, perhaps indicative of industrial Barton's commercial ties to major centers of taste.