BROWNINGTON — On Monday, the Brownington School House was hauled with the help of 40 oxen, one-third of a mile up the road to its original location.
Messier House Moving from East Montpelier managed the move, which melded new methods with more traditional ways.
The building was transported on wheeled carriages, not rolled on logs. There was also supplemental power to move the building into the road, and then off the road to its new foundation.
The school was abandoned after the Civil War and didn’t operate from 1865 through 1870, at which point it moved from its original location to the village center.
With the return of the school, the neighborhood, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, will return to the way it was during the time of Alexander Twilight, the brilliant and charismatic headmaster, who in 1836 built the Old Stone House as a dormitory for the school.
