Decades ago, when children were still taught in the Moore’s Corner Schoolhouse, Richard Carey was among the students who trekked to the North Leverett Road site every day.
For his granddaughter Gina Lombardi, growing up in a later generation in Leverett, the schoolhouse was an important part of the memories he shared.
“My grandfather lived up the road and would walk down and light the wood fire early in the morning,” Lombardi said, speaking from the roof of the building on Monday afternoon, where she continued work to restore the 1810 building’s chimney.
With her father, Dennis Lombardi, and assistant Mat Munson, the trio are providing volunteer labor for the Leverett Historical Society, which converted the schoolhouse in 1968 into a museum that houses its collection, including paper records, as well as exhibits on the town’s nearly 250-year history.
Dennis Lombardi, who has made his home in Leverett for more than 50 years, said the project is about showing appreciation for the town’s history and offering a service, as both he and his daughter work professionally as masons.
“I’ve lived here for many years and people who know me know I’m the local mason,” Dennis Lombardi said. “We’re trying to restore the building and raise awareness.”
For Sara Robinson, president of the Leverett Historical Society, the repair of the chimney, which had been leaking, is a generous gift coming out of the pandemic.
“We are trying to get things revitalized up there and restored,” said Robinson, whose mother, Clarissa LaClaire, taught at the schoolhouse during the 1937-1938 school year.
As part of the restoration effort, the society is making an application for Community Preservation Act funding from the town for various work, including on the foundation, securing the building envelope, scraping and painting the exterior, and even keeping the outhouse in shape.
Events are again being scheduled at the site, too. On the evening of Oct. 18, a program will be dedicated to Harold Chapin, who for decades ran Chapin’s Store in North Leverett center. The program will read poetry and witticisms that Chapin wrote on cigarette cartons, while people will be able to offer reflections on his decades of service to the community until his death in the early 1990s.
Dennis Lombardi said the work being done will keep the building historically accurate, meaning that almost all of the bricks in the chimney above the roofline, which were removed, are being reused. “We took them down and cleaned them up,” he said.
The first day on the job included salvaging the bricks and then putting them back in place with mortar. They are using trowels, hammers, a level and a chisel, the same tools that he points out were used to build the pyramids in ancient Egypt.
Still, Gina Lombardi observes that doing such bricklaying is a dying art.
“There’s a big need for it because there are so many repairs, but it’s a specialty thing,” she said. “The bulk of my work is repairing chimneys and roofs.”
The project is expected to be complete in 2½ days. Once the masonry is done, flashing will be installed around it on the roof, the staging will be taken down and the area will be cleaned.
Though the chimney is being restored, it will not be used again for a woodstove, but instead for a gas heater.
Growing up in Leverett, and now a Wendell resident, Gina Lombardi recalls visiting the museum when its late curator, Dan Bennett, would hold open houses and have talks about its history. It was one of nine in use before 1950, when a unified school opened in Leverett center.
The first floor remains set up like a classroom, with original desks, while the upper floor is an exhibit hall showcasing artifacts, including a model of the town’s famed coke kilns and an unused bag from which the charcoal would be sold; signs from the town’s 200th anniversary in 1974; a historic post office box display; and a vintage baby crib found on Brushy Mountain that likely was used by an early settler.
The building has gotten some attention in the past. In 2007, the belfry was restored at the schoolhouse, bringing the site back to its original appearance. Dennis Lombardi notes that the bell, which was reattached at the time, can still be rung by pulling on its rope, much as it would have been when the building was a working school.
Though Richard Carey died in 2020, his story about lighting the wood fire in the schoolhouse has continued to be passed on, Dennis Lombardi said, observing that his granddaughter, Loretta, 9, is able to share in the memory.