Mount Desert Island Historical Society

At the heart of the village of Sound in Mount Desert was a one-room schoolhouse, built in 1892 by John Somes of Somesville. More than just a school, the building was also used for religious meetings before the completion of a church in 1903.

Sound residents were proud of their new school, which replaced an older building, and they worked together to ensure it was well outfitted. “The Ladies’ Sewing Society have money to purchase a good bell when the belfry is completed. The Busy Bee Society, composed of young misses, is busily engaged in earning funds to buy a flag and fixings for the school-house,” one newspaper article noted in October, 1892.

Click button upper right for MORE INFO.

Between 1892 and 1926, up to 40 students of all ages learned in the school’s single classroom. Typical of the time, boys and girls entered through separate doors and sat on opposite sides of the room. Younger students sat toward the front of the class, closer to the blackboard and under the watchful eye of the teacher, while older students sat closer to the rear, where they tended the stove that heated the space.

Relying on the large windows for light, the school day began with a reading from Scripture, followed by lessons in reading, writing, grammar, spelling, arithmetic, penmanship, history, and geography. As Bud Bordeaux, a Sound student in the 1920s, later recalled, “When teaching reading, the student was required to stand and read out loud before the entire school. Every student heard every lesson, and although distracting, it probably helped them as they reached a higher grade.”

Click button upper right for MORE INFO.

By 1926 there were only eight students at the Sound School, and the costs of education were increasing. The school was closed and the village children were bussed to the larger school in Somesville. Without students, Sound's one-room schoolhouse served as a community center, a place for dances, suppers, and tag sales. But as the village’s population decreased, and as cars made it easier to attend events in other towns, the building was often empty.

In 1998, Mount Desert Island Historical Society acquired the former schoolhouse and launched a fundraising campaign to save the structure. Following a renovation overseen by architect Richard Donohoe, which included an new curatorial wing, the building was rededicated in 2000.

(Image: Mount Desert Island HS online archive)