Norfolk School District history

Robbins’ pastorate in 1813, it had become too small for the growing population of Norfolk, and a more commodious and elegant church building was built, designed by master builder and noted church architect David Hoadley, which overlooks the Green today.

The first Catholic mass was held in Norfolk in 1836 following the arrival of the Ryan family who established a woolen mill in town.

The West Norfolk Schoolhouse, now a private residence, opened in 1839.

The foundations of the Ryan Brothers factory, built in 1850, can still be seen on the south side of the Blackberry River.

As the century progressed, local men organized and financed large companies employing a workforce that increasingly brought immigrant families to Norfolk. It occupied the Long Stone Shop, built in 1854.

The handful of Catholics worshiped in the Ryan home and in the woolen mill until 1859 when the Church of the Immaculate Conception was built.

Chauncey Crossley and Edward Hines joined the 54th Massachusetts, the first Black regiment to be organized after the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863.

A celebration was held on the Village Green in September of 1871 shortly before the last rail was spiked.

The Stevens House, later known as the Norfolk Inn, opened in 1874 with fifty-seven guest rooms.

A Village Hall was built in 1883 and provided commercial space as well as a theater upstairs.

In 1884 the Robbins School, a private secondary school, was founded in memory of Norfolk’s first pastor, Ammi Ruhamah Robbins.

In 1886 a four-room schoolhouse was built on Shepard Road.

Along with residential commissions and commercial projects, Taylor designed the Norfolk Country Club, the Dennis Pavilion, the Norfolk Downs Shelter, the remodeling of the Church of the Immaculate Conception, and in 1921 the War Memorial on the small triangle of green opposite the Catholic Church.

As Catholicism flourished, the church was enlarged and transformed in 1924 by architect Alfredo Taylor.

In the 1930’s the town became known as the winter sports center of Connecticut.

Following the 1932 Olympics held in Lake Placid, the newly-formed Norfolk Winter Sports Association sponsored an annual ski-jump competition, which drew some of the nation’s best skiers to compete on the natural slope jump carved out of the side of Canaan Mountain.

Following Ellen’s death in 1939, Alfredo Taylor was engaged to transform the bucolic Stoeckel estate into a campus for the Norfolk Music School of Yale University.

Granby High School students protested school closing on September 29th, 1958 before being broken up by police. (Sargeant Memorial Collection)

Center School was demolished following the opening of Botelle Elementary School in 1970.

Another addition and renovation was completed in 2006 to add a first floor gym and classrooms.