Dennis Cilley remembers the 1970 Christmas day fire that destroyed the Peterborough Consolidated School like it was yesterday, even though it’s been 50 years since the early morning blaze ripped through the school on High Street.
Cilley, who was living at Upland Orchard when the call came in, said he was on one of the later trucks to arrive at the scene. Along with Jim Grant, Cilley was directed to enter the building on the Vine Street side to help cut off the fire from spreading to the rest of the structure, mainly the newer areas of the school.
“We were trying to knock down the flames and then realized the fire had got behind us,” Cilley remembered on Christmas Eve, one day before the 50th anniversary. “We were probably in there 20-30 minutes and we weren’t making any head way.”
Cilley said the old block walls didn’t go all the way to the ceiling and expects the fire was able to spread through the ceiling.
“At some point Jim and I knew we were probably in trouble and crawled out of the building on our hands and knees following the hose,” Cilley said.
After that Cilley said everyone was pulled out of the building and the fire was attacked only from the outside. Because as Cilley put it “everybody goes home and that’s the purpose behind it.”
“At that point it looked like it was going to be a total loss,” Cilley said.
The mutual aid call came in at 4:05 a.m. after an alarm was sounded by Arthur Wheeler at Jellison Funeral Home, according to a story in the Peterborough Transcript on Dec. 31, 1970.
Peterborough Fire Chief Merton Dyer was the first one to arrive on scene at 4:08 a.m. and at that point flames were “150 feet in the air” Dyer was quoted as saying at the time. Sensing the need, Dyer called in for more help and equipment, with departments from Jaffrey, Hancock, Greenfield, Francestown, Dublin, Marlborough and Meadowood (Fitzwilliam) responding.
Temperatures outside were near or below zero and a recent snowstorm created many obstacles, mainly the fact that fire hydrants in the area were covered and blocked by the snow. Due to all the water and freezing temperatures, High Street was essentially a sheet of ice.
When the fire was finally extinguished the entirety of the three-story brick structure, which was used for junior high school students at the time, was destroyed. Peterborough High School was originally built in 1926-27 at a cost of $100,000. It served as the high school until the fall of 1970, when students in grades 9-12 began attending the new ConVal High School.
Various improvements were made between 1946-51 at a price tag of $80,000 followed by a $506,600 investment for the junior high/elementary addition in 1954-55, some of which was damaged in the fire. The school was rededicated as Peterborough Consolidated School in 1956.
Just a few months prior to the Christmas day fire, the school was repurposed to house students in 7th and 8th grade. Following the fire, students in grades 7-8 were transitioned to ConVal for the remainder of the school year.
Lorraine Walker began teaching at ConVal when it opened in the fall of 1970 and remembers the brand new school having “plenty of room to spare.” But after the addition of close to 300 students, an increase of more than 50 percent, “now we were an over crowded school,” she said.
“I’d step into the corridor between classes and it was like coming off a ramp onto a major highway,” Walker said.
Brendan Read was a seventh grader from Hancock and began attending PCS in the fall of 1970.
“I remember the beautiful old 1920s vintage building with the high windows and spacious classrooms overlooking the street. One of the classrooms I was in, on the upper floor, had a commanding view of Mount Monadnock,” Read said.
Read said his very first job, paid by the school district, was to remove the desks from the surviving portions of the school. Shortly after the fire, Read said he visited the scene and got within a few feet of the structure, and “the old building was practically gone,” he said.
He described the transition to ConVal as “crazy, and crowded.”
“The school fit us in where they could, like in 8th grade the French class was in the Science lab,” he said.
A valiant restoration effort allowed for students in grades 1-6 to return to the portion of the school saved from the fire on Jan. 11. That effort was the result of local companies stepping up to offer immediate work and towns people coming out in droves to help clean up.
Walker put together a blog post for the Monadnock Center for History and Culture about the events surrounding the fire and the Monadnock Center is looking for folks to email memories about the fire to info@MonadnockCenter.org.
According to Walker’s research, then-Superintendent Ray Edwards said, “The number of persons involved will never be known who gave up their holiday to try to save as much as possible.”
Despite the massive cleanup, the odor that resulted from the fire remained in the school for quite some time, as parents reported the smell permeating from their children’s clothing.
Marcia Patten was a volunteer at the elementary school at the time and said she was one of the few to return following the school’s reopening in early January. And to this day she remembers the smell of smoke throughout the school.
“You’d have to go home and take off your clothes immediately,” she said.
Roland Patten remembers going to the burned-down school he graduated from in 1961 and found “there were just a few standing bricks” remaining, he said.
Walker said it was a sad time, as she realized that she and all the others who graduated from Peterborough High School could never go back for a visit. And she felt for the students who were currently attending the school and the teachers who worked there, and what they may have lost.
She graduated in 1964 and said the old school “just had such a different feel from schools of today.” She remembers the personality of the old classrooms, featuring wooden bookcases and real blackboards with chalk.
And for Cilley, who didn’t attend the school, the memories of it are much different – but still etched in his mind.
“It was 50 years ago, but I’ll remember crawling out on my hands and knees for the rest of my life,” Cilley said. “It’s one of those that stick with you.”