I’m not sure what role the cockles of my heart play in my everyday life, but they’re certainly warmed whenever I see an old school repurposed into something new. It’s been more than thirty years since students walked its halls, the old Chesterfield Grade School was repurposed to house the town’s police department and civic center around the turn of the century. I love it! Cockles, consider yourselves warmed.

The Madison County community of Chesterfield sprang up in Union Township around 1827, but it wasn’t officially laid out for another three years. The township’s first schoolhouse was built nearby on the Allen Makepeace farm in 1829¹. Jason Hudson served as the teacher². Two more primitive buildings followed until a frame, two-story building that served as Chesterfield’s school and Masonic Hall was built in 1848³.

The building that housed Chesterfield’s school and lodge was considered dilapidated and unsafe by 1874. Sometime before 1880, a brick schoolhouse with a two-story bell tower replaced it at the far side of town, the southwest corner of Main Street and Chesterfield-Anderson Pike, later known as State Road 67 and State Road 32.

The school was impressive, but it proved inadequate by 1930. To rectify that, the township trustee hired Anderson architect Ernest Watkins to design a $28,000 four-room building with a combination gymnasium-auditorium. The township had to hold off on the gym because of a lack of funds⁴, but the first part of the building -modeled after the Edgewood school just west of Anderson- was completed in 1930⁵.

The new school absorbed the students of Union Township’s District 2 schoolhouse known as John’s after a lightning strike forced locals to abandon it⁶. The gymnasium/auditorium addition was completed in 1937 and dubbed “Memorial Hall” by Chesterfield’s VFW post in honor of Albert H. Thompson, Thomas Vasbinder, and Palmer Gustin, who perished in World War I⁷.

Despite its expanded quarters, Chesterfield remained a grade school. All along, students in Union Township who wished to continue their studies beyond eigth grade were forced to go to Anderson or Daleville⁸. Even so, the building was bursting at the seams!

Classes were held on Memory Hall’s stage, in hallways, and even in a nearby house. That changed in 1955 when the $765,000 Highland High School was built to alleviate crowded conditions among the rural institutions in Union, Richland, and Anderson Townships⁹.

Highland absorbed students in grades seven and eight, but Chesterfield remained open as an elementary. In 1958, four classrooms were added to the building’s rear¹⁰. Four years later, the school received a 128×68 foot wing that featured more classrooms and a second gymnasium¹¹.

Union Township’s schools merged into the Anderson Community School Corporation in 1971, and Chesterfield Elementary was finally closed after the 1990-91 school term. The following year, officials sold it to the town for a dollar¹². Just like its 1848 predecessor did as a school and lodge, the venerable building serves double duty today. It’s home to the Chesterfield Government Center and Millcreek Civic Center and a testament to the community’s spirit. I never attended classes there, but my contribution to Chesterfield Elementary was

Sources Cited
1 No Township Equals Union In This Line (1930, June 1). The Anderson Herald. p. 144.
2 Kingman Brothers. (1880). History of Madison County, Indiana with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches. Chicago, IL.
3 Harden, S. (1874). History of Madison County, Indiana, from 1820 to 1874. book. Markleville, IN.
4 Let Chesterfield School Contracts (1930, April 20). The Anderson Herald. p. 1.
5 Start Of School Will Be Delayed (1930, September 1). The Anderson Daily Bulletin. p. 12.
6 Items of News Told in Lines (1929, August 21). The Elwood Call-Leader. p. 2.
7 Chesterfield Memorial Hall (1937, January 7). The Anderson Herald. p. 6. 
8 Chesterfield Anew In Sharp Contrast With Early Career (1927, August 14). The Anderson Herald. p. 28. 
9 New Highland School Open House To Be Held Today (1955, August 28). The Anderson Herald. p. 20.
10 Plan Open House At Chesterfield School Addition (1958, May 4). The Anderson Herald. p. 20.
11 Chesterfield School Addition (1961, August 18). The Anderson Daily Bulletin. p. 1.
12 McBride, M. (2008, September 4). Remodeled school full of life in Chesterfield. The Muncie Star Press. p. 11.