1. School House and Church

Tour the Villages
West Yarmouth

Old School House and Congregational Church

The families who lived in the western section of Yarmouth were part of the established church (now Congregational) and traveled to the north side of Yarmouth each Sunday for meeting. Tiring of the long journey, the congregation eventually petitioned for their own services and built a church for that purpose in 1794. That church was constructed just east of the West Yarmouth cemetery, near the head of South Sea Avenue. A new church was built in 1832 in the same location, but in the winter of 1907 the building was moved, little by little, about a mile in distance to its present location along Route 28. As seen in this photograph, the church was placed next to the district schoolhouse, which had been built in 1854. Both the church and the school are still standing, although the schoolhouse was moved back in the 1960s to make room for the present West Yarmouth Library. Today the church is the active West Yarmouth Congregational Church and the school building is the Olde Schoolhouse Bed and Breakfast.