the massie school
ARCHITECT
john norris The bell atop Massie School first called students to class in 1856. Today, its peal is still heard occasionally across Calhoun Square, and the venerable structure is the oldest public school in continuous operation in Georgia. It was designed by John Norris, an architect with a long list of Savannah accomplishments. He used Savannah grey bricks in its construction in the Greek Revival style. An advertisement in the Sept. 12, 1856, edition of the Savannah Daily Morning News set forth the school’s basic parameters: “It will accommodate 300 pupils: 200 of whom will be received free of charge and 100 will pay tuition.” The year 1856 marked Norris’ 10th year in Savannah. He came to the city in 1846 to design the U.S. Custom House, and had enjoyed a steady stream of business since then. He was, according to the New Georgia Encyclopedia, Savannah’s “most important architect by the 1850s.” Mary Lane Morrison, in her biography of him, said Norris was a “virtuoso who designed in a blend of many styles.” In addition to the Greek Revival style of Massie School and the
Custom House, Norris also built Gothic Revival and Italianate structures in Savannah. He is credited with completing 18 buildings in Savannah, and an additional nine houses have been attributed to him. And, though he was born and still made his permanent home in New York, his family – wife, Sarah, and twin daughters Eveline and Josephine – often visited him while he was working in Savannah. By 1857, he had a second-story office at the corner of Bull Street and Bay Lane, over Camp and Robinson’s store. He completed several buildings in the next three years, but in 1860, as the possibility of civil war grew stronger, Norris returned to New York. He died in 1876 at the family farm in Blauvelt, N.Y. Massie had its own Civil War experience, in part because of Norris’ design. Because it had a coal-burning furnace in the basement, Gen. William T. Sherman ordered its use as a hospital for Union soldiers, said Steve Smith, curator at the Massie Heritage Center. Unfortunately, because there was no
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