Neighbor News
Schoolhouse will celebrate an alumnus better known in Minnesota
Cyrus B. Northrop, who attended the West Lane/Peter Parley School, was the longtime president of the University of Minnesota
Cyrus B. Northrop, who attended the West Lane District School (Peter Parley Schoolhouse) in Ridgefield in the 1840s, went on to an amazing career in education, following a short stint as a 15-year-old teacher at Ridgefield’s Center School.
We’ll celebrate his September birth month on Sunday, Sept. 29, at the West Lane District/Peter Parley Schoolhouse, West Lane at South Salem Road, Ridgefield, from 1 to 4 p.m. The school is now a small museum of early Ridgefield education, maintained by the Ridgefield Historical Society, at the intersection of West Lane and South Salem Road. Jack and Sally Sanders, historical society volunteers, will be on hand to answer questions. Refreshments will be served.
For more information about this schoolhouse and the Ridgefield Historical Society, please visit https://ridgefieldhistoricalsociety.org.
The first member of his family to be educated beyond eighth grade, Cyrus Northrop graduated from the prestigious Williston Seminary, Yale College in 1857, and Yale Law School in 1861. After stints as clerk of the Connecticut House of Representatives, and the State Senate, he became editor of a New Haven newspaper, then returned to Yale to teach English literature and rhetoric.
In 1884 his wide-ranging talents and reputation prompted the then-little University of Minnesota to offer him the job of president. He became perhaps the university’s best known and accomplished leader. During his 27 years as president, the university went from 300 students to more than 5,000 and from four buildings to 46. Northrop remained as the president until 1911. He died in 1922, aged 87.
Cyrus Northrop was so much admired in Minnesota that, a century later, his name remains well-known. Both the huge auditorium and the sports stadium at the university’s Minneapolis campus are named for him. So is a mountain in the Sawtooth range in northeastern Minnesota and even a small town in the very south end of the state.
