As it turns 125, the iconic building is returned to students.
BY KAREN INGRAHAM
It is a cold winter night, the air bracing and still. Frost forms on frozen surfaces — fallen leaves, dormant branches — as water vapor turns crystalline. Lit pathways pierce the darkness as students move toward a greater source of light, its reflection unbroken on the surface of Library Pond. Up the steps they go, into the warmth of a building built for them, as well as for the generations of students who had come before and will follow afterward. Off come the jackets, as these students seek out the comfort of well-cushioned chairs or settle themselves at tables, cracking open books to return to the business of learning, and of being in community.
The scene unfolds on any given night this term, yet it easily could have come from the pages of a Horae Scholasticae from 1901, the year Sheldon opened as the School’s first library building. There were comfortable and practical furnishings then, too, and plenty of books — room enough for 70,000 volumes. Sheldon became a center of student life in Millville as soon as it opened, and it remained that way for the next 90 years — until it came time for a new library that could better support a larger student body and the increasingly complex demands of a modern school.
When Ohrstrom Library opened in 1991 on the shore of Lower School Pond, Sheldon became another kind of beacon during the daylight hours: one for prospective families. It would serve as the Admissions headquarters for the next 35 years, with Sheldon’s rotunda transformed into an inviting place for the future Paulies who visited and would later enroll the following spring.
The life of the building continued in this way until last spring — at the culmination of an idea introduced several years prior: What if there were a way to turn the lights back on in Sheldon? How could the School return an iconic space to students, providing another much-needed destination in the evenings for community time and academic study?
That idea ultimately would herald a multiyear phase of building and renewal at St. Paul’s School that is designed to bring the School into its next century of life.
In an undated photo, students study in Sheldon’s East Room during its days as a library. Sheldon’s rotunda remains ringed with smaller spaces for tackling academic endeavors.
SHELDON’S ORIGINS
When Rev. Dr. Joseph Coit became the Second Rector of St. Paul’s School in the spring of 1895, he was immediately faced with more than one challenge carried over from the tenure of his brother, First Rector Rev. Dr. Henry A. Coit. The elder Coit had died only months earlier after leading the School through its humble beginnings and into a period of rapid growth and expansion for its first 40 years. In that time, the student population grew from three pupils to more than 200; the School became recognized nationally as a preeminent destination for education; and the infrastructure evolved from a single-dwelling school house (founder Dr. George Shattuck’s summer cottage) into a proper campus, with the addition of both the Old and New Chapels, as well as the old Upper School, the Old Middle, the Rectory, an infirmary, and a gymnasium. The School was an undeniable success, and demand already was outpacing the number of beds available for the boys who sought to enroll.
As he began his tenure, having already served as vice rector for many years, Second Rector Coit sought to honor and uphold his brother’s work as he got down to the business of the rectorship. The School’s 50th anniversary was approaching, and its next phase of growth needed attending to. Historian August Heckscher ’32 wrote in his book “St. Paul’s: The Life of a New England School,” that First Rector Coit had “kept tuition unreasonably low … while relying on appeals to wealthy benefactors among his friends,” indicating the School had no other source of reliable or stable income to fund its operations and had little savings. With the immediate need to support existing programming, address deferred maintenance, and plan for new and renewed spaces, Second Rector Coit wasted little time. Heckscher writes that Coit “set before the alumni in 1896 a strongly reasoned case for the raising of endowment funds. An appeal was launched, not very successful in its results but setting the precedent for more effective drives in the future.” As he sought to raise funds, Coit also launched a period of building renewal and growth that included Alumni House, the new Upper School (Coit) and Sheldon.
In the book “Memorials of St. Paul’s School,” published during Coit’s time as vice rector in 1891, he wrote of the School in his introduction, “At the present moment it possesses those valuable traditions, customs, and agencies which are chief factors in the education which our age demands. The School has a fair equipment of the necessary buildings, a domain sufficiently ample for its purposes, and the beginning of an endowment. But for permanent prosperity and usefulness it needs additional buildings and appliances, and an endowment fund at least five times as large as that it has now.”
His written record of the School’s early history continues from there and includes a lengthy section about the evolution of libraries on the grounds, with the first being a modest Sunday Library of “350 volumes under the management of the boys themselves” in the Miller’s Cottage, — the location where Sheldon Library now sits. In 1873, the School finally had “a proper place” for a library with the opening of the New Schoolhouse, later known as the Big Study. In 1888, when the Big Study was enlarged to include an annex, the library was relocated to a space with room for 12,000 volumes and double the seating capacity for students. Yet, Coit mused in his Memorials, “perhaps before long it will come into the heart of some alumnus or other friend to build an ample fire-proof house, with rooms for all the collections belonging to the School.”
A FAMILY’S GIFT
In the June 6, 1895, edition of Horae Scholasticae, an article outlined the School administration’s plans for a new building “for general purposes of the educational work of the School.” It would be a building by architect Henry Vaughan, who had designed the New Chapel and would later design the new Upper School (Coit), and include a new library, as well as other spaces such as a museum and large auditorium. Its proposed site was perpendicular to New Chapel on its east side, and the two buildings would be connected by a cloister.
“Such a building … must be at the centre of the School life; it must be handsome and in harmony with the other large buildings, which it is to be joined with and to supplement; and it must be substantial enough to go down with dignity into the coming generations,” the editor, Reginal Wright Kauffman, Form of 1896, declared, along with this reality: “Up to the present time no money has been given for this building, nor is the School in a financial position to think of erecting it for itself.”
The article was published during the spring when Joseph Coit became Rector, so it is perhaps unsurprising that this plan never materialized. Coit’s desire for a library space ample enough “for all the collections belonging to the School” would wait as other School priorities took hold.
Until four years later, when one family stepped forward and made an unexpected offer to Rector Coit and the Board of Trustees. In a handwritten letter dated Oct. 25, 1899, George Sheldon wrote — on behalf of his brother, William, Form of 1878, and their two sisters — that his family would “give to St. Paul’s School a Library Building to be known as the ‘Sheldon Library’ in memory of our father William C. Sheldon. … We shall pursue a building large enough to meet all the requirements of the School, and of a character fully up to the standard of the school buildings.” The senior Sheldon memorialized by his family had served as a trustee of the School from 1877 to 1896.
With a decision to locate the new library on the site of Miller’s Cottage, rather than adjacent to the Chapel, the School also chose to work with a different architect rather than Vaughan. Influenced by Paris architectural trends that had reached America’s shores, Ernest Flagg designed Sheldon in the Beaux-Arts style. The neoclassical building — with its columned staircase at the entrance and central chamber with domed ceiling — was a distinct departure in form and function from many of the buildings on grounds. When Sheldon opened in 1901, Hecksher reported that students referred to it affectionately as “the Taj Mahal of the Western Hemisphere.” It quickly became a beloved place of study and community for nearly a century.
This undated photo shows the portico enclosed with a glass front that was removed after Sheldon became the admissions building. Now, enclosed once more, students will be able to study while taking in the views over Library Pond.
ANOTHER FAMILY STEPS FORWARD
A few years ago, when Hans and Leslie Fleischner P’89,’91 asked Fourteenth Rector Kathy Giles if anything was needed to further elevate student life at St. Paul’s School, Sheldon was on their minds. Their sons, Chris Fleischner ’89, P’22 and David Fleischner ’91, P’20,’23, were among the four generations of students who had spent many hours in Sheldon, and their experience had been memorable. How could the lights switch back on, the family mused — on every floor of the building — to provide students and teachers today with the same opportunities to connect and learn from each other in such an exceptional space?
Part of that question had been answered in 2022 when the School modified Sheldon’s garden level to provide office and meeting-event spaces for the offices of the Chaplaincy and Building Beloved Community Initiatives. Yet, most of the building remained dedicated to the work of Admissions. The Rector told the Fleischners that what was needed was a new home for Admissions: a building positioned in a place of welcome at the entrance to the School — a “lantern by the gate,” the embodiment of an old New England gesture of greeting and friendship — so that, in turn, Sheldon could once again serve as a lantern in the center of campus. Three generations of Fleischners got behind the idea, as did other alumni and SPS families. In May 2025, the Fleischner Family Admissions Center opened to the St. Paul’s community, and to prospective families who now begin their SPS journeys there, rather than at Sheldon.
“They embraced the idea of thinking about our campus as a village — true to our heritage as Millville — and their desire to inspire our students’ community life.”
“The vision for this wonderful new building came from the Fleischners’ desire to make a positive impact on our students’ experience in community life,” Rector Giles says. “They embraced the idea of thinking about our campus as a village — true to our heritage as Millville — and their desire to inspire our students’ community life quickly evolved into the idea of returning Sheldon Library to the students and thus providing three separate places — Ohrstrom Library, Freidman Community Center and Sheldon Library — with lights on every evening for studying and connection.”
THE STUDENTS RETURN
Work began last summer to renovate Sheldon for its renewed purpose. As it turns 125 years old in 2026, the building will become home to the School’s Advanced Studies Program, a five-week summer program offered to New Hampshire high school students. It also will be home to the School’s academic support team, as well as a new venue for faculty office hours, student group study and group work during the afternoon and evening hours. It will be host to student club meetings, activities and events, and provide a respite for those seeking a quiet corner to study and reflect. Many students may choose to do so in the central rotunda or the newly glassed-in portico, which will offer comfortable seating and views of Library Pond and campus life in all seasons.
Through the inspired leadership of two families, along with the generous SPS alumni and families who joined them, Sheldon’s place in the center of School life is secure, and its return to students is just the beginning of a wider effort by Rector Giles and the Board of Trustees to ensure the School today — its program, its people, and its place — remains worthy of the centuries.
Sheldon’s next chapter as a space returned to students means its lights will be on well into the evening as a hub for living and learning in Millville.