Location: 42.78505, -83.05854, on the west side of Mound Road, just south of 31 Mile Road, at 66885 Mound Rd, Washington, MI.
Thorington Schoolhouse was built before 1859, and was in use until the 1954-1955 school year. The school was annexed to Romeo Community Schools around 1955. It is a rectangular wood-frame schoolhouse. The schoolhouse was built to the standards of a Michigan one-room schoolhouse, with 3 large windows on each side to let in daylight sufficient for the students to easily see their work. A pot-bellied stove was in the center of the room to provide heat during the cold Michigan winters. A single centered door is in the front of the building, with a transom window above it to let light into the foyer, and a large window on either side. The windows have triangular pediments above them. The door has a simple flat pediment above it which is falling apart. The school was once considered worthy of some investment since it has a metal roof, but that roof has decayed to the point where it doesn't really protect the schoolhouse any more. There is a bell tower, without any school bell inside. No school identification sign exists any more. The back of the schoolhouse has no windows or doors. The school looks quite similar to Brownsville School No 1, near the southwest corner of Michigan; maybe they were built from the same plans?
Some views of the interior of this schoolhouse, circa 2015-2016, are shown below:
Gravel Pits now scrape the land behind the schoolhouse, as shown in this 2016 photograph behind the schoolhouse:
The Thorington Settlement is the oldest settlement in Washington Township, Macomb County, Michigan. It is identified as the ghost town of Thoringtonville on Google Maps as of June 2021 but nothing is there except the schoolhouse, a few old farmhouses, and some new housing developments. James Thorington (born 1766, died Jan 17 1836) was the first settler to this area, arriving in 1819, 18 years before Michigan would become a state. He is buried in Brabb Cemetary, on 31 Mile Rd just east of Mound Road, very close to the schoolhouse, and his tombstone still stands, evidenced by the first photo below. The Brabb Cemetary, whose entrance is shown in the second photo below, honors another of the early prominent families in the neighborhood, and their house named the Brabb House on Van Dyke Avenue in Romeo, shown in the 3rd photo below, is the venue in which my wife and I were married.
During 2025, Washington Township announced they have bought the Thorington Schoolhouse and will move it to a new park nearby on 31 Mile Rd and use high-school craftsmen students to restore it. This is a wonderful announcement, potentially saving this schoolhouse from the ravages of nature. They cleared away the vegetation near the schoolhouse in preparation for the move, and I took the two photos below of the cleared-away schoolhouse. As of July 30, 2025, I'm still waiting to learn the schedule for the upcoming move of the schoolhouse.
