The History of Peter Noyes

The Peter Noyes School first opened in 1950 with 12 classrooms (grades 1-5) at a cost of just over one half million dollars. At that time it was called the New Elementary School. In 1962, the School Committee renamed the school after Peter Noyes, a distinguished leader in Sudbury’s past. Peter Noyes came to New England from England in 1638. Sudbury’s first settlers, including Peter Noyes, were Puritans who left England to avoid religious persecution. Peter Noyes became a “founding father” of Sudbury and was involved in farming, obtaining land grants, town planning and governing the new settlement. Due to student overcrowding in the 1950s, the new Noyes School soon became a Junior High School and remained so until 1964 when the Ephraim Curtis Middle School was built. The school housed sixth-graders exclusively for a period of time before becoming an elementary school again. With the opening of the Loring School in 1999, the Noyes School enjoys a lower enrollment (about 600, down from 800) and more space