The wings, with 33 rooms each, were separated by 20 feet from the main building and connected to it via two-story covered passageways.

The central building housed classrooms, offices, staff apartments, and dining facilities, a library and reading room on the second floor, and a large room on the third floor which might serve as a chapel, while the other two buildings served as separate male and female dormitories.

Reverend Hiram Brooks was asked to start the school, and raised $20,000, all of which he put toward buildings.

[5] The entire commitment of these monies to brick and mortar rather than an endowment fund may have caused financial difficulties for the institution, as it was unable to support itself through tuition revenue.

Quimby worked for the school, even buying the property when financial trouble struck, until in closed temporarily in 1854 with only 20 students (in 1845, it had an enrollment of over 300 representing 7 U.S. states).

[8] The site of Henry Barnard’s first Rhode Island Teachers Institute in 1845, the school began giving normal instruction for teachers with public funding in 1867, but ceased in 1871 when the state's Education Commissioner re-established the Rhode Island Normal School and cut program funding for other institutions.