HANCOCK, Vt. – The aged maple floorboards are scuffed and creaky, worn thin and smooth by thousands of youngsters over the years in the Hancock Village School. Banks of tall windows, a dozen panes over a dozen panes each, flood a pair of classrooms with sunlight.

A 19th-century image of Abraham Lincoln hangs on a back wall in one classroom where studies began in 1801, 60 years before he took office.

That history comes to a close on Thursday. Fewer kids and rising costs prompted townsfolk this year to vote to close the elementary school and instead pay tuition to send their roughly 20 children to neighboring schools.