Opposite the Battle Green in Lexington is the Lexington Masonic Building. It was originally built in 1822 to house the Lexington Academy, which only lasted eleven years. From 1835 to 1837, it was used for the Lexington Manual Labor Seminary, an early trade school, and in 1839 the building was taken over by the state to become the first Normal School in America. A school for the training of teachers, it was established by Horace Mann, who chose Rev. Cyrus Pierce to run it. This educational experiment proved successful and soon moved to larger quarters, first to Newton in 1844 and then to Framingham in 1853. The building was later used for tenements and a grocery store. It served as the Hancock Congregational Church from 1868 to 1893. The former school became a Masonic Lodge in 1917.