NORWAY – A historic one-room schoolhouse burned to the ground early Sunday morning.

Neighbors were buzzing over a rumor that mice chewing on electrical cords caused the blaze, but fire officials said they don’t know how it started.

The building at 1050 Crockett Ridge Road was being renovated for sale, said assistant fire Chief Jim Tibbetts.

Firefighters were called about 3:30 a.m., Tibbetts said, and by the time they got there the building had burned to the ground.

“It was a total loss,” Tibbetts said.

On Monday all that remained was a broken chimney, an old intact bureau, a bathtub with feet and charred phone book pages.

Tibbetts said the house was owned by Bradley Stuart, who could not be reached for comment.

Neighbor Bruce Jervis said Stuart had moved to Connecticut and a young woman was in the process of buying the building from him. Neither he nor fire officials knew her name.

Neighbor Don Gouin said the original schoolhouse there was built in the 1800s, and later burned to the ground. It was rebuilt in 1913.

Jervis said the building consisted of one big room with a shed in the back. It had no plumbing.

Neither Jervis nor Gouin knew when the building stopped functioning as a schoolhouse. After students left it, at one point it was used as a camp, and another point, as a residence.

No one was living there or using it Sunday when it burned.