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Rocky Store
School (New Baltimore Town Hall)
One of the
most important buildings in New Baltimore, the Rocky Store building was
the last one-room school district in Town and, subsequent to its
closing in the early 1960s, the first municipally owned Town
Hall. The Coxsackie Union-News reported it in February, 1960 as
the last one-room school in the County.
Rocky Store
School
The Town of
New Baltimore was created in 1811. Two years later, the founding
fathers established a school system composed of 9 districts. One
of them was to serve young people in the eastern middle part of the
Town, the area covered generally by the future Rocky Store
school. The system expanded over the years to include 17
districts. Over the years, all but one building were one-room
facilities.
The past is
murky as to the exact locations of instruction for Town students in
those early days. We do know that at least from the late 1880s
into the 90s, the original Rocky Store school was in use near the
corner of today’s Route 51 and Dean’s Mill Road. We do not know
whether the number of students outgrew that building or if it was just
deemed unsuitable but, in 1892, the motivation toward a new building
was generated.
Construction
was completed for that fall school session. The facility was
modern for its day, with a double outhouse, screwed-down desks, and a
new bell. The bell still is present and operable. There is
a double outhouse that is probably original. There are several of
the original desks on display, along with copies of period photographs
and a teacher’s desk and maps from another Town district. There were
individual cloakrooms, now removed, for boys and girls - one on either
side of the entrance we know today. However, the attached
1960 photo shows coats hanging on the wall in a corner of the
classroom so the cloakrooms were
removed while the school still was active. The Town is planning
to restore more of the interior to its original appearance.
Children in
grades one through eight (the number of grades served was reduced as
time passed) were educated initially in the building, and the class
rosters contained such familiar and historically prominent names as
Albright, Hallock, and Dietz.
Over the
years, the revolving classes of Rocky Store students and their teachers
settled into a routine of learning ABCs and sums and about history and
geography. Students would obtain textbooks from graduates in
their grade or from the teacher’s catalog. They would walk to
school in the winter’s ice and snow to be warmed by the coal stove that
stood in the room. Trips to the outhouse in the back yard could
be similarly adventurous in colder months. When the young people
finished studies in the grades allotted to Rocky Store, they could
advance to further schooling in Ravena or Coxsackie.
The students
participated in ball games in the school’s front yard where long hits
were chased down the hill toward where the Town garage is now.
Competitions with other schools were common. The school also was used
during its life as a school and after for community events, such as
church services, community sing-a-longs, 4-H Club meetings, Heritage
Society of New Baltimore lectures, and, for a time, weightlifting
classes.
As the 1920s
dawned, however, many rural school districts were facing shrinking
enrollments and tax bases, increasing pressures for the consolidations
that the State had been promoting for some years. With the
arrival of the Depression and the availability of the lucrative aid,
school consolidations started in earnest in the 1930s. Local
mergers occurred continuously throughout the middle of the
century. The forerunner of today’s Greenville Central School
District was created in 1930 and was the first consolidated district to
include New Baltimore schools.
After an
August 1945 special referendum by eligible voters, about 20 Rocky Store
7th and 8th graders were going to the Coxsackie Union Free School for
the 1945-6 school year. High school-age students were already
there. A principal motivation for the move was to free time for
the one district teacher to attend more to the younger children.
It was to be a contractual relationship for the time being, with Rocky
Store maintaining its independence.
By mid-1947,
though, the centralization issue was coming to a head. The New
York State Education Department had developed a proposal to combine
several districts in Athens, Coxsackie, and New Baltimore, including
Rocky Store, culminating in a resounding majority of local qualified
voters in favor of centralization. From then, Rocky Store was an
active part of the Coxsackie-Athens centralized district.
As the 1960s
dawned, the move to centralize schools was at a peak. In the
1960-61 school year, Rocky Store had only five pupils in grades one
through three, down from eight the previous year. The enrollment
in 1900 had been 50. Anna Johnson who had taught at the school
for 15 years oversaw the activities of the last students. When
parents of the remaining students decided to go to Coxsackie-Athens in
1961-62, the district voted to consolidate wholly with its larger
neighbor and close down. Thus ended the era of one-room schooling
in the Town of New Baltimore.
Town Hall
The first
Town meeting had been held in 1811 when New Baltimore was formed from
the Town of Coxsackie. With most the population centered away
from the River, the initial governance session likely was in a tavern
at the intersection of Route 51 and Roberts Hill Road and the second
near Medway Four Corners. Over the years, Town business had been
conducted in various locations, including the Imperial Hotel and the
Wheat store on Main Street in the hamlet, both long gone.
Most
prominently, for many years, municipal affairs were conducted in rented
space in Cornell Hall, the home of the Cornell Hook and Ladder Fire
Company, with the odd session being held in other locations. By
the mid 1960s, the firemen were looking for newer, larger quarters to
handle more modern equipment, and the Town was looking for a more
permanent home. The Rocky Store school was empty and available.
The Town
Board minutes for the period provide insights into the process of
taking over and renovating the building starting with an August 4, 1964
meeting at which it was decided that the Board would inspect the “Town
Building & Property” at Rocky Store. However, the object of
attention at first was not the school. A subsequent special
meeting was held at the Town Garage to discuss expanding that facility
to include office and meeting space with a secondary purpose of
investigating the possibility of using the now-empty Rocky Store school
house just up the road.
However, from
late August on, the decision was made, and the transfer of the school
building was arranged. At an August 25 special meeting, the
Coxsackie-Athens Board of Education unanimously approved a resolution
for the qualified voters of the former Common School District 2 to
decide the disposition of the building. On the appointed day, a
handful of local residents met at the school to determine the
building’s fate. Thirty-seven people registered and voted, with
33 in favor of transferring the school to the Town. Now it was up
to New Baltimore to prepare the building for its next life. The
Town Board authorized Town Supervisor Clare Robbins to draw up
specifications and send them out for bid. The first meeting then was
held in the renovated building on May 25, 1965. The Board
subsequently considered a resolution that the Town Hall could be used
by public and civic organizations, making it truly a public
building. Many people have now traveled in and out of the
building in its second life. An addition off the back and left
rear of the existing building was completed in the mid 1990s for office
space, but the original schoolroom remains the most prominent feature
on the property and serves as the main meeting place for the
Town. With historic buildings being razed every day, it is
commendable that at least one Town has managed to retain a viable use
for a locally important edifice.
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