The Pear Tree Hill School (1879)

"The Pear Tree Hill School"

by Nelson Delanoy (1955)

(Former Historian and Mayor of the Village of Nelsonville)

The first recorded school serving the area now called Nelsonville, was built at "Plumbush" near the present day intersection of Route 9D and the Garrison Road, about a half mile south of Nelsonville. This structure served the children of Nelsonville, Cold Spring, Garrison, Griffen's Corners (Mekeel's Corners), Warren's Landing (at the mouth of Indian Brook) and Constitution Island. Later, about 1810, a new frame school house was erected upon the plateau northeast of the junction of the road leading to Mekeel and Moffet's Farms with the turnpike. Eventually, with the coming of the Foundry and the building of the Cold Spring-Patterson Turnpike, the three school districts of Nelsonville, Cold Spring and the West Point Foundry united to support a single school somewhere between High Street and Garden Street in Cold Spring.

About 1830, Nelsonville built its own public school behind the Main Street property of Elisha Nelson Sr. It was of red brick, with a wood shingled gable roof, and topped by a belfry. There were two doors for the front entrance. The smaller children used the door to the east. There were four rooms, two on each side of a long hall. Only an inch thick partition separated the adjacent classrooms. The smallest children occupied a back room, on the east. Two-extremely small paned windows, totaling 24 panes each, are still preserved....

A picture of the Pear Tree Hill School taken in 1879 (at top) shows over a hundred children standing on the porch and steps and hanging out of windows. It was obviously time to think about a new building. The school closed in June, 1881. That September pupils of district No. 10 entered the Nelsonville Union Free School. This building was used as a school until June, 1936. In September of that year the new Haldane Central School opened it doors. From 1881 until the present, the red brick school house at 3 Secor Street has been used as a private residence, and despite times of disrepair and remodeling the present building still retains much of the character of the original.

The school as it appeared in 1910.