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The Circa 1850 Ichabod Crane Schoolhouse
The Ichabod Crane Schoolhouse is a rural 19th-century building that served as a local one-room public school into the 1940s.
The Schoolhouse site features a 'Legends & Lore' historical marker awarded by the New York Folklore Society & William G. Pomeroy Foundation honoring Washington Irving's "Sleepy Hollow" character 'Ichabod Crane'—who was patterned after Jesse Merwin, the original Columbia County Schoolteacher who taught at the earliest one-room log-cabin school here.
The Ichabod Crane Schoolhouse / Columbia County Historical Society (CCHS) is a Preserve New York (PNY) grantees. The 2019 PNY grant cycle was the most competitive in the program’s 26-year history, and the grant of $10,000 helped fund CCHS' work with Walter Wheeler of Hartgen Archeological Associates to complete a Historic Structure Report (HSR) of the Schoolhouse. The HSR project assessed the current condition of the building, made recommendations for repair and restoration and will serve as a guiding document for continued interpretive use and future preservation.
More funds are needed to fully implement the restorations and repairs.
The Ichabod Crane Schoolhouse was initially constructed in 1850 at the intersection of Route 9H and Fisher Road as the District #6 Schoolhouse for the Town of Kinderhook. Although the structure was moved just 200 yards from its original location in 1974, it remains an excellent and intact example of a rural, one-room schoolhouse with a gable roof, clapboard siding, and a single pent-roofed entrance. The interior consists of a large classroom with two adjacent cloakrooms – one for boys, and one for girls. The building was never modified to have heat or hot water and still retains its original 1929 wood burning stove, wood flooring, chalkboards, and double-hung sash windows. Several condition issues are present that must be addressed in the near future: the condition of the metal roof and the stability of the structure, as the building rests on steel girders that it was placed on, after the move in the 1970s.
Dedication of the NY Folklore Society historical marker was accompanied by actor Robert Ian MacKenzie's public reading of an excerpt from the short story, "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow", and screening of an adaptation of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by documentary filmmaker Jim Ormond.
Washington Irving was a friend of Martin Van Buren and lived at the Van Ness home in Kinderhook for several months in 1809 after the death of his fiancée. The author wrote portions of A History of New-York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty in Kinderhook, during which time he befriended Jesse Merwin, the Kinderhook schoolteacher, and a housemate at the Van Ness mansion. Two twenty-something intellectuals in rural Columbia County, Irving and Merwin became friends, rode trails and went fishing together; after Irving moved on, the two friends continued their correspondence for more than three decades.
Each year, hundreds of fourth graders from all over Columbia County and the Capital Region visit the Ichabod Crane Schoolhouse and discover first-hand how arithmetic and cursive handwriting were learned in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and how a Columbia County schoolteacher has been immortalized in Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
Originally located on land at the corner of 9H and Fischer Road, the schoolhouse was the second school built on that site--replacing the original log cabin school--and was moved approximately 200 yards down the road to the Luykas Van Alen house property when the local school district centralized. During the 1970s it was restored to its 1930s appearance.
The Ichabod Crane Schoolhouse is open seasonally--all summer and fall--along with the Luykas Van Alen House.
2589 Rt 9H
Kinderhook, NY 12106
CCHS will not share or sell a donor's personal information with any other party, nor send donor mailings on behalf of other organizations.
The Schoolhouse site features a 'Legends & Lore' historical marker awarded by the New York Folklore Society & William G. Pomeroy Foundation honoring Washington Irving's "Sleepy Hollow" character 'Ichabod Crane'—who was patterned after Jesse Merwin, the original Columbia County Schoolteacher who taught at the earliest one-room log-cabin school here.
The Ichabod Crane Schoolhouse / Columbia County Historical Society (CCHS) is a Preserve New York (PNY) grantees. The 2019 PNY grant cycle was the most competitive in the program’s 26-year history, and the grant of $10,000 helped fund CCHS' work with Walter Wheeler of Hartgen Archeological Associates to complete a Historic Structure Report (HSR) of the Schoolhouse. The HSR project assessed the current condition of the building, made recommendations for repair and restoration and will serve as a guiding document for continued interpretive use and future preservation.
More funds are needed to fully implement the restorations and repairs.
The Ichabod Crane Schoolhouse was initially constructed in 1850 at the intersection of Route 9H and Fisher Road as the District #6 Schoolhouse for the Town of Kinderhook. Although the structure was moved just 200 yards from its original location in 1974, it remains an excellent and intact example of a rural, one-room schoolhouse with a gable roof, clapboard siding, and a single pent-roofed entrance. The interior consists of a large classroom with two adjacent cloakrooms – one for boys, and one for girls. The building was never modified to have heat or hot water and still retains its original 1929 wood burning stove, wood flooring, chalkboards, and double-hung sash windows. Several condition issues are present that must be addressed in the near future: the condition of the metal roof and the stability of the structure, as the building rests on steel girders that it was placed on, after the move in the 1970s.
Dedication of the NY Folklore Society historical marker was accompanied by actor Robert Ian MacKenzie's public reading of an excerpt from the short story, "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow", and screening of an adaptation of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by documentary filmmaker Jim Ormond.
Washington Irving was a friend of Martin Van Buren and lived at the Van Ness home in Kinderhook for several months in 1809 after the death of his fiancée. The author wrote portions of A History of New-York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty in Kinderhook, during which time he befriended Jesse Merwin, the Kinderhook schoolteacher, and a housemate at the Van Ness mansion. Two twenty-something intellectuals in rural Columbia County, Irving and Merwin became friends, rode trails and went fishing together; after Irving moved on, the two friends continued their correspondence for more than three decades.
Each year, hundreds of fourth graders from all over Columbia County and the Capital Region visit the Ichabod Crane Schoolhouse and discover first-hand how arithmetic and cursive handwriting were learned in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and how a Columbia County schoolteacher has been immortalized in Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
Originally located on land at the corner of 9H and Fischer Road, the schoolhouse was the second school built on that site--replacing the original log cabin school--and was moved approximately 200 yards down the road to the Luykas Van Alen house property when the local school district centralized. During the 1970s it was restored to its 1930s appearance.
The Ichabod Crane Schoolhouse is open seasonally--all summer and fall--along with the Luykas Van Alen House.
2589 Rt 9H
Kinderhook, NY 12106
CCHS will not share or sell a donor's personal information with any other party, nor send donor mailings on behalf of other organizations.
