Located just north of Western Avenue
on Willow Street, the Guilderland State Police station building was
built in 1845. At that time the building served as the first two-room
school in town, the District 4 School on Willow Street. It had an
average of 70 pupils in attendance. The teacher's pay was $1.50 per
student for a school term of 72 days. The building was rebuilt in
1891 and was retired in 1953. It then was the Town Hall until 1972.
Today the historic building serves as the Guilderland State Police
station.
However, this particular plot of ground
is famous for another reason. On this same site, about 1800, was the
one-room schoolhouse attended by Guilderland's famous author, Henry
Rowe Schoolcraft. The young Schoolcraft was born two houses above
the school site in the first two-story house in the settlement, then
known as Dowesburg. Henry Schoolcraft was also a geologist, explorer,
discoverer of the actual source of the Mississippi River, and expert
on Native Americans.
