Building date: 1832
Original use: Schoolhouse
Corner structures: Red sandstone
Mortar application and content:
Types and uses of stones:
Types and choice of windows: Lintels brick, width vertical
Structures with similar masonry details:
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Map views courtesy Google Maps. Address is Google Earth confirmed; 43°15'25.54"N 78°13'25.49"W. Current owner of record, The Orleans County Historical Association as of the 2019 Tax Roll.
Town of Gaines and Orleans County Maps
Local preservation effort in town of Gaines rescued this schoolhouse from destruction. Richard Palmer blog.
"The Cobblestone Houses of Upstate New York", compiled by Dorothy Wells Pease. Research done in collaboration with Hazed B. Jeffery, supplemented with material furnished by Carl F. Schmidt. Reference the sixth paragraph on page 8.
"Cobblestone Buildings of Orleans County, N. Y.", A Local History, page 46, by Delia Robinson, Edited by Evelyn Lyman and William Nestle. Jointly published by The Cobblestone Society and The Orleans County Historical Association, December 1996.
Old schoolhouse in Gaines Has Interesting History, by Al Capurso
 Gaines District #2 Schoolhouse, 3286 Gaines Basin Road, Albion, restored by the Gaines Historical Society. |  Detail showing colorful stonework of District No. 2 schoolhouse. |
The history of this schoolhouse begins with a pioneer settler named Lansing (Allison) Bailey who, with his younger brother Joel, walked five days from Whitestown, Oneida County, N.Y. and purchased an article of 250 acres of land on November 18, 1811. After securing their location and registering it with the Holland Land Company office in Batavia, they returned home. In February of the following year, Lansing, Joel, Lansing's wife Zada, and their one year old son Davis drove a yoke of oxen and several young cattle back to what was to become Gaines Basin. This location is a mile and a half west of where Albion is now and just north of where the Erie Canal now crosses. In 1811, this was virtually an unbroken wilderness.
While Lansing and Joel lived in the bush shanty they built from February to April 1812, Zada and Davis staid with pioneer settler Daniel Pratt on the Ridge Road, just west of Gaines Corners. Lansing Bailey described the shanty as being so small they would wake up in the morning with their legs covered with snow. In late winter 1812, Lansing, Joel and Daniel Pratt cut a trail from the Bailey shanty to the Ridge Road where Pratt's cabin was located. Bailey states they accomplished this two mile feat in less than half a day.
Lansing's biography tells the story that about this time, their dog barked earnestly at a large hollow log and determined a bear to be within. Lansing killed the bear with an axe, only to discover a young cub in it as well. They took the cub home attempt to care for it. He states that Mrs. Joseph Adams, a relative living on the Ridge Road, had recently lost a babe. Mrs. Adams agreed to nurse the cub until it became rather "harsh" in its manners.
During the spring of 1812, Lansing moved his wife and son from Daniel Pratt's into a newly built cabin he described as a 12 feet by 16 feet hovel house of logs, with a floor of loose boards and slanting roof that overhung the cabin for storage of items. The Bailey's are also credited with establishing what is now called Bacon Road, connecting Gaines Basin and Oak Orchard Road, at a community later named The Five Corners. Bailey nicknamed the 1.5 mile stretch, "Lonesome Road."
In May of 1813, Lansing assisted in his wife's delivery of twin baby girls, Ada and Zada. Joel had run to Sylvester Farr's cabin at The Five Corners for female assistance. When they returned they found Zada, the wife with one baby, and Lansing on another bed with the other, all doing well. Lansing reported he made a cradle out of a hollow log to use as a rocker with a baby being able to lay at each end. Lansing and Joel cleared 15 acres of land this first year.
Tragedy struck that August in the Bailey cabin. First, Joel became ill with the ague and fever so common in pioneer days. He died on August 10. Soon Lansing's wife Zada came down with the same fever before Joel could be buried.
Lansing's father arrived from Stephentown to take the twins home with him while Mrs. Joseph Adams cared for Davis. Lansing worked to secure his corn crop; returning himself to his father's home. In 1815, Lansing married Sylvia Pratt of Stephentown and the two of them came to Gaines Basin to start anew. Lansing built a nicer cabin and the five of them created a happy loving home.
In the summer of 1816, Lansing heard men shouting in the woods south of his cabin. Upon investigation he found the Erie Canal surveyors staking out the canal route. Lansing, upon hearing from them the plan they envisioned laughed at the notion of making water run uphill the 300 feet difference between Gaines and Albany. Yet, this is exactly what the canal engineers accomplished. In fact, Bailey and other settlers profited immensely with the advent of the canal since they had a way of moving their farm produce to lucrative markets. Lansing's area was chosen for one of the turn-arounds of the canal called basins; thus Gaines Basin.
Census records from 1820 to 1830 show a doubling of families and school age eligible children. The earliest mention of a school at Gaines Basin was 1823, taught by Nancy Bullard, daughter of local pioneer and Revolutionary War veteran David Bullard. In 1826, the teacher was 14 year old Caroline Phipps. She taught several terms, then attended Gaines Academy in 1831. She grew to world-wide fame as the founder of the Phipps Union Seminary for Women in Albion, 1837. This institution flourished until the mid 1870's under her directorship.
The 1823 Gaines schoolhouse was described as a slant roof shanty, 12 by 14 feet square with a loose board floor. This description bears a striking similarity to the first cabin built by Lansing and Joel Bailey. The difference in the two feet dimension could be from not counting the roof's overhang. The location description of the schoolhouse (east side of the Gaines Basin Road, near where the canal now passes, is a practical pin point to where the Bailey's first built.
Prior to 1827, Lansing Bailey, his wife Sylvia and their several children moved to Barre, now the village of Albion. In 1832, having outgrown the log shanty schoolhouse, the parents of Gaines Basin decided to build a schoolhouse of cobblestone. This building was built with three times the square footage of the shanty on the opposite side of the road. This schoolhouse served the Gaines Basin community for 112 years, until it was closed due to centralization in 1944. A trustee ledger of expenses inclusive of the years 1879 to 1917 has been found and offers a glimpse into the running of 19th century rural one room schoolhouse.
The Town of Gaines had 12 school districts in it's day, six of which were made of cobblestone. Five of the six still exist. One was razed in 1900 when replaced by a larger wood frame building. Fortunately, organizations such as the Cobblestone Society and the Orleans County Historical Association are now actively working to restore and preserve these historic gems.
When this essay was written, Mr. Capurso was president of Orleans County Historical Association and a member of the Board of Directors, Cobblestone Society in Childs, N.Y.
Gaines Basin Schoolhouse - CYSCSA
Community Urged To Help Preserve Old Cobblestone School, April l3, 2015.
Old Cobblestone Schoolhouse Has New Purpose and Historical Marker October 17 2015
Gaines cobblestone schoolhouse nominated to state and federal historic registry, May 9, 2017
Gaines Basin cobblestone schoolhouse goes from verge of extinction to historic designation, May 10, 2017
Bethinking of Old Orleans, "Where Superstition Won Out", by S. W. Lattin, [Former] Orleans County Historian, Vol. XVIII, No. 8, The Journal-Register, Medina, N.Y., 2/27/1996.
"Historic Town of Gaines Early School Houses, Historic Childs: Early Education Vol. 2 No. 26, pages 4 and 5, by Doug Farley, Cobblestone Museum Director. Editor's Note: Listed as School House No. 18 on the 1860 Niagara Orleans Counties Map in the Library of Congress.
The Historic Preservation Awards were announced at the 2nd annual Orleans County Preservation Awards Banquet on October 25, 2024 at the White Birch Country Club banquet center, Lyndonville NY. Winning cobblestone structures are Gai-3, Dist. #2 School, 3286 Gaines Basin Rd. and Cla-1 Grentzinger, 4690 Bennetts Corners Road.
The Cobblestone Society & Museum Tours:
District No. 2 Schoolhouse 1st Cobblestone Tour 06/10/1961, Tour of Cobblestone Homes 09/30/2017, Tour of Cobblestone Homes 09/15/2018
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National Register of Historic Places Registration
¹ Image courtesy Cobblestone Museum.
² Photography courtesy Martin and Sheila Wolfish.
³ Photography by J Orr courtesy Cobblestone Museum.
4 Photography courtesy Richard Palmer.
