Clarksville Historical Society receives $1,000 grant from county
The Enterprise — Michael Koff
Standing by a wooded lot, the Woodside Schoolhouse awaits repairs from the Clarksville Historical Society. A county grant for $1,000 will help the society fix the building so it can use it as storage space for its collections.
The Enterprise — Lisa Nicole Lindsay
Sharing smiles: Susan Dee, right, the president of the Clarksville Historical Society, talks with Michael Mackey, and Herbert Reilly, foreground, about how the $1,000 county grant Albany County Legistaltors gave to the historical society will be used to rehabilitate the Woodside Schoolhouse. Mackey and Reilly co-sponsored the grant application.
CLARKSVILLE — Last Wednesday evening, a $1,000 check was presented to the Clarksville Historical Society, which will be used to help rehabilitate the Woodside Schoolhouse.
The check was presented to Susan Dee, president of the society, by Michael Mackey and Herb Reilly, at the first fall meeting of the Clarksville Historical Society. Both men are legislators for Albany County, and represent different parts of New Scotland; Reilly was previously the supervisor of the town for many years.
Douglas LaGrange, a member of the New Scotland Town Board, was also at the meeting, held at the Clarksville Community Church, and helped facilitate the historical society receiving the grant.
After the grant was announced to legislators this summer, Mackey called LaGrange and asked him if he knew of any community projects that could use the money.
LaGrange immediately thought of the Clarksville Historical Society.
“It sounded like the perfect project,” Mackey told The Enterprise this week.
The grant money will go to repairing the Woodside Schoolhouse, which sits on Route 32 and La Grange Lane. The councilman lives on his family’s farm for which the lane is named.
“It’s in my view, so I’d like to see it fixed up,” LaGrange said, with a laugh, at the meeting.
The society acquired the building in 2010, when it was in the way of a project to straighten Route 32; the building was donated by the state to the society.
“The original schoolhouse was moved by the state of New York,” Clarksville Historical Society member George Miller told The Enterprise in February. “I believe that, if we hadn’t stepped up, the building would have been destroyed.”
Dee said last week that, while the grant money will go to the schoolhouse, another property the society owns is in need of more immediate attention.
The Myron B. Earle store, which stands off Delaware Turnpike, was acquired by the society this year, and needs to be weatherproofed before winter.
The schoolhouse, while still in need of thousands of dollars’ worth of work, has a weatherproofed basement currently housing some of the society’s collections.
When the schoolhouse rehabilitation is completed, the Clarksville Historical Society can move out of the Clarksville Community Church and into its new home.
