This photograph comes from Diantha Dow Schull’s Landmarks of Otsego County, a tome of nearly 250 photographs that presents the quiet dignity of the area.
From the text, p. 153:
District school buildings were mandatory by 1812; each township was divided into districts, and each district was responsible for erecting and maintaining its schools. The large rural population necessitated numerous schools. Since the decline of rural areas, consolidation of districts, and a diminishing rural population, many of these buildings have become obsolete. The first schools were similar to the first dwellings, crude and functional – a simple frame, wooden benches, and a chimney and stove. A woodshed and outhouse completed the complex. Throughout much of the nineteenth century and even in some areas into the twentieth century, these modest one-room schools served effectively. This small district school is typical: the simply framed door with headlight, the original panes which are nine over nine, the slim return of the eaves, and the small proportions. It is one of the few surviving examples of the earliest school buildings.
Landmarks was published by the Syracuse University Press in 1980.
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