The Cooks Corners Schoolhouse: An Exercise in Documentation for the Register of Very Special Places
INTRODUCTION
In this slide show, we would like to take you through several steps and many possibilities to consider as you develop plans to create a record of your landmark that will be of great value to your community now and for generations to come. This show illustrates highlights of the documentation process we undertook with the former one room schoolhouse at Cooks Corners in the town of Pierrepont, central St. Lawrence County.
I am Varick Chittenden, director of Traditional Arts in Upstate New York and a folklorist working in the North Country of the state. For years, when traveling from Canton into the northern foothills of the Adirondacks, I had frequently taken a shortcut off route 68, just past the hamlet of Pierrepont Center. I would turn right onto the Orebed Road and travel a couple of miles on the woodsy road, past several scattered houses, till I came to the intersection with Wilson Road, where I would turn left to go to South Colton and beyond. At that intersection I had always noticed the small white and green building on the opposite corner from my turn on a knoll surrounded by tall maple trees.
It was neat and well kept and had the unmistakable look of an old schoolhouse. The small size, the rectangular shape and the big windows resembled many other former one room schoolhouses in the North Country that were still standing. Some had been modernized into family homes; some had been made into antique shops or other small businesses; and some had been left to ruin. A sign in the front yard of the Cooks Corners building indicated that it was the home of the Cooks Corners Community Club, but I had never happened to go by when an event was occurring. Its remoteness and its obvious good condition intrigued me.