The Quest for the Perfect School Facilities

Recently I discovered a letter to the editor, on the topic of Hudson Academy, in the Hudson Daily Register for May 30, 1867, and I've been waiting for a good opportunity to share it with readers. Because this evening Rhinebeck Architects will be reporting to the Hudson City School District Board of Education on the "progress and vision of the district's capital project," which involves an addition to a historic 79-year-old school building and a new athletic field, today seems a good day to publish this 149-year-old unsolicited critique of what was then Hudson's preeminent institution of secondary learning.

Hudson Academy|Photo courtesy Historic Hudson

Curious to know the historic context that had provoked "a gentleman well-versed in the matter of educational institutions" to weigh in, I consulted The History of Columbia County, by Franklin Ellis, which was published in 1878. Ellis talks about Hudson Academy's founding in 1805 and the construction of the original building, on land adjacent to the burial ground, part of which was donated by Captain Seth G. Macy and remainder by the Common Council of Hudson: "The building, a brick edifice fifty by thirty feet, and three stories high, was soon completed, on the present beautiful site overlooking the river and city of Hudson, and commanding an extensive view of the Catskill mountains."

It seems that when "A Teacher" wrote his letter some effort was underway to raise funds to make improvements to the Hudson Academy building, which in 1867 would have been slightly more than 6o years old. His warning "not expend any liberality upon the Academy building in its present position" seems to have gone unheeded. Writing a decade later, Ellis reports:

The present condition of the academy is exceedingly prosperous. The original building has recently been remodeled and embellished at large expense, until, in adaptation of rooms and appointments to educational uses, as well as in beauty and healthfulness of situation, it has few equals in the county. The present building is of brick, size, sixty by thirty-four feet, and three stories in height. The main room used for study is furnished with modern school furniture, and so arranged as to admit just the light which the best authorities have pronounced to be least injurious to the eyes of students. The estimated value of the academy property is $12,000. The cabinets are well furnished, that of natural philosophy having been increased by the addition of new apparatus valued at over $600. Apparently, the future of the institution will be prosperous.

The future of Hudson Academy may have seemed prosperous in 1878, but eight years later, in 1886, it closed. For a brief time, from 1889 to 1894, the academy building was used by Hudson High School, until a new building was constructed for the high school at Fourth and State streets.

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