Four historic Clifton Park structures were recently placed on the Historic Registry of the town.
The Hannah Wool Fellows House, built in 1850; the Jonesville Academy and its adjacent dormitory, founded in 1836; and Grace Episcopal Church were the buildings that received the honor.
The town board presented registry plaques to the owners of the properties. The board recognized the efforts of the owners to preserve the character of the community, and gave them a chance to reduce their property tax.
The three buildings in the hamlet of Jonesville (the Academy, the dormitory, and the church) are owned by Carol and Victor Temple, and Natalie Lopasic and Kevin Rosenberg own the Fellows house, in Vischer Ferry.
According to John Scherer, the town historian, the Academy owned by the Temples was founded by Roscius Kennedy, an entrepreneur, who offered what he called an “ornamental education”, including literature, Latin, Greek, and sewing for young ladies, as well as writing, reading, and arithmetic, to students.
Scherer has published a book called ‘Images of America: Clifton Park’, in which he says the academy was a private boarding school that is a lot like today's junior-senior high schools. The academy had room for 50 students, both females and males, and people came from all over the world to attend.
The Fellows house is a private residence which, together with its outbuildings, preserves the appearance of a large farm from the 1800s.
City officials might consider creating Brochures to distribute in public buildings, describing these historic structures.
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