Saint Albans Historical Museum

About the Museum:

The Museum building is the former Franklin County Grammar School. The 3-story Renaissance Revival style structure was completed in 1861 and was used for public education until 1969. In 1861 all grades were taught in the eight classrooms, and the third floor, called Academy Hall, was used for school recitations. During the Civil War, as the largest hall in the county, the space was used for signing up men to enlist for service, for the women of the community to roll bandages and put together packages for the men at the battle front and camps and for fundraising events such as levees and afternoon entertainments. Famous speakers of the day, including abolitionists and freed slaves, spoke often in this Hall.

School was in session on October 19, 1864 when Confederate Raiders gathered in the park which the school faces, attached the quiet community, and proceeded to raid three banks. They stole $208,000 for the Rebel cause, and galloped into Canada. After the Civil War, our Academy Hall was the scene of a lecture series organized for the people to hear famous singers, actors, see attractions such as Tom Thumb. Travelers such as Mrs. Anna Leonowens, the governess to the children of the King of Siam, was a guest while on her book promotion tour in 1852.

When there was a call for further education in Saint Albans, the Hall was converted for a high school. Saint Albans High School occupied the building until 1930 when Bellows Free Academy, a new modern facility was completed. Three new neighborhood elementary schools relieved the classrooms crowding in the late 1880's and an intermediate school ready for occupancy in 1905 took the fifth and sixth grades out of the building. The high school could then use the downstairs rooms, and the Hall became a gymnasium, the first in Saint Albans. The building, with a home economics room, was then considered modern. But by the 1960's the building was not up to new standards. The building became vacant after more than 100 years.