This article originally appeared in the Tri Town News on February 15, 1968.
This is an article which might be of historical interest, concerning the tract of and between Willow and Pleasant Streets before the brick building was even planned.

My father and mother were married on Dec. 11, 1884. For a short time they lived on Bridge Street, across from the end of Pleasant St. My father, a Connecticut carpenter, bought a half acre of land on Willow Street with a barn on one end of it.

He, with my mother's help, transformed the barn into a house into which they moved before completion, with a ladder used to reach the bedrooms above. I was born there in March, 1887. My father started building a home on the end of the land directly back of where the brick building now stands. It was completed in August 1890, with the family expecting to move in on a Monday but the birth of their son on Saturday night delayed the move.

I have no recollection of the building of the new home, but I do remember standing in a window and seeing the former house being moved up the road on Willow street where it still stands- the third house from the short cross street from Willow to Pleasant. Sidney Price who bought it added a porch and a side bedroom.

Before the school was started, a family named Dennis, with several girls lived on the Pleasant St. side of the lot directly back of our home. The land was overgrown with brush and small trees. I remember an old board fence, almost falling apart.

I do not remember the very beginning of the school construction, but in 1892, when I was five years old, I made the acquaintance of the stone cutter, a Mr. Ingalls from Binghamton. He sat at one side of the growing building, making the stone trims that are under the windows of the building. My mother used to bake little pies for me to take to him at his lunch time. Sometimes he gave me five cents to buy candy at RB Wheeler's book and candy store across the street on the, corner of Liberty St.

At times, extra long boards would extend from the building out across our back yard.

Along about 1903 the Board of Education put up a high wire fence between the properties because " cookie traffic" became a problem. Mother's baking shelf was in a kitchen window, easily seen from rooms in the school. Out the rear door of the school to our back door for cookies was but a short and easy distance. Needless to say, my mother soon tired of her popularity when a whole batch of 72 cookies went the school house way. In 1919, the school board had Mr. Bennett inspect our house in view of acquiring it for an annex for the school. It fully met his approval so in 1920 the house and land was purchased by the school authorities for $4,000 which at that time seemed a reasonable price.

Years later I returned to Sidney to make some neighborly calls and found all trace of my former home gone.

As a child of five, I entered first grade in the wooden building that stood at the end of Liberty Street. My first teacher was Fannie Curtis and first Principal, Prof. Goreth, upon whom I called in 1920 on Madison Ave. in New York City. At that time Fannie Curtis was teaching in East Orange, New Jersey. My mother's sister, Mary Eggleston, taught in the wooden building before my time.

I remember two of the custodian's of the schools, Henry Albrecht and Isaac Weaver. I taught 7 years in the old wooden building, leaving the system in 1918 at which time we teachers formed a round robin which will be 50 years old next year. Only twice has it failed to fly for a short time due to being lost in someone's desk. There are two books of pictures and accounts of reunions. Only five people are left but Robin still flies on.