So, while we’re postcarding through beautiful downtown Scotia, New York, we have to visit everyone’s favorite library. Part of the Schenectady County library system, it’s in the Abraham Glen House, which dates to the 1730s and is as charming as can be. Abraham Glen was a grandson of Alexander Lindsay (the family later took the Glen surname), one of the founders of Schenectady and son of Johannes, hero of the aftermath of the Schenectady Massacre. The house remained in the Glen family for decades, then was sold to the Collins family in 1842. They farmed the land and drew ice out of what would become Collins Lake. At the end of the family line, the village of Scotia acquired the property as a park in 1924, and the library opened in the old home around 1930.
Pretty much everyone in Scotia wants to believe there is a tunnel between this house and the Glen-Sanders Mansion, as a precaution against Indian attacks. Perhaps.
It is now impossible to imagine how many hours of my youth were spent in this tiny library. I’m sure there was a time when I would have recognized every spine on the shelves, every record in the collection, even the paperbacks in the spinning rack by the door.
Loved this article. Some journaling I was doing made me remember visits to this library as a young girl. (I am now 74.) What I loved most was the warmth and charm of the place. The nooks where I used to sit and get lost in a book were wonderful. I know visiting years ago established my love of libraries and led me to a career in both school and public librarianship.
Are there interior photos from the mid 1950’s? Is this building still being used?
The building is absolutely still in use, and it’s still a library! There has been some tasteful expansion and modernization which, I’m afraid, has reduced some of the nookiness and the wonderful tables by the (non-used) fireplace, but a lot of the charm is still there. If anyone has interior photos from that time, it would probably be the library itself, or the Schenectady County Historical Society. I’ll take a look but don’t recall having seen any.
Hello Carl,
I found two interior photos at this URL.
http://www.loc.gov/item/ny0757
The photos followed two exterior photos.
Excellent, and thanks for coming back to share them! I *knew* I had seen some somewhere but hadn’t had a chance to dig around for them.