The Abraham Glen House is located on Mohawk Avenue (

NY 5 New York State Route 5 (NY 5) is a state highway that extends for across the state of New York in the United States. It begins at the Pennsylvania state line in the Chautauqua County town of Ripley and passes through Buffalo, Sy ...

) in

Scotia, New York Scotia is a village in Schenectady County, New York, United States, incorporated in 1904. The population was 7,729 at the 2010 census. Scotia is part of the town of Glenville, and is connected with the city of Schenectady by the Western Gateway ...

, United States. It is a white frame house from the 18th century that is currently used as the local branch of the Schenectady County public library system. Built in the 1730s, it is a rare surviving example in the region of a

Dutch Colonial Dutch Colonial is a style of domestic architecture, primarily characterized by gambrel roofs having curved eaves along the length of the house. Modern versions built in the early 20th century are more accurately referred to as "Dutch Colonial Re ...

heavy

timber frame Timber framing (german: Holzfachwerk) and "post-and-beam" construction are traditional methods of building with heavy timbers, creating structures using squared-off and carefully fitted and joined timbers with joints secured by large wooden ...

house. It was extensively modified at the beginning of the 20th century but still retains its basic form and original materials. In 2004 it was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

Building

The house is situated in Collins Park, on the north side of Route 5 just west of the Western Gateway Bridge which crosses the

Mohawk River The Mohawk River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed October 3, 2011 river in the U.S. state of New York. It is the largest tributary of the Hudson River. The Mohawk f ...

to nearby

Schenectady Schenectady () is a city in Schenectady County, New York, United States, of which it is the county seat. As of the 2020 census, the city's population of 67,047 made it the state's ninth-largest city by population. The city is in eastern New Y ...

. It is aligned north–south, giving it a diagonal orientation from the road. Mature trees screen it on several sides. There is a parking lot to the north, accessible from nearby Collins Street, and a baseball field to the northeast. Its main block is a two-and-a-half-story rectangular () steeply pitched

gable A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...

-roofed frame house on a mortared fieldstone basement. Two wings extend from the north end, both built later on. The larger is one and a half stories high, with full basement. A one-story storage wing projects from its north end. Mortise and tenon joints were used in the framing.

Rafter A rafter is one of a series of sloped structural members such as wooden beams that extend from the ridge or hip to the wall plate, downslope perimeter or eave, and that are designed to support the roof shingles, roof deck and its associated ...

s rest on the roof plate. The slate- shingled roof is pierced by brick chimneys at either end and three shed

dormer window A dormer is a roofed structure, often containing a window, that projects vertically beyond the plane of a pitched roof. A dormer window (also called ''dormer'') is a form of roof window. Dormers are commonly used to increase the usable spac ...

s on both east and west elevations. A wraparound porch on the first story has turned posts and is enclosed on the east side. Siding includes a variety of materials, from early weatherboard to later

clapboard Clapboard (), also called bevel siding, lap siding, and weatherboard, with regional variation in the definition of these terms, is wooden siding of a building in the form of horizontal boards, often overlapping. ''Clapboard'' in modern Americ ...

. Inside, the first floor consists of two large rooms with the fireplaces in their original positions. The second story's bedrooms have been divided to create office space. The larger of the north wings has three rooms on the first floor and five on the second arranged around a narrow hallway. The smaller wing is a single room.

History

Scotia owes its name to Alexander Lindsey, the only one of the original founders of

who was not Dutch. He was a Scotsman who, after taking refuge in the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

, emigrated to

New Netherland New Netherland ( nl, Nieuw Nederland; la, Novum Belgium or ) was a 17th-century colonial province of the Dutch Republic that was located on the east coast of what is now the United States. The claimed territories extended from the Delmarva P ...

. There he obtained a

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A ...

to land on the north side of the Mohawk. Upon his death, his three sons divided the estate, which had been named ''Scotia'' for Lindsey's native country, and changed their last names to Glen in Scotland's honor (this led to the surrounding

town A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an ori ...

taking the name of Glenville, as well). Later, one of those sons dictated in his own will that a house be built on his property for his son Abraham. This, the main block of the current building, was erected around 1730. Its

vernacular A vernacular or vernacular language is in contrast with a "standard language". It refers to the language or dialect that is spoken by people that are inhabiting a particular country or region. The vernacular is typically the native language, n ...

Dutch framing is responsible for its steeply-pitched roof. Masonry fragments found in the basement suggest that at the time of its construction it may have the standard Dutch-style jambless fireplaces. The larger of the northern wings was built at some yet-undetermined time around the end of the 18th century. The Glen descendants continued to own the house until 1842, when it was sold to Charles and James Collins. The two continued to farm the land and harvest ice from the nearby lake. In 1880 James Collins converted the land around the house into a garden and landscaped park. When the last member of the family died in 1924, the village acquired the property. Five years later, in 1930, a new village library was opened in the house. Since 1948 it has been part of the county library system. During the 1980s the interior was renovated and, on the upper floors, its layout altered.

References

External links

*
Library webpage
{{National Register of Historic Places in New York Houses completed in 1730 Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in New York (state) Libraries on the National Register of Historic Places in New York (state) Historic American Buildings Survey in New York (state) Houses in Schenectady County, New York National Register of Historic Places in Schenectady County, New York 1730 establishments in the Thirteen Colonies

Building

History

See also

References

External links