GOULDS, NY — That’s one way to move a school building.

The Goulds School was built in 1849 and opened with a teacher (Philinda Lewis) and a budget ($73.50). It burned down in 1851 and was rebuilt (cost: $170) in time for the fall term, according to a story in the Fall 1981 Echo, the newsletter of the Basket Historical Society. 

In the 1890s, the trustees decided to move the school to the Crossroads. This was uphill from the original location. Take notes, folks: Up. A. Hill.

Undaunted, whoever was in charge of moving the school simply gathered it up (somehow) and moved it. And, says the Echo, “[it] was done with such skill that classes went on as usual as the school was moved, inch by inch, up the hill to be placed on its new foundation.”