MVLS I Spy Oral History Interviews

Clinton Liberal Institute, Fort Plain, NY
No online audio | Current photo | Historic photo

Interviewer: Kathryn McGowan
Speaker: Terry Collins

Background: Terry Collins is a retired history teacher, trustee of the Fort Plain Museum and author of the only published history of the Clinton Liberal Institute.

Collins: The CLI was much like what we call a junior college today, actually it was a cross between a high school and a junior college. They had courses that ranged from sub-high school to a four-year college program. Students ranged, as I understand it, from, about twelve up to their early 20's.

There was a school in Fort Plain called the Fort Plain Female Seminary and Collegiate Institute…. They lasted until 1878 when, I assume, they went bankrupt. The CL was looking for a bigger campus…. They did some renovation work on the building first and opened in 1879 where the present high school is now.

It opened as a coed school….They had a specific set of courses for women and a specific set of courses for men. They would have taken courses that were apropos to the times…. Some came as day students, some actually lived here.

In 1890, it became a military school. They had to wear uniforms….They had to parade, they had to walk guard duty, they actually did practice firing….

The late 1880's was the heyday of the school… I think they had over 500 students. They did have students from a number of different places including from out West,… they had several students from Cuba, even had some from Brazil, so it had quite an international flavor for the time.

It was quite a school. They had a very high level of camaraderie and decorum. They were proud of the school.

March 25, 1900. It was a typical March day…. Usually the wind is blowing, cold, snowy, rainy,… they get some wicked gusts that come across the top of that hill. It seems like there was an outbreak of scarlet fever and as a result they had to fumigate and they used boiling sulfur. If memory serves correctly, they were on the fourth floor….One of the workers accidentally knocked over some this boiling sulfur and it caught the curtains on the window of the room they were fumigating on fire….The whole upper half burned and with the wind blowing it was just a matter of time until it was gone…. They had virtually no insurance.

There were a number of famous people who went there…. Clara Barton, again she went to the Clinton campus, Simon Lake who was reputed to be the founder of the modern-day submarine, Will Dahlin, who was a professional baseball player for the New York Giants.

The I Spy games and Website was supported by Federal Library Services and Technology Act funds, awarded to the New York State Library by the Federal Institute of Museum and Library Services, the Mohawk Valley Library System and participating member libraries.

Mohawk Valley Library System - About I Spy - Visit Our Kids' Website