Cobblestone Historic District

Three cobblestone buildings along Ridge Road in Childs, Orleans County, make up this district: a church, a small house, and a schoolhouse built between 1834 and 1849. The Universalist church, dated 1834, is Federal in style, with walls of glaciated field cobbles, limestone quoins, and a wooden tower rebuilt in 1966 from old photographs. Its interior retains original plaster, unusual papyrus-like gallery columns, and wood graining and a painted alcove added in 1874. The Ward House, built about 1840 and probably a parsonage, shows the Gaines Pattern of hexagonal cobble settings. The 1849 District 5 Schoolhouse is a Greek Revival building, a wooden structure with only a cobblestone veneer and a sloped classroom floor. The nomination presents cobblestone masonry as a distinctive vernacular craft of upstate New York and calls these three the best documented and best preserved early examples. The buildings now serve as a museum.