The history of the school house is related to that of the historical description of the Van Nostrand-Starkins House after that property was acquired by Jacob M. Kirby (T.G. 1976, 1977). Jacob Kirby purchased the Van Nostrand-Starkins House in 1852 from William Verity (Queens County, Liber 101, of Deeds, Pg. 142). He continued to acquire land around the Main Street-East Broadway intersection up as far as the railroad overpass until 1873.* Jacob M. Kirby was a merchant and shipper doing business in Roslyn as early as 1851. He advertised in the "Plaindealer" on May 28, 1851 and subsequently. The Kirbys possibly emigrated from Massachusetts although it has not been possible thus far to document this. (Long Island Genealogies by Mary Powell Bunker, 1895, Albany). The Kirby papers are presently housed in the Nassau County Museum Library and have not been completely catalogued. We know that Jacob M. Kirby was born in 1804 and died in 1880. His wife, Mary Ann, was born in March 1799 and died in October 1875. Both are buried in the Roslyn Cemetery, as are their sons Wallace William, born 1830 and Isaac Henry, born 1833. The houses located at 221 (Van Nostrand-Starkins) and 219 Main Street are described on the 1860 road survey of the Town of North Hempstead as tenant houses owned by Jacob M. Kirby. The Beers-Comstock Map (1873) also records these two houses as Kirby tenant houses. The Walling Map (1859) locates an outbuilding on the Van Nostrand-Starkins site as a small office owned by J.M. Kirby.

This structure is the building we refer to as the Kirby School today. It is doubtful that this building was built as a school but thirty or forty years ago it was generally believed to have been a one-room school house with Mrs. Henry Eastman the teacher. To date, no documentary authentication of this early use has been found but in the past these local rumors have been quite reliable. In this case, the confusion may be that Henry W. Eastman, as a young man during the 1850s, taught at the Locust Hill Academy in Roslyn.

The presence of small, one-room school houses in Roslyn is well documented however. As early as 1780, Hessian soldiers used a school house near Obediah Townsend's as a hospital (Roslyn News, December 7, 1878). Bishop Benjamin Tredwell Onderdonk, in a letter dated February 3, 1851, refers to a school house existing from 1796-1811, which stood on the "West end of the Grist Mill dam." Henry Eastman reported a private school operating for years in the late 1890's situated at the fork of Main Street and East Broadway close to the south side of the pond near the northeast corner of East Broadway and Main Street under the direction of a Miss Requa. A Roslyn News announcement of August 15, 1885 informed her patrons that she had rented "the same light and pleasant rooms situated on the hill near the Roslyn Depot". Her school is further located as "second house from Thome's Hotel, and as the "outbuilding once owned and used by Jacob Kirby as a general store and then owned by his son, Wallace Kirby." Miss Requa apparently rented various buildings in the area for her select school depending on enrollment. In 1885 Miss Requa's class numbered eighteen (Roslyn News, July 4, 1885), which number probably would not fit comfortably in the "Kirby School." Roy Moger, the Roslyn Village Historian, recalls that Eliza and Anna Willetts attended school in the one room building on the Van Nostrand-Starkins site at the turn of the century.

The Kirby School (circa 1860) probably was built after Jacob M. Kirby acquired the Van Nostrand-Starkins property in 1852. It is known that his oldest son, William Wallace Kirby (born 1830) lived in the house after his marriage to Susan Eliza Kirby in 1863 (Wallace Kirby letter to Mr. J.H. Terry, July 4, 1867). Wallace Kirby, an alumnus of Union College, Schenectady, N.Y. and local Justice of the Peace, served as the Presbyterian Minister in Roslyn during 18701871. His collection of sermons dated 1859 are in the Landmark Society collection. On the death of his father in 1880, Wallace inherited the entire Kirby's Corners holding including the small building we call the Kirby School. The " Kirby School," circa 1860, is a one storey, shingled building with a gableended roof, the ridge of which extends from north to south and is parallel to the road.

The building was moved from its original site, slightly northwest of the Van Nostrand-Starkins House and adjacent to the present large boxwood in 1963 when threatened with demolition by the builders of the Chalet Apartment. At that time, the then owner, Mr. John Tarrant, in moving the building turned it from the original position approximately ninety degrees, so that the door which faced south now faces east. The description to follow pertains to the school on its present site. Original foundation of the Kirby School probably was rubble and brick but on the present site the building rests on concrete blocks which were stuccoed during refurbishing in 1978.

Outside measurements are 14'4" by 12'5", adequate for a small one room school. Most of the original wood roof shingles survive under later sheathing and have a 7" exposure to the weather. Most of the exterior sheathing shingles survive and have a 10" exposure. Eaves are extended. The rafter ends may be seen on the east and west and the shingle lathe on the north and south. There are open soffits. In the usual manner of local shingled buildings, there are neither corner boards nor a water table. Rafters measure 3"x4" and are sawn, with 32" centers. Original four-light north attic window and six-light south attic window survive as do the paired 4/ 4 north windows and the 6/ 6 south window. There is no window on the present west side. All windows have their original plain drip caps. The north pair of windows retain their original two-panel ogee-moulded shutters with much of the moulding replaced (1978). The window on the east side is a 20th century replacement with a conforming shutter fabricated in 1978. As mentioned previously, the foundation was stuccoed at that time. Original four-panel ogeemoulded door survives but presently is concealed by a louvered door added during the 1978 refurbishing. Exterior shingles were scraped over and stained. An appropriate stoop was designed by John Stevens and his design executed by Edward Soukup and Steve Tlockowski. No chimney is present in early photographs. Possibly the building was heated with a cast iron stove with the stove pipe passed out a window. If ever the school house is stripped of the interior sheet rock, it may be possible to locate evidence of a chimney or stove pipe.