For more than a century, students of St. Albans used this 1860 Renaissance Revival building as a center of scholarship, sports, and citizenship. It replaced two earlier schools built here in 1800 and 1828. The first two floors of the Franklin County Grammar School housed classrooms for first through eighth grades, while the top floor, Academy Hall, served student assemblies and community gatherings. A high school curriculum was added in the 1870s. As St. Albans grew in the 20th century, Bellows Free Academy opened in 1930 as a new high school, and this building became the Church Street School for grades 7 and 8. The community's grammar schools consolidated in 1969, and the building was transferred to the St. Albans Historical Society in 1971. A second-floor room is dedicated to the prominent Smith family and its contributions to the political, social, and economic life of St. Albans and Vermont, and the building also presents the community's history and heritage, including the effects on St. Albans of trade on Lake Champlain, the railroad, and the Civil War.