USA > Maryland > Washington County > Leitersburg > History of Leitersburg District, Washington County, Md.: Including Its Original Land Tenure. > Part 13
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Thomas Smith was teacher in 1819, and probably for some years prior to that date. He resided in the school building. The last teacher who did so was probably Francis Shiess. Among the successors of the original trustees were George M. Boyer, Jacob Garver, and John Oswald, who held office in 1828; Jacob Shank, who succeeded Oswald in 1828, and Peter Newcomer, who succeeded Shank in 1830; Andrew Shank, Jr., Jacob E. Bell, and David Bell, 1840.
THE JACOBS CHURCH SCHOOL.
The school house at Jacobs church was situated about the cen- ter of the graveyard, where a ledge of rocks rendered the ground unsuitable for burial purposes. It was a one-story log building, nearly square, and was divided into two apartments by a wooden partition. The apartment on the south side constituted the resi- denco of the teacher, while the other was used for school pur- poses. The latter was entered from the east side; there was a window opposite the door and two on the north side. The walls were neither plastered nor wainscoted. The furniture consisted of a ten-plate stove in the center of the room; the teacher's desk,
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which occupied one corner by the door; a writing desk for girls, opposite the entrance, and one for boys, along the north side; and several long slab benches without backs. The benches for the girls were placed close to the partition and parallel with it, so that they could sit with some degree of comfort, but no provision of this kind was enjoyed by the boys.
It is possible that this school was established about the time the church was organized (1791), but this is improbable. John Elliot taught in the Jacobs church neighborhood in 1810 and in 1817 (January 6th) Charles Cavender gave to Henry Jacobs a receipt for $2.00 "in full of subscription to school house." It is probable that this school house was at Jacobs church, and that it was erected in 1816 or 1817. It is believed that German teachers were at first employed, among the last of whom was a Mr. Beaver, who subsequently removed to Ohio. John McKee was the teacher for some years and occupied the teacher's quarters in the school building; unlike many of his pedagogical associates, who itinerated from one community to another, he became a permanent resident of this locality, acquired a modest home near . Antietam Junction, and lived there until his death. He was a native Scotchman and a man of fine education, but while his ability was recognized he never became popular with the German constituency at Jacobs church. Although the adoption of the public school system in Pennsylvania deprived this school of a large share of its former patronage it was sustained with varying success until about the year 1854. The building was then con- verted into a dwelling for the sexton of the church and served this purpose until finally demolished.
LEITERSBURG SCHOOLS.
Joseph Gabby, who was born near Leitersburg in 1779, used to relate that in his boyhood he attended a school near his home, at which nearly all his fellow pupils were from German families. It would be interesting to know more about this school, but fur- ther information seems unattainable, unless it may be identified with "the hollow house."
After the founding of the village a local school became a pub- lic necessity, and a log building was accordingly erected for this purpose on the north side of the turnpike a short distance west
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of the village. The site was then owned by John Barr and is now embraced in the Wolfinger farm. About the year 1840 it was de- stroyed by fire and replaced by a brick building, which was used for school purposes until the erection of the present building. It was then demolished, but the materials still serve an educational function, having been utilized in the erection of the Spessard school house on the Chewsville road. Neither of these buildings possessed much architectural merit. In the first the logs wore untrimmed at the corners, which gave it a ragged, backwoods ap- pearance.
In 1825 the local school authorities published the following advertisement in a Hagerstown newspaper:
A TEACHER WANTED.
A man of steady habits, who is well qualified to teach the various branches of a good English education, will meet with an agreeable situation at Leitersburg. None need apply but such as can furnish testimonials of character, etc.
WILLIAM GABBY, FREDERICK ZIEGLER, JOHN BARE, LEWIS ZIEGLER.
Trustees.
August 10, 1825.
Among the early teachers at Leitersburg were Messrs. Win- rode, Chancellor, and McGeechan; Samuel Brown, subsequently a successful physician at Philadelphia; and J. Allen Brown, who afterward became an eminent divine and was for many years a member of the faculty of the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg.
Three teachers are employed in the Leitersburg schools, in which the respective departments are designated as grammar, in- termediate, and primary. The school building is a substantial brick structure and occupies an elevated location with ample grounds. It comprises three rooms, two of which constitute the main building, erected in 1868-69, and here the grammar and intermediate departments are conducted; an extension in the rear was subsequently built for the primary department.
"JACOB MILLER'S SCHOOL HOUSE."
This school house was situated in the immediate vicinity of Miller's church, directly in the rear of the dwelling house on the
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farm of Noah E. Shank, and was probably built or used for school purposes after the school at "the hollow house" had been dis- continued. John Davis taught here in 1823 and Joseph Miller in 1827. Thomas Banks was the teacher in the spring of 1829 and Hilary Herbert in the winter of 1829-30. Banks's con- tract with his patrons specified that they should provide for him "a good and sufficient school house furnished with a good and suitable stove and a number of benches; also a supply of fuel de- livered at the school house door." For every child put under his care "to teach them reading, writing, and arithmetic" he was to receive $8.00 per year. He agreed "to attend his school at regular hours and to progress his pupils in their respective studies as fast as possible." The agreement is dated March 5, 1829; "School to commence on the 1st day of April next in Jacob Miller's school house."
PARADISE.
Formal action for the erection of a school house in the Paradise district was taken at a public meeting on the 15th of October, 1829, at which Jacob Schmutz presided and Thomas H. Rench was secretary. George Arendt, Joseph Trovinger, and Daniel Schlencker were elected trustees for the prospective District; Jacob Schmutz and Elisha Harne were appointed to solicit sub- scriptions; and it was decided "to build a school house on the cross-roads of stone twenty-five feet square by the subscribers for the benefit of the neighborhood." Four days later (October 19th) Daniel Schlencker, one of the trustees, entered into a con- tract with John Newman by which the latter obligated himself "to build a school house of stone, twenty-five feet square, eight feet high, and the walls twenty inches" at the rate of eighty-five and one-half cents per perch. It was further specified that the building should have a chimney and "one rough coat" of plaster. The contractor also agreed to quarry the stone. In 1832 Henry Schlencker executed a deed to the trustees conveying a plot of ground "at the intersection of the roads leading from Hagerstown and Waynesboro and Schmutz's mill and the Greencastle road"- "East with the Greencastle road, one hundred feet; north with the Hagerstown and Waynesboro road, sixty-five feet"-"for the purpose of building a church or school house" and at the consid- eration of $5.00.
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The building was probably erected in the spring of 1830. In the course of his professional rounds Dr. Frederick Dorsey passed one day while building operations were in progress and made some inquiries of the workmen regarding the purpose of the structure upon which they were engaged. He was told that it was to be a school house, and asked whether any name had yet been selected. This was answered in the negative. "Call it Paradise," said the Doctor, as he drove away. The name at once received popular approval and has since enjoyed undis- puted currency.
The first subscription having proven inadequate a second paper was circulated, in which it was stated that the trustees "have suc- ceeded in erecting a large and comfortable house (being situated where the road from Hagerstown to Waynesboro crosses a road generally known by the name of the Schmutz mill road) and bear- ing the title of the 'Paradise school and meeting house;' that they have furnished a sufficient number of desks and benches, also a large ten-plate stove; that it is public for religious sects of all denominations."
Notwithstanding the importunities of the solicitors, there was still a considerable balance unpaid on the 31st of January, 1835.
Some years after the completion of this building the gable wall showed a disposition to part company with the remainder of the structure, and in order to avert such a catastrophe several heavy timbers were propped against it. In course of time the timbers rotted away, but the wall, contrary to all expectations, obstinately refused to fall. The general condition of the build- ing, however, eventually became so dilapidated that an effort was made to replace it with a new one and subscriptions were solicited for this purpose by Captain Henry Clopper and George Petre. On a Saturday evening in the autumn of 1853 a meeting of citizens was held at the school house to consider the project. It was found that the amount subscribed was only about half the cost of the contemplated new building, in consequence of which the project was practically abandoned, when George Petre arose and said it was a shame the community could not afford a better school house for its children; he offered to double his subscription. others agreed to do the same, and it was at once decided to rebuild. On the following Monday and Tuesday the old stone house was de-
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molished; on Wednesday the bricks were hauled, and on Thurs- day the erection of the present building was begun. It was com- pleted in time for occupancy the ensuing winter and has since been used for school purposes.
Among the first teachers at Paradise were James Gallion, Jacob Lightcap, Henry Leiter, Michael Feierstein, George Carson, Sam- uel Phillips, and Gearhart Brenner.
ROCK HILL.
The first school house at Rock Hill was built in 1831. George I. Harry, the owner of Colebrook farm at that time, donated a log house that stood on his estate; it was demolished and rebuilt by the united exertions of the community and constituted the first school house at Rock Hill. The first teacher was James Gelwix, whose services were secured by Mr. Harry, and who is said to have possessed qualifications superior to those of the average country pedagogue at that day. The first trustees were Jacob Miller, George I. Harry, Abraham Strite, Peter Eshleman, Christian Strite, and Samuel Strite, to whom the school grounds were leased by John Strite for the term of forty years from the 1st of April, 1831. In 1858 this lease was superseded by a deed, executed by Jacob Miller in favor of Abraham Strite, John Miller, and Joseph Eshleman, trustees, under whose supervision the present school house was erected in the same year. It is a substantial brick building and has been continuously used for school purposes.
PLEASANT HILL.
The first school within the present limits of Pleasant Hill dis- trict was taught in 1806-07 by the Rev. Jacob Dayhoff at his resi- dence on the farm of William H. Stevenson. A German school was subsequently taught at a log house near the farm buildings of William H. Hoffman.
About the year 1830 the community united in the erection of a log school building on the land of John Mentzer. It stood on the Ringgold road on the hill above the present residence of Mrs. Mary M. Newcomer. Among those who taught here were Mrs. Anna (Snively) Garver, Rev. Christian Lepley of the Lutheran Church, and several members of the Mentzer family. In 1852 or '53 this building was removed and rebuilt at the location of
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the present school house, the site of which was leased by John D. Eakle to Benjamin Garver, Daniel Winter, and Samuel Nigh on the 8th of February, 1853. This instrument contained a re- versionary clause in favor of the grantor and his heirs in case the ground should cease to be used for school purposes, and in 1877, when the present brick school building was erected, it was super- seded by a deed vesting the title in the county school board.
NEW HARMONY.
The New Harmony school house is a substantial brick building and was erected by public subscription. The first trustees were Henry Schriver, David Gilbert, and Daniel Mentzer, to whom Joseph Strite executed a deed for sixty-four perches of land, De- cember 17, 1855. An additional purchase of sixty perches was made in 1885, when the course of the public road was changed to permit the enlargement of the school grounds. The title to the property is still vested in a local board of trustees. The county school board pays an annual rental, which is expended upon repairs and improvements.
MT. UNION.
This district was created by the county school board in 1868, when a brick school house was erected. The first teacher was John O. Wolfinger, by whom the school was opened in January, 1869. The present school house was built in 1890.
GENERAL STATISTICS.
In 1824 the managers of the school fund in District No. 7 (Cavetown), which embraced the village of Leitersburg and a large part of the District, were William H. Fitzhugh, Peter Sei- bert, William Gabby, John Welty, and Marmaduke W. Boyd. Dis- trict No. 7 received $44.00 from the county school fund, from which it is evident that the duties of the commissioners were not onerous. The county school fund in 1825 was $450, of which District No. 7 received $65.00.
In 1845 the trustees of the school fund in District No. 9 were Lewis Ziegler, John Mentzer, George I. Harry, George Kessinger, Jr., and Abraham Stouffer. Abraham Strite served as school commissioner from 1849 to 1851 and Samuel Etnyer in 1852-53.
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HISTORY OF LEITERSBURG DISTRICT.
In 1853 there were eight schools in the District, with 276 paying scholars and 16 free scholars; the amount received from the county school fund was $509.32 and from tuition fees $320.26. In 1849, according to the official report of Abraham Strite, the books and supplies at each school within the present limits of the District (Martin's excepted) were as follows:
Leitersburg .- Thirty-four spellers, 18 American Manuals, 15 grammars, 400 quills, 100 slate pencils, 1 register, 21 arithmetics, 22 dictionaries, 34 McGuffey's readers, 8 Elements of Agricul- ture.
Pleasant Hill .- Thirty spelling books, 8 grammars, 11 geog- raphies, 6 inkstands, 100 slate pencils, 200 quills, 1 register, 15 arithmetics, 18 dictionaries, 18 copy-books, 100 quills, 9 copy- books, 4 Elements of Agriculture, 18 McGuffey's readers.
Jacobs Church .- Twelve dictionaries, 36 Comly Spelling Books, 16 arithmetics, 4 grammars, 6 geographies, 6 large slates, 100 quills, 4 Elements of Agriculture, 30 McGuffey's readers.
Paradise .- Twelve copy-books, 5 quires of paper, 12 American Manuals, 6 Chandler's Grammars, 38 Comly Spelling Books, 100 slate pencils, 2 quarts of ink, 14 arithmetics, 6 dictionaries, 12 slates, 8 geographies, 1 register, 18 McGuffey's readers.
Rock Hill .- Fifteen Comly Spelling Books, 13 arithmetics, 6 American Manuals, 3. grammars, 3 geographies, 12 copy-books, 100 quills, 2 dictionaries, 6 elements of Agriculture, 18 McGuff- ey's readers. 2 slates, 1 register.
CHAPTER VI.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
COLONEL THOMAS CRESAP* was born at Skipton-on-Craven, Yorkshire, England, about the year 1702, and emigrated to Amer- ica at the age of fifteen. He learned the trade of carpenter and after his marriage located at Havre-de-Grace, Md. Being of an energetic and adventurous disposition and in reduced circum- stances he was early attracted by the opportunity of securing land on the frontier and made a journey into Virginia for that pur- pose. In this he was unsuccessful, however, and next turned his attention to the territory claimed by Maryland west of the Sus- quehanna within the present limits of York County, Pa. Here he secured under Maryland tenure a tract of several hundred acres adjacent to the river and nearly opposite the town of Co- lumbia, and on this tract he located, March 16, 1732. He at once became the leading partisan of the Maryland interest. The re- gion in which he settled was disputed ground and circumstances soon brought him into collision with the Pennsylvania claimants. One of his neighbors was John Hendricks, who had made valuable improvements on a tract secured by a Pennsylvania patent. In 1734 Cresap had the same tract surveyed under a Maryland war- rant and employed workmen to build a house within a hundred yards of Hendricks's door. Upon complaint of the latter the sher- iff of Lancaster County crossed the river and arrested the work- men, but Cresap was prudently absent and escaped. This oc- curred on the 29th of January, 1734. That night the guard left by the sheriff at his departure went to Cresap's house for the pur- pose of arresting him, and in the melee that ensued Knowles Daunt, one of the attacking party. was mortally wounded.
In 1736 the Germans who had settled in Cresap's vicinity ac- knowledged the jurisdiction of Pennsylvania. This was con- strued by the Maryland authorities as an insurrection, for the suppression of which the sheriff of Baltimore County hastened thither with several hundred men and established his headquar-
*Pennsylvania Archives, Vol. I pp. 311 : 410-411, etc .; Colonial Records, Vol. IV pp. 11(-147, etc. Jacob's Life of Michael Cresap.
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ters at Cresap's. After the departure of this force the latter re- mained as the official representative of the Maryland interest in the dual capacity of magistrate and captain of militia. He con- verted his house into an arsenal and received an ample supply of arms and ammunition from Governor Ogle. For five years he had been the terror of the Pennsylvania authorities, whose juris- diction he persistently and flagrantly defied, and he was now ap- parently prepared to maintain his position with greater security than ever. But at last the Pennsylvania authorities took decisive action. A warrant for his arrest for the murder of Knowles Daunt had been issued two years before; on the night of Novem- ber 23, 1736, the sheriff of Lancaster County crossed the Susque- hanna to execute this warrant. His posse numbered twenty-four men and at daybreak on the 24th they surrounded Cresap's house. A furious fusilade ensued and continued at intervals throughout the day. The termination of the affair is thus described in a dis- patch to the Provincial Council:
The sheriff and his assistants, having waited until sunset and finding they must either return without executing their war- rant or destroy the house to come at him, they set fire to it, but offered to quench it if he would surrender. He nevertheless obsti- nately persisted in his refusal, neither would he suffer his wife and children to leave the house. but fired at those who proposed it. When the fire prevailed and the floor was ready to fall in he and those with him rushed forth loaded with arms, which, as they fired at the sheriff and his assistants they threw away and in this con- fusion one of Cresap's men, Michael Reisner, shot down by mistake another of the gang named Lachlan Malone. Cresap was at length apprehended and it has since appeared that he intended to have had his wife and children burned in the house, and that during the time of action he set his children in the most dangerous places and had provoked the sheriff's assistants to shoot at them. Of the six per- sons who had thus joined with Cresap one got out at the chimney and another was killed as has been mentioned: three are now sent down hither with Cresap.
This affair was deemed of so much importance that the Penn- sylvania Assembly was summoned in special session. Cresap was placed in irons and confined in the Philadelphia jail. Within a fortnight two commissioners from Maryland, Edward Jennings and Daniel Dulany, secretary and attorney general, respectively. of the Province, appeared to demand his release and the delivery
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of his captors to the Maryland authorities for trial. The sheriff and his posse were denounced as "incendiaries and murderers," "monsters of men," etc., and the capture was characterized by such expressions as "horrid cruelty," "savage violence," a "bar- barous transaction," in need of "no colors to heighten the black- ness of it or words to raise that horror and indignation which every humane breast must feel at the bare relation." But the Pennsylvania authorities were firm in their refusal to release the prisoners. Cresap's irons were removed, but he continued in confinement until January, 1738. The royal order under which he was released was followed by another establishing a Temporary Line, which placed his former residence far within the limits of Pennsylvania. Doubtless in anticipation of this he had selected a new home, the Longmeadows tract in Leitersburg District, and here in the spring of 1738 he brought his family, which had found shelter at an Indian village on the Codorus during his imprison- ment.
Cresap's house at Longmeadows served the triple purpose of residence, fortification, and trading post. It was situated in the extreme western part of the District near the Marsh turnpike on the farm now owned by Mrs. William S. Young of Baltimore, on the opposite side of Marsh run from the farm buildings and about six hundred feet a little south of east from the barn. It is described as a substantial structure, the walls of which, at least to the second story, were built of stone, which subsequently en- tered into the construction of the barn, spring house, and other buildings on the Longmeadows farm. Here Cresap engaged ex- tensively in business as an Indian trader. For a time his opera- tions were successful but a vessel on which he had consigned a large quantity of peltries to England was captured by the enemy. This loss reduced him to bankruptcy, and Daniel Dulany, a prominent Maryland lawyer from whom he had received advances of capital, took the Longmeadows establishment in partial satis- faction of his claims.
In 1741 Cresap located on the Potomac near the junction of the north and south forks of that river. There he acquired an extensive estate and continued to be an influential character in the affairs of Western Maryland. As the agent of the Ohio Com- pany he opened a trail from the present site of Cumberland to
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that of Pittsburg. He was a man of sound constitution and great muscular strength and lived to the advanced age of one hundred and five or six. When more than eighty years old he contracted a second marriage, and at the age of one hundred he made a journey to Nova Scotia. He had five children: Daniel; Thomas; Michael; Sarah, and Elizabeth. Michael was captain of one of the first Maryland companies sent to Boston at the call of the Continental Congress.
CAPTAIN JOHN CHARLTON* first appears in Maryland history in connection with a scheme to colonize the present territory of York County, Pa., in the Maryland interest. This region was first settled by Germans, who secured the land under Maryland tenure; but in August, 1736, fifty or sixty of these settlers re- nounced the authority of Maryland and acknowledged that of Pennsylvania. Plans were at once formed to evict them from their lands, a warrant for the resurvey of which was issued by Governor Ogle of Maryland in favor of fifty-two persons, among ยท whom were Thomas Charlton, John Charlton, Edward Charlton, John Charlton, Jr., Thomas Charlton, Jr., Arthur Charlton, and Henry Charlton, Jr., for whom, with four others, eleven of the best plantations were to be reserved. Although the scheme was frustrated by the arrest of Henry Munday, one of its principal promoters, and of Thomas Cresap, to whom the execution of the surveys was to have been intrusted, the eviction of the Germans was partially accomplished. This work was intrusted by Gov- ernor Ogle to Captain Charles Higginbotham and John Charl- ton, who were stationed with a detachment of militia at Canajo- hela, west of the Susquehanna in York County, Pa., where they built a fort and stationed a garrison.
Of Captain Charlton's individual proceedings two instances are reported. The first was the capture of Elisha Gatchell, a Pennsylvania magistrate, which was effected at Nottingham in Chester County, on the 29th of June, 1737. On this occasion the Captain was accompanied by four men, one of whom was Joseph Perry, subsequently his neighbor in Leitersburg District. All were armed, "some with guns, others with hangers and swords." Gatchell was brutally beaten and compelled to accom- pany his captors into Maryland, where he was released through
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