USA > Pennsylvania > Lehigh County > Bethlehem > A history of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, 1741-1892, with some account of its founders and their early activity in America > Part 71
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A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA.
that of persons who objected to the introduction of a law which compelled them to pay for the support of the schools whether they had children to be educated or not. When, in 1834, the nerve of the situation was touched by the proposition to increase tuition fees, and the improvements clamored for halted before the opposition to this indispensable condition, the enlightened and enterprising part of the community moved energetically for the creation of the School District, to bring the new school law to bear upon such, constraining them to do for the support of their school what they could not be induced to do voluntarily; and at the same time to get a just share of state appropriations in order to meet the further lack of local resources that really did exist at that time, and thus properly provide also for free school in the District to the extent required. That a decided majority of those who had children soon saw the improve- ment in the schools, as thus re-organized, and were sincerely inter- ested in their efficiency, is shown by the laudable fact that school was regularly kept the entire year from the first, excepting the customary vacation of, at most, two weeks after the mid-summer examinations ; and that when the revenue from the regular school tax and the state appropriation, according to the arrangement of that time, did not suffice, they made up the balance voluntarily, and all the children of the District, without any discrimination, enjoyed the benefit. Beth- lehem was surrounded by neighborhoods in which, at that time, it was a rare thing to find a school open six months in the year.
The first report rendered to the State Superintendent, January 9, 1837, gives the average number of scholars enrolled in the three schools or rather departments, up to that time, as a hundred and twenty-five. These departments were the school for boys taught by Jacob Kummer, that for boys and girls taught by Matthew Christ ยท and his wife with various assistants at intervals, from 1836 to 1845, such as Mrs. Theodora Beear, a daughter of the former Adminis- trator Cunow, and twenty years a teacher, and the Misses Henry, Caroline Warner, Sarah Eberman, Josephine Leibert, Sarah Rice and Elizabeth Weiss-the last-named, now the widow of the Rev. Francis Wolle, being the only one of them yet living-and the day- school department for girls connected with the Seminary in charge of John Gottlob Kummer, Principal, into which girls were statedly advanced from Mr. and Mrs. Christ's school under a contract made by the District School Directors with that institution for $150 a year. The total paid on account of salaries, including this sum, the first year, was $750. The only other expense was about $4.50 for
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fuel. The school-rooms, of course, cost the Directors nothing and some necessary equipments were purchased by the warden at various times or procured through private contributions. The first state appropriations were $45.59 in 1836 and $129.48 in 1837. From the county was received $136.77. These amounts with the first year's district tax, $469.79, and other receipts, $10.34, made a total income of $792.15. In May, 1837, the district tax was fixed at "fifteen cents per $100 on occupation and three cents per $100 on other subjects of taxation."
In June of that year, the department in charge of Jacob Kummer, which then contained only fifteen boys, was eliminated and the Direc- tors contracted with Christs to take charge of all the children in the District, excepting the thirty-four girls attending the Seminary as day-scholars. At the close of the year there were 106 scholars in their school and it was reported to be in a highly satisfactory condition. In June, 1838, it became necessary, for the first time, to restrict the admission to boys and girls from five to four- teen years of age. Another important institution had been added to the school accommodations, which the Directors mentioned with gratification in their second annual report to the State Superintendent-an institution remembered with peculiar apprecia- tion by its few surviving pupils. In June, 1837, Ernst Frederick
Bleck, who had passed through the regular course at Nazareth Hall and in the Theological Seminary of the Church and spent five years as a teacher at the Hall-a man of marked ability and varied attain- ments, opened a private school at Bethlehem for the more advanced education of boys who either wished to enter business life or to pre- pare for special professional studies or for a general classical course at college. Men at Bethlehem had encouraged this undertaking and privately guaranteed him a satisfactory salary and school-room for one year. Thus, with sixteen boys in a room on the first floor of the boys' school house, commenced "Bleck's Academy," which was sub- sequently quartered in the "Till house"-a part of the former great barn on Main Street-purchased for $1,800. It was, for a few years, the most popular and successful school of the kind for boys in the Lehigh Valley. The curriculum embraced, besides a solid and thorough course. in the regular English branches similar to that at Nazareth Hall, instruction in higher mathematics, Latin, Greek, French, German, surveying, double-entry book-keeping, drafting, free-hand drawing, musical instruction, including lessons on the organ, piano-forte and 'cello-in the use of which latter instrument
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A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA.
Mr. Bleck was specially proficient-and courses of illustrated lec- tures on various subjects, particularly astronomy and chemistry, on which branches he compiled a manual for his own use from the best authorities. The pupils of the Young Ladies' Seminary and the people of the town occasionally shared the benefit of these lectures. For a few years the District School Directors also contracted with him to accommodate boys who passed beyond the limit fixed for Mr. Christ's school. Mr. Bleck continued to conduct the Academy until June, 1851, when he sold the property and good will to Benjamin VanKirk, to whom there will be further reference in the next chapter. When, with all this, it is had in mind that the Moravian Theological Seminary had been moved to Bethlehem from Nazareth in May, 1838, as mentioned in the preceding chapter-the institution was domiciled in "the William Luckenbach house" on Broad Street-it will be apparent that educational activity was flourishing at that period. It would indeed seem primitive and in many features crude if compared to the present body of institutions and their work, but men of learning and ability were in charge, and when viewed amid the conditions of that time-and this is the only intelligent and fair way to judge anything-the school situation at Bethlehem then was one which those yet living who enjoyed its advantages need not be ashamed of, even if the flippantly disposed would see only the crudi- ties and defects of the picture and the things to be amused at.
An important vote was taken at Bethlehem on May 5, 1840. "A meeting of the qualified citizens residing within the bounds of the Bethlehem Town School District" was held, with Jedediah Weiss as President and the Secretary of the School Board, John Schropp, as Secretary,"for the purpose of deciding by ballot whether the Common School System should be continued in said District or not, 'agreeably to the directions of the thirteenth section of an Act to consolidate and amend the several Acts, relative to a general System of Education by Common Schools,' passed, June 13, 1836." The majority being in favor, it was settled that it should be continued for the ensuing three years. This was the point at which the Public Schools at Bethlehem ceased to be regarded as an experiment. After the election of that summer, the Board of Directors were Owen Rice, Dr. A. L. Huebener, Charles F. Beckel, George W. Dixon, John Schropp, John M. Miksch. In October, John C. Brickenstein was chosen to fill the vacancy caused by the death of John Schropp. The further development of the school system in the State brought the time when subsidies to existing institutions and combinations with ecclesiastical or private
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1826-1845.
schools ceased. This point came at Bethlehem after the closing examinations, the last week in June, 1844. Then, although an appor- tionment of district school tax continued some years, the blending of the District School and the Parochial School was at an end. The latter was re-organized in accordance with action of a Congregation Council on June 7, when Charles F. Beckel, Wm. Eberman, C. A. Luckenbach, W. T. Roepper and J. F. Wolle were elected as the School Board. On July 22, it was re-opened under this board, elected by voting members of the Moravian Church as such, and not by citizens of the School District as such, with the Head Pastor, the Associate Minister and the Warden again ex officio members, as prior to 1836. The District School, deprived thus of numerical strength and of a certain caste and prestige with which it had been ushered in, entered upon a season of struggle to attain efficiency and standing in the community; for a number of years elapsed before that part of the population which sent children to the Public Schools instead of the Parochial School, the Young Ladies' Seminary or private schools, had grown to such numbers and influence and been infused with such intelligent zeal for the advancement of the "schools for all the people," that the time of their ascendency set in.
The school-period which has thus been sketched was one of enthus- iastic interest and well organized effort in music at Bethlehem. The new musical association of 1820, long known as the Philharmonic Society, reached its zenith during this period. The orchestral prac- ticing, which prior to 1814 had, as a rule, taken place in the old Brethren's House, was then, by permission, transferred to the room in the church where the archives are now stored, and when the school-house at the corner of the green on Cedar Street was finished in 1822, to the second story of that building which the musicians kept possession of until it was needed for school purposes. In 1827, the Old Chapel, which, since the dedication of the church had been used for the library of the Congregation, was remodeled to adapt it for concerts and various school functions, as well as for Divine service on special occasions, and the library was transferred to one of the rooms at the east end of the church. It was thus used as a place of worship, the first time for twenty-one years, on July 1, 1827. There the Philharmonic Society now established its headquarters and for many years that historic and venerable sanctuary was spoken of, even officially, as "the concert hall." The indignity suggested by this term did not, however, exist in the music there produced, for this was almost exclusively of a strictly classical, elevating and even sacred
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A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA.
character. The choral renditions of those days, usually with the full instrumentation called for by the score, were undoubtedly an advance from the performances, no less enjoyed, of two decades before when, amid the bucolic charms of those days, the people of the town were wont on Whitmonday to follow, in boats or afoot along the bank, the slowly-moving "flat" up the Lehigh, listening to the chords of the unique Wasserfahrt-Boat-ride-performed by the players of wind instruments on board-the boatman's horn on the canal was the only echo that remained of it at the time now treated of-but the musical forces of Bethlehem had been trained, even from those days, to work at the productions of Haydn and other superior composers, and it was no sudden leap to mastering and rendering the "Creation," the "Seasons," the "Seven Sleepers," and such compositions. It may be that, even at this period of higher proficiency here in mind, the modern technical critic would have hatcheled them with strictures in the stock terms of that professional cant which all kinds of critics cultivate in their several departments and which in some of its phrases often passes the lay understanding, but the Bethlehem musicians were not worried with nervous dread of this, for the critics were not abroad in such abundance then as now. They did their best for the pure love of it. That they surpassed anything that people were accustomed to hear in those days, excepting the occasional attainments, in some features, of the best musical organizations the cities could then produce, may be safely assumed. The acme of the period was a complete rendition, in the church, on Whitmonday, in 1839, of "The Creation"-at different times more modestly performed since its first partial production in 1811-by a hundred and twenty- five participants ; the Bethlehem choralists and instrumentalists being re-enforced from Nazareth, Easton and Allentown. After that, nothing so elaborate was attempted. A reaction followed this achievement. In 1840 that well-remembered man of varied attain- ments in science and art, literature and affairs, William Theodore Roepper, came to Bethlehem from Neuwied on the Rhine, a famous seat of Moravian education, where he had been an instructor in various departments. He possessed commanding musical ability and put forth energetic efforts to prevent Bethlehem's musical association from languishing, but that it must experience its ebb and flow like all other lines of united or organized interest was inevitable. Some of the men who then played instruments, and some, both women and men, who sang, such as he who later was known as "Father Weiss" -Jedediah Weiss, facile princeps among bassos, when at his best,
JEDEDIAH WEISS
ERNST LEWIS LEHMAN
JOHN CHRISTIAN TILL
ERNST FREDERICK BLECK
WILLIAM THEODORE ROEPPER
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almost anywhere that he might go-would be a welcome acquisition to orchestra and chorus in Bethlehem, even in these days of far greater things in music than would have been possible sixty years ago. Bach's Mass in B Minor would hardly have been attempted then, but some of those men and women, if they were here yet, in their best powers, would respond efficiently to a leadership that can make such an undertaking a success.
The meagre authentic records that exist in reference to the culti- vation of military music and whatever else may be loosely classed under the term "band music," afford very little in the way of exact data. The evolution of what is popularly styled "the band," with only wind instruments and principally the class of music just referred to, in mind, was a protracted and, in its early stages, rather nebulous process. It is easy to understand that, under the conditions and regulations existing at Bethlehem until well into the second decade of the nineteenth century, a band, in the popular acceptation of the term, was an institution, not to be looked for even though there was much cultivation of instrumental music. The traditional "trombone choir" does not come into consideration in this connection, for it was strictly a feature of the musical equipment of the church, as it is today. Its instruments have always been regarded as devoted to ecclesiastical use, even the exceptions to this being on occasions when hymn-tunes and, beyond these, only oratorio parts in concert or patriotic airs of dignified and hallowed associations are performed. Noble indeed has been the place and function of the trombone choir. Their services have always been connected with inspiring and solemn religious festivities, while with their most frequent and familiar duty, calling them up to the belfry of the church at any hour of any day, to pour down in the morning or evening stillness or upon the mid-day bustle and noise of the street, the mellow strains of the significant three chorales, and then several days later to accompany the sequel of what those tunes from the belfry told the listener, at a new-made grave in the "God's acre," thoughts most holy and memories exceed- ing tender are associated.
The germ with which the evolution of the band-or to make a more bald distinction from orchestra and trombone choir, in the common parlance of modern times, the "brass band"-started, at Bethlehem, seems to have been the equipment of clarionets, horns and bassoons formed in 1809 by that musical genius, David Moritz Michael, in order to produce his river music, the Wasserfahrt, already referred to. That was probably the most secular sort of music indulged in,
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A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA.
up to that time, at Bethlehem, unless perhaps stealthily by some not always staid musicians inside the walls of the Brethren's House. But soon desire and courage grew in this direction, as the weakening restraints in the matter of militia drill tempted young men to turn out on Battalion Day, and some time in that very year a Bethlehem Band came into existence, called, for a while, the "Columbia Band," which entered into agreement to furnish music for the 97th Regiment of Pennsylvania Militia. It acquired recognized standing and not only grew from twelve to twenty-four members, but, during the subsequent years of its chequered career, enrolled a number of promi- nent names in the musical records of Bethlehem, notably such names as Till, Weiss, Ricksecker, Beckel and Luch, among its performers and many, otherwise prominent, among its supporting members. Then followed, in 1839, an attempt to form a "brass band," strictly speaking, which the other organization through successive changes had not been, but it does not seem to have flourished. In 1845, the year to which this chapter runs, a more successful effort was made, with a prior organization that had played reed instruments, as a nucleus. A full set of brass instruments of newer fashion were secured, and then the later famous "Beckel's Band" emerged into articulate being and lived through the following decade. While a wide distinction is to be made, as before pointed out, between band and trombone choir, the men who did duty in the latter, in those days, were usually members of the former also; such as the patriarchal group whose picture is familiar, Jacob Till, Charles F. Beckel and Jedediah Weiss, with the instrument that had been played by their departed companion, Timothy Weiss, also on the picture. At that time (1845) appears also the name of another in the roster, both of band and trombone choir-one who alone remains of those who then figured, and after more than fifty years of consecutive service is now the patriarch of the trombonists and indeed of Bethlehem musicians -Ambrose H. Rauch, who came to Bethlehem from Lititz and, along with other enterprises, established the well-known bakery and confec- tionery at the site of the historic Beckel farm house. He and Simon Rau are the sole survivors of the men who, as voting citizens, partici- pated in the municipal, industrial and ecclesiastical activities of Beth- lehem before the close of the period included in this chapter. The one other, their senior by a few years, who lived beyond the time of the town's sesqui-centennial, Henry B. Luckenbach, departed this life in 1901. Another contemporary yet living, the former missionary, Gilbert Bishop, who was born and passed his youth at Bethlehem.
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was living elsewhere at the time here had in mind, and did not become a resident of his native place again until some years later.
Renewed agitation of various other changes set in with the spread of the larger public feeling which possessed many under the stimulus of the new school era. There was a growing desire to become a different kind of a town in other particulars also. In the municipal arrangements a quiet, gradual approach towards an organization distinct from the ecclesiastical establishment was in progress. Even as early as the close of 1819, when the plan of streets reported by Administrator Cunow, Jacob Kummer and Samuel Steup-the village engineer corps appointed by the voters of the place in council assembled-was adopted, a succession of more distinct functionaries than had formerly held office of the kind were emerging into promi- nence, combining the duties of street supervisor, chief of police and health officer. At one time there were two serving jointly, like Jonathan Bishop and John Christian Kern, who, in 1821, found the thankless task onerous and begged to be excused. Then, for a season, "one-man power" was embodied in the position. Augustus Milchsack was a prominent incumbent for some years. He had to oversee work on the highways, protect them from encroachments in the shape of building material, fire-wood and the like, and keep them clear of straying cattle and swine; had to guard against such viola- tions of village ordinances by careless people, as endangered health and safety or lowered the standard of neatness and cleanliness for which the place was famous; had also to supervise disbursements from the municipal treasury-Buergerliche Kasse-differentiated by degrees from the congregation diacony and maintained by village taxation. He received the title of Burgomaster. Cumulative respon- sibilities and dignities crystalized about the office until, in many a little thing, the incumbent shared honors with that more powerful official, the Warden, in being dreaded by the delinquent and the transgressing and courted by the dependent and by those who were wanting something. There were also the "Tax Board" and the Overseers of the Poor who, with the Burgomaster and other function- aries, were, under the latest village regulations, chosen in the month of January each year by the voters of the place in Gemeinrath or Congregation Council, which in the latter days of the transition period had, on such occasions, more the character of a citizens' town- meeting than that of a meeting of church members. Reports, financial and otherwise, were rendered on municipal affairs at such meetings and were discussed. Thus the Burgomaster and the other village
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A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA.
officials associated with him, foreshadowed the coming Burgess and Town Council, as a kind of municipal government in training, to which the Warden and that venerable body, the Supervising Board (Aufseher Collegium) delegated functions and routine duties. Besides these were also the Postmaster, Justices and Notaries, with whose appointment the Elders' Conference as such had nothing to do. The
Chas OBshop dlugt 17 h 1852
village also had its fire department and its water department, in no way under their official control. There was more of the machinery of village organization not subject to that board of clergy than is commonly understood, under the erroneous popular supposition that the change from church-village to borough was a sudden crisis.
The matter of improving and extending the water service was one that occasioned frequent deliberations from year to year, the lack of funds being a continual embarrassment. From 1825 to 1829, at intervals, the laying of iron pipes, instead of wooden ones as formerly,
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1826-1845.
or leaden ones also experimented with, which had been commenced as early as 1813, was continued. In 1826, this more durable con- nection was completed to the stand pipe on Market Street, the octagonal stone tower of 1803 a little east of the corner of Cedar Street, which stood until 1832. Then the new reservoir on the higher ground, north of Broad Street and east of New Street, added to that of 1817, on Market Street, with the smaller ones at the apothecary shop, 1805, and that on Church Street, 1806, which remained for many years, rendered it needless. In 1830, the extension of the pipes up Main Street and along a portion of Broad Street was completed. In 1831, that excellent and well-located building, the oil-mill, was secured to contain the new pump put in by the water committee in 1832, in order to meet the increasing demand, while the grinding of oat and buckwheat meal was yet continued in part of it ; these products acquiring a high reputation under Charles David Bishop, the lessee, 1835-1847, who twenty-five years before had man- aged the combination industry in that mill for the Brethren's House Diacony-a reputation sustained in later years under the management of his son who is yet living, the venerable Gilbert Bishop, so that long after he had to vacate in 1874, because the entire building was needed for the water works, city dealers continued to plume themselves with the oat and buckwheat meal alleged to have been ground there, as a specialty, and report has it that, even yet, some are advertising the "celebrated Bethlehem buckwheat flour." The water supply contin- ued to be in charge of such a water committee until the incorporation, in 1845, of the "Bethlehem Water Company," which, in 1871, sold out to the Borough, when this important department of municipal service again passed under the control of a "water committee."
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