USA > Pennsylvania > Bucks County > History of Bucks County, Pennsylvania: From the Discovery of the Delaware to the Present Time (Volume 1 and 2) > Part 48
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From its organization the society has been active in collecting local history and curios of various kinds, and in its museum are nearly two thousand speci- mens ; the most interesting feature being the "Tools of the Nation Maker," em- bracing implements of the cabin, field and forest used by the pioneers in found- ing Penn's colony. Among its work we take pleasure in enumerating its "Lit- erary Collection," made up of papers read at the meetings on various historic subjects sufficient for two or three volumes of five hundred pages each ; an album of "Picturesque History," embracing a collection of over two hundred pictures, the product of photographic art; an illustrated catalogue of 761 specimens of "Tools of the Nation Maker;" and pamphlets on "Light and Fire Making;" "The Survival of the Medieval Art of Illuminative Writing Among Pennsyl- vania Germans," and "Durham Stove Plates." In addition to the above work of the society it has erected the following memorials : Bronze tablets at Washing- ton's headquarters, Keith house, Upper Makefield, immediately preceding the battle of Trenton, and at the Moland house on the York road near Hartsville, Warwick township ; also Washington's headquarters, immediately preceding the battle of the Brandywine, and at which both Lafayette and Count Pulaski re- ported for duty in the Continental army, in August, 1777 ; also monuments at "Washington's Crossing, Taylorsville, and to mark the starting point of the "Walking Purchase," Wrightstown. The Historical Society has taken its place as an educator with the public schools of the county.
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CHAPTER XXVI.
SCHOOLS AND EDUCATION.
Scant data .- First school teacher .- Friends' interest in education .- The meeting and the school .- Penn favored free schools .- Thomas Watson's Indian school .- Higher edu- cation .- School at Newtown .- Durham furnace school .- German schools .- Moravian influence .- Quakertown school .- Lurgan and its scholars .- Yearly Meeting's interest. -Libraries and Academies .- Duncan MacGregor's school .- Log College .- Hart's school house .- Southampton classical school .- Buckingham schools .- Hartsville a school centre .- Early Middletown school .- Charles Fortman's music .- Fractur and stove plates as educators .- Public school system .- Wolf and Stevens .- First county superintendent .- County Institutes .- Their progress and usefulness .- Local Institutes. -School statistics .- Colleges in original Bucks .- Their history .- Lafayette .- Lehigh University and Muhlenberg .- Students, et al. from this county.
In attempting to write a chapter on "Schools and Education," in Bucks county, the author fully realizes the difficulties that lay in his path. For the first century after its settlement, the information is not very reliable, and scant at that. There was no pretense of any system of education, and the few rec- ords on the subject were seldom preserved. Doubtless the Dutch, Swedes and Finns, who preceded the English and were the first settlers on the Delaware, had schools of some sort wherein their children were taught the meagre book learning the time and condition demanded. It is estimated there were about three thousand of these pioneers on the river when Penn arrived, though few in Bucks county. Some had been here a number of years and a few had taken up land. Interest in education was manifested on the Delaware as early as 1659, if not before, for, in that year children were sent to a Latin school in New York. There is but a single mention made of teaching on the Delaware prior to 1682. This was in Bensalem, 1679, when Duncan Williamson made a bar- gain with Edmund Draufton, probably a school master, to teach his children to read the Bible. The sum agreed upon was two hundred guilders, the time one year. When the contract was completed Williamson refusing to pay, Draufton brought suit and recovered and doubtless got his money.
While the Friends were the real pioneers in education in Bucks county, in later years their efforts were seconded by other denominations. In 1693, eleven years after Penn founded his colony, the Assembly made the teaching of every child to read and write an imperative duty. This speaks volumes for the early Friends, when we know the Puritans had been a quarter of a century in Massachusetts before taking such action. Here the erection of the school
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house followed closely on the building of the meeting house, the children of Friends, and frequently of the whole neighborhood, receiving the rudiments of an English education at the expense of the meeting. They were sometimes aided by voluntary contributions. The same may be said of the Welsh Baptist, Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, Low Dutch Reformed and at a later day, the German Reformed and Lutherans. The church and the school were side by side in a common cause.
A recognition of the necessity of non-sectarian schools at that early day, was remarkable and a number were established, the expense being borne pro- rata by the contributors, evidence the early settlers of Bucks county were em- bued with a liberal spirit. William Penn favored free schools from the first settlement of the Province. Burlington Island in the Delaware was thought, at first, to belong to the Western shore, but, when the error was discovered and it was confirmed by the Provincial Assembly, to Burlington on the east shore, the condition was added that the proceeds arising from its sale should be applied to the maintenance of a free school for the education of the youth of Burlington.
It would be interesting to note the improvement in the first generation of school houses on the west banks of the Delaware, and the advance in educa- tion, for no doubt they were considerable, but we are without knowledge. A few years after the new century opened and subsequent to 1704, Thomas Watson, Buckingham, who took a lively interest in the welfare of the Indians, opened a school for them. Wrightstown meeting built a school house as early as 1725, possibly earlier, by subscription, and it was standing in 1815. On completion of Falls new meeting house, 1733, the old building was fitted up for a school house and a dwelling built for the schoolmaster in 1758. By the will of Joseph Kirkbride, Jr., 1736, his son Joseph was instructed "to put foo at interest toward raising a fund toward a free school, at or near Falls meet- ing house." The first school house in Upper Makefield, so far as known, was a rude log cabin on the "Windy Bush" farm, 1730, and William Atkinson was the teacher.
The schools were changed for the better at the close of the first quarter of the eighteenth century. About this time, or possibly before, for the date is uncertain, the Friends of Middletown established what has the reputation of being the best school in the county at the time. In 1734 the teacher was Thomas Atherton. The first step toward higher education was taken when the Rev. William Tennent opened the celebrated Log College, in Warminster township. It is thought he first commenced the school in his own dwelling, his primary object being the education of his four sons. There is some uncer- tainty as to the exact date of the college opening but it was 1730-35, and was the parent at the later period of two other classical schools that will be mentioned later in the same section of the county, whose influence, with that of the Log College, has not been entirely obliterated. Everything considered, the Log College was the most remarkable seat of learning on the continent in its period. Its usefulness is best told in the lives of its pupils. Fourteen be- came ministers of the gospel, exercising an astonishing influence on that rude period. Among them were Samuel Blair, known in church history as the "incomparable Blair," Charles Beatty, William Robinson, Samuel Finley, John Roan, Daniel Lawrence, James McCrea, John Rowland, William Dean and Daniel Alexander, a splendid galaxy to come from one little log school house in the woods.
Tradition tells us one of the earliest schools at Newtown was on the
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"common" at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Andrew McMinn, teacher there for forty years was as early as 1772, and still there in 1808. He was a character. He was called "Andy," sat in a large arm chair when ruling his domain, wore a three-cornered broad brim, and loved whiskey and tobacco. Richard Gibbs was a teacher in Bensalem, 1746, and 1754. Adam Harker, Middletown, left £75 to establish a free school in Wrightstown, and £40 for the same purpose in Buckingham. There is supposed to have been a school house at Oak Grove, Lower Makefield, one hundred and fifty years ago; and as Thomas Yardley left a lot for a school at his death, 1756, where the present one stands, it was probably the lot mentioned. Thomas Langley was a teacher in Upper Makefield, 1756; a son of Nathan Walton, Falls, 1759, and the Friends of Plumstead one in charge of the meeting, 1752. This is a brief view of the schools in Lower and Middle Bucks down to about 1750, and we regret it is not more exact.
As the upper end of the county was settled later, the Germans were be- hind the English-speaking settlers in education. There were many cultivated men among them, however, and when they got to work made progress. The first school on the Upper Delaware was at Durham furnace, opened shortly after the 1727 furnace was built. It was classical and mathematical, and kept up until 1800. The first teacher was William Satterthwaite,1 one of Pennsyl- vania's early poets, who taught there 1740-45, at a fixed salary, and occasion- ally until 1760, and was followed by John Ross, Thomas McKeen, and others, who became prominent. Richard H. Homer taught there, 1746. This school was taken down, 1800, and two new ones erected in its stead, one near the furnace, the others at Laubach's. Rufe school house, on the Easton road, midway between Durham and Stony Point, was built, 1802. As Durham was settled by English-speaking people there were but few if any Germans there so early. This school was established by the furnace company.
In 1746 the members of Trinity congregation, Springfield, Lutheran and Reformed, worshipped in a building used as a school house, but the time of its erection, or opening of the school, is not known. As the township was settled in 1735, the house was probably built soon after. The Reformed denomination had a log school house on Tohickon creek in 1743. The vicinity was settled in 1738-40, and in this school house the Tohickon church organization was completed. The school house stood on the Rockhill side of the creek. The Lutherans, who joined with the Reformed in worshiping in Tohickon church, had a school there in 1754, a few hundred yards south of the crossing of the old Bethlehem road. When the Mennonites replaced their log church, built 1746, by a stone one, in 1766, the old building was given up for a school house. Doubtless the previous school house was as old as the meeting house. Richland township raised a school fund for the education of poor children of any denomination in 1762; and in 1775, a German school was established in Nockamixon under the auspices of the Reformed church, with Henry Nei- myer for teacher. All the early German churches had schools at their side. Thomas Wright taught school at Dyerstown, 1763, two miles above Doyles- town, but we do not know when he left. His son became a merchant at Wilkes- barre, and Asher Miner, who founded the Bucks County Intelligencer, 1804, married his daughter.
The Moravians were an important factor in early education in Upper
I By reference to the chapter on "The Poets and Poetry of Bucks County," addi- tional information will be found of Satterthwaite.
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Bucks. In 1742-46, six hundred of this denomination settled on the Lehigh, and many of them being educated men and women they had much to do in moulding the early settlers and their children, of other denominations. In May, 1747, a school was opened for boys on the south bank of the Lehigh in the "Berenger" house just below the New Street bridge. It was occupied as a girls' school, in 1749, and continued to December, 1753. A boarding school for girls was opened at Bethlehem the same year and continued until 1815; and the Nazareth boarding school for boys was opened, 1752. The cultivation of music was an early feature of Moravian social life, and instrumental music of their religious worship as early as 1745. The first organ was set up at Bethlehem, 1751, and probably the first in the county. At the first harvest, gathered on the Lehigh, the reapers marched to their work accompanied by the clergy and a band of music. By 1746 the Moravians had established fifteen schools among the Scotch-Irish and German settlers, in which their children were taught gratis. It must be borne in mind, that at this time the Lehigh country, and beyond, were part of Bucks county, and belonged to Penn's colony.
As Quakertown and vicinity were settled by Friends in the early part of the century, they were not behind their co-religionists of lower Bucks in the cause of education. Shortly after they were allowed a monthly meeting, 1742, a school of high grade was opened in the meeting house and continued many years. It became so popular with the Germans they sent their children from Northampton and Berks counties. When it was closed we are not in- formed. Upper Makefield had a school of higher grade nearly a century and a half ago, called "Lurgan," after James Logan's birthplace, Ireland. The first house was erected about 1755 and several distinguished men were educated in it, including Judge John Ross, of the State Supreme court, Oliver H. Smith, senator in Congress from Indiana, whither he emigrated, Dr. Moses Smith, a distinguished physician, Philadelphia, and Joseph Fell, one of the most prom- inent educators of the county. The school was kept up until after the common school system was established. It is related of Senator Smith, that one day while a group of senators was chatting. the question of the colleges they graduated at came up. One answered Harvard, another Yale, etc., etc., and when Smith's turn came he quietly responded "Lurgan," an institution they had never heard of. Whether he enlightened them we do not know. Among the teachers there was one Norton, son of a Richard Norton, an early settler ; another named Houghton, who came from New Jersey, married here and then returned. Timothy Eastburn's wife was a great-granddaughter.
We do no injustice to other religious denominations in saying the Friends were leading factors in education to the close of the eighteenth cen- tury. Much of this work was done through their meetings. From 1746 the Yearly meetings expressed great interest in the improvement of schools, and made recommendations as to the character and permanency of teachers. In 1778, a committee of Friends recommended the Yearly Meeting to collect a fund "for the establishment and support of schools," and that a lot of ground- be provided within the bounds of the meeting. The early school houses under whatever influence built, were dark, uncomfortable, affairs, teachers generally incompetent and pay small .. After the close of the Revolution, and before the new Federal government had given stability to society and prosperity to busi- ness, there was an educational awakening. In 1790 Wrightstown meeting ap- pointed a committee to carry into effect the recommendation of the Yearly meeting on the subject. In the two following decades the cause of education was
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stimulated by the gift of lots and the erection of school houses in several parts of the county. In H. M. Jenkins' "Historical Collections of Gwynedd," mention is made of Joshua Woolston's boarding school at Fallsington, Falls township, supposed to have been established about the close of the eighteenth century, but we could get nothing more definite on the subject. In this period two Academies were built, one at Newtown, 1798, the other at Doylestown, 1804, both the work of Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, and several libraries es- tablished. The pioneer library was that at Newtown, 1760, followed by others at Buckingham and Quakertown, 1795, Falls, 1802, and Attleborough, now Langhorne, 1803.2 The Academies did much for the cause of education, and sev- eral hundred, perhaps thousands, attended these popular schools. At the be- ginning of the century there were at least six schools, mostly elementary, and supported by private contributions within the bounds of Neshaminy church, Warwick. In 1800 there was a similar school at Deep Run, Bedminster, kept for several years in a house belonging to the Presbyterian church. A school was kept in Nockamixon from 1787 to 1797 by Henry Thumpare, and by John Breamer, 1797 to 1803, when a new stone school house. was erected, and the first English school in the township was kept in it by George Hand. In the early part of the last century, probably 1812-15, Duncan MacGregor opened a classical school at Bridge Point on the Easton road a mile below Doylestown. He had charge of languages and other higher studies, while his two daugh- ters instructed in the ordinary branches. To this school some of the leading families of the neighborhood sent their sons. The late Judge Henry Chap- man was a pupil.
The establishment of the "Log College," Warminster township, by Wil- liam Tennent, 1735, gave an impetus to higher education in Bucks county that can hardly be appreciated at the present day. This famous school made that location an educational centre and maintained it for over a century. It was the parent of the classical and mathematical school taught for many years in what was known as "Hart's school house," two miles east of the "Log Col- lege," on the road from Johnsville to the Bristol road. Just when the first school house was built is unknown, but it was old enough, 1756, to be replaced with a new one. At that time James Sterling taught Latin, Greek and English there. This was followed by a classical and mathematical school in the little stone school house at the Southampton Baptist church, a mile distant on the Middle road, 1740-50, and probably before. Isaac Eaton, a distinguished Baptist minister, and Jesse Moore, brother of Dr. Moore, and subsequently a tutor at the University of Pennsylvania, were teachers here; and among the pupils, were the Rev. Oliver Hart, pastor, for thirty years, of the First Baptist church, Charleston, South Carolina, and Joseph Gales, one of the proprietors and publishers of the National Intelligencer, Washington, D. C. We have no doubt the Log College was also the parent of the Southampton Classical school, and the teachers probably studied under Tennent.
Buckingham township was fortunate in the quality of her early schools. In 1755, Adam Harker left £40 toward maintaining a free school in the care of the Monthly meeting; in 1772, Israel Pemberton gave a lot for a school at
2 The first country library established in Pennsylvania, 1755, was at the "Crooked Billet," now Hatboro, Montgomery county, then Philadelphia. The leaders in this work were Joseph Hart and Daniel Longstreth, both of Warminster, within a mile and a half 'of the "Billet." That place was then a centre for the surrounding country and the li- brary was almost a Bucks county affair. It is still in existence and prosperous.
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Bushington ;21/2 in 1789 Thomas Smith gave a lot on the Street road whereon the "Red School House" was built, but subsequently turned into a dwelling ; and "Tyro Hall," built about 1790, became, in its day, noted among local schools. Of the pupils who attended here were Judge Edward M. Paxson and D. Newlin Fell of the State Supreme Court, and others distinguished in public life. The "Hughesian Free School" was founded on a bequest of twenty thou- sand dollars worth of real and personal property, by Amos Austin Hughes, at his death, 1811, and a charter obtained and building erected. The school was maintained to within recent years, when the income of the fund and school building were turned over to the public school of the township. Martha Hampton and Hannah Lloyd opened a boarding school for girls, 1830, at Greenville, the present Holicong, and kept it many years. When the Bucking- ham and Solebury Friends separated, 1808, their joint school fund was divided, Solebury getting four thousand five hundred dollars. To what educational uses it was put we are not informed.
Within the past seventy-five years, Hartsville in Warwick and Warminster townships, was the centre of a group of private schools where the languages and higher mathematics were taught, and whose founding was undoubtedly inspired by the tradition and memory of the "Log College." These embraced the schools of the Revs. Robert B. Belville, Samuel Long, James P. Wilson, Rev. Jacob Belville, Mahlon and Charles Long, and a classical school in Dar- rah's wood. The oldest school house of all was a small stone in the grave yard of Neshaminy church, torn down half a century ago. They educated many men who made their mark in life. These schools have gone into his- tory and none are left to take their place. They could all be seen from the top of Carr's hill, as one looked down into the valley of Neshaminy. In 1833- 34, an effort was made to establish a college on the Delaware below Bristol, but it proved a failure.3 The only higher grade of school in Middletown in the last century was opened at Attleborough, 1834, chartered, 1835, and while in operation, almost forty years, bore the names of "Bellevue Institute," "Minerva Seminary," and "Attleborough Academy." Among the pupils who attended this many-named school was the late Samuel J. Randall, speaker of the United States House of Representatives.
During this period, while the Germans did not keep pace with the Eng- lish-speaking townships, their progress was considerable. In 1805, Colonel Piper and others built a school house on the Easton road, near Pipersville,
21/2 This Indenture witnesseth that Israel Pemberton of the city of Philadelphia, merchant, for and in consideration of the great importance of schools being set up and maintained in convenient and suitable places for the education and improvement of chil- dren and youth in useful learning, and as contribution or donation towards encouraging and promoting so laudable a purpose, hath seen fit to grant and confirm unto Thomas Watson and James Flack, both of Buckingham township, Bucks county and their heirs, a certain tract of land in Buckingham aforesaid, on the west side of York Road, * * . for the use of the inhabitants of the neighborhood and thereaway, and such and so many of them as shall contribute to the erecting a school house and setting up and supporting a school house thereon. In case of death or removal of said Thomas Watson and James Flack and their heirs, to such person, or persons successively, as the contributors to said school shall see fit to nominate to succeed them in that trust. To be held by the said Thomas Watson and James Flack and their heirs and such successors in fee for the pur- pose above mentioned forever. Dated June 4, 1772.
3 A brief history of Bristol College will be found in Chapter IX.
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taken down only a few years ago. In 1814 Charles Fortman, graduate of a German University, taught a piano class at Nicholas Buck's, Nockamixon, probably the first in the county. He taught music in three languages, his in- struction books being manuscript written by himself. The early Germans were pioneers in musical culture. They added a new study to the curriculum of country school education by the reproduction of the Medieval art of illu- minative writing called "Fractur." It was generally in black, but frequently in
colors, and exhibits no mean appreciation of art. It was practiced in our German schools+ as recent as 1854, about the time English schools were opened. Next in order comes decorative Durham stove plates, of various designs and patterns, such as "Adam and Eve," "Joseph and. Potiphar's Wife," and the "Dance of Death." One of these stove plates bears the date, 1741. The Frac- tur was part of German art education of the period and must be set down to their credit. Some think decorative stove plates were of German design, and doubtless, German text, taught and practiced in English schools sixty-five years ago, was the offspring of Fractur, the remains of this branch of decora- tive school of art. The country day school handed down from colonial days was primitive, but the pupils made improvement under their simple system. Some of our readers received part, if not all, their scholastic learning within their walls, and in them some laid the foundation for future greatness. The teacher was called "master" and such he was, in fact, and the discipline severe. The pupils were never known to be "spoiled" by "sparing the rod," the pay was ridiculously small, three cents a day per scholar, and the author taught one summer in his native village for this magnificent salary. Not infrequently the children had to walk one and a half or two miles to school in the heat of summer, and through the snow and mud of winter. If the range of studies was not broad, the few branches were well taught. The average scholar was well grounded in arithmetic, and more attention was paid to penmanship than at the present day. I speak of sixty-five years ago, when the road side country school was at its best. German text, and other illuminative writing, was much in vogue. As a penman, William Maddock was not excelled. He began teaching late in the twenties at the "eight-square" on the Montgomery county line a mile and a half from Davisville, and subsequently at "Hart's" school house, Warminster. Penmanship was his specialty, and in this he was an artist." Since then the improved methods in teaching have been tremendous, so great, in fact, we fear parents do not realize the present advantages their children enjoy.
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