USA > Pennsylvania > Perry County > History of Perry County, Pennsylvania, including descriptions of Indians and pioneer life from the time of earliest settlement, sketches of its noted men and women and many professional men > Part 34
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Rev. Alfred Helfenstein, pastor at Carlisle, was the first one to come over the mountain and hold services. On October 3, 1819, Rev. Jacob Scholl assumed the regular pastorate of the Sherman's Valley charge, which extended as far as New Bloomfield. By 1838 the work had become so extended on this charge that it was divided. Rev. Scholl remained at the Landisburg end until 1841, when he accepted a call to the lower end and remained pastor of the New Bloomfield charge until his death on September 4, 1847. His successor, Rev. C. II. Leinbach, served sixteen and a half years. From then on the pastors have been the same as those found under the Landisburg Reformed Church. See Landisburg chapter.
Mt. Zion Lutheran Church. The Mt. Zion Lutheran Church's home was jointly with St. Peter's Reformed in the old Union church building just previously described, and was known as St. Peter's Lutheran congregation. In 1857 this old church was dis- mantled and each congregation built its own church. The Lu- theran then became Mt. Zion, and was dedicated May 30, 1858, Rev. Philip Willard then became the pastor. Stephen Losh was the contractor and the contract price was $2.300.00. George Sheaffer. . Jeremiah Dunkelberger, and Joseph Dunkelberger were the build- ing committee. It was extensively repaired in 1882 and again in 1894. Starting with Rev. John F. Osterloh, in ISO9, the ministers have been the same as those of the Lutheran Church at Loysville. See chapter relating to Tyrone Township.
Mt. Pisgah Lutheran Church. The Lutherans of Carroll Town- ship were among those who first attended church at Carlisle, cross-
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ing the Kittatinny Mountain. Later they worshiped at Mt. Zion, described above, and at St. Peter's, in Spring Township. They had preaching services occasionally at Reiber's schoolhouse by Rev. Keller and Rev. Heyser, of the Carlisle churches. In 1838 they began holding their own services regularly, every four weeks, and a year later became a regularly organized congregation.
Their church is located in Carroll Township, on the southern side of Sherman's Creek, and is near the site of Sutch's school- house, which was built between 1775 and 1780. There is an old graveyard there where many pioneers sleep. In 1842 Abraham Jacobs donated a lot for church purposes, with a proviso that when the Lutherans were not using it for their services it was to be available for any Christian denomination. A frame church was built and dedicated September 24, 1842. Its pastors were :
Rev. John Ulrich, 1838-42. Rev. Levi T. Williams, 1842-45. Rev. Lloyd Knight, 1845-49.
Rev. Jacob Kempfer, 1842. Rev. Jacob Martin, 1850.
In 1851 the church united with the Petersburg (now Dimcan- non) charge, whose pastors served it until 1870, since which time it has had no regular services. During June, 1920, it was re- opened for a service by Rev. Longanecker, pastor of the Loysville church. Pastors of two other denominations joined in a com- munity service, designed to keep this old landmark from passing.
Other Churches. The history of all the churches throughout the county, save these very early ones, appears in the chapters devoted to the various townships and boroughs. Where facts are missing. and there are some, letters sent out for information remained un- answered, with the necessarily attendant result.
Oldest Burial Ground. Just which is the oldest burial ground in the county is at this late date a matter of conjecture. In the Evarts, Peck & Richards History of the Juniata and Susquehanna Valleys, Horace E. Sheibley says :
"The site of the old Sherman's Creek Church, near Shermans- dale, is marked by an old graveyard, on what is known as the Zeigler property, between Fio Forge and Dellville, and where tra- dition claims that the first white man buried in the county was laid. In it are interred ancestors of the Stewarts and Kirkpatricks. of Duncannon." Swisshelms are also among those buried there.
The Sherman's Creek Church, which was the forerunner of the present Shermansdale Presbyterian Church, can be traced back to 1778, when it first appeared in the records of Presbytery, but it may have been organized before that or been a community affair for a time. Likewise, it may have been built where burials had previously been made.
In 1766 three church organizations were formed within the lim- its of the present county; where Centre Church now stands, at
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HISTORY OF PERRY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
Dick's Gap, and at or near Blain. In the cemetery at Centre, among other old stones, is one bearing the following legend :
Here lies the body of Martha Robison, Who departed this life December 22, 1766, In the Sist year of her age.
What relation she was to that memorable Robinson family which so often befriended the persecuted pioneers and much of whose history is recorded in these pages, must forever remain un- known, but barring tradition, her interment must have been among the first. So soon after the entry of the settlers in 1755 did the Indians arrive that there may have been no deaths at that time, but the returning settlers came back in large numbers in 1762, and it is hardly likely that there were no deaths in over four years among all the number, so that in the opinion of the writer the death of Martha Robison was not the first, but it is the first of which we could find record. Tradition has pioneers buried in the St. Michael's Lutheran churchyard in 1763, after massacres by the Indians. During the Indian invasion of 1755 there were also deaths, but where burial took place is not known. The tradition as to the old Sherman's Creek yard containing the first grave of a white man may be correct. In the cemetery at Loysville are a number of graves of persons who died prior to 1800, which at- tests the fact that this was a burying ground already over a cen- tury and a quarter ago. The Blain burial ground already existed 111 .1766.
Wilson College Planned. Eighteen miles north of Mason and Dixon's line, at Chambersburg, in the beautiful Cumberland Val- ley, Wilson College, a leading women's college is located. Its first board of trustees was appointed at a meeting in the Presbyterian Church at Duncannon, at which time it was decided to open the college. Members of the Presbytery of Carlisle began a move- ment in 1868 for the formation of a college, and laid their repre- sentations before the spring meeting of Presbytery at Greencastle. April 15, 1868. It was favorably received and referred to the Committee on Education, which met at Duncannon, in June, 1868. There the action was favorable and the first plans of that great institution were made in Perry County. The Pennsylvania Legis- lature chartered it March 24, 1869. Its location was determined by a gift of great value by Miss Sarah Wilson, which enabled the trustees to purchase the residence of that former Perry Countian, Col. A. K. McClure, together with its fifty-two acres of adjoining lands, to-day the college grounds.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE COUNTY SCHOOLS, PAST AND PRESENT.
T HE first schools anywhere, ordained of God, were families, where parents taught their children to live in the fear and admonition of the Lord. Undoubtedly, as many facts in this book will verify, the carly settlers of this territory brought with them from their homes Christian principles, which caused them to think early of their education along secular as well as religious lines. The early churches were used as schools in some instances, and where there was a schoolhouse and no church the condition was reversed, and the "meetings," as they were then known, were held in the schoolhouses.
When William Penn became the proprietary of the Province of Pennsylvania he was not unmindful of the necessity of an educa- tional system, for he knew that a free government depended on an intelligent people for its success as well as its perpetuity. The second Assembly convened at Philadelphia in 1683, and on March Ioth of that year enacted the following law with reference to the education of the children of the province :
"And to the end that the Poor as well as the Rich may be instructed in good and commendable learning, which is to be preferred before wealth, "Be it enacted by the authority aforesaid, That all persons within this Province and territories thereof, having children, and all the Guardians or Trustees of Orphans, shall cause such to be instructed in reading and writing, so that they may be able to read the Scriptures, and to write by the time they attain to the age of twelve years, and that then they be taught some useful trade or skill, that ye poor may work to live, and the Rich, if they become poor, may not want, of which every county court shall take care; and in case such Parents, Guardians or Overseers shall be found deficient in this respect, every such Parent, Guardian or Over- seer shall pay for every such child five pounds, except there should appear an incapacitie of body or understanding to hinder it."
While the law referred to the province generally yet it is con- sidered especially applicable here, as Perry County has ever been considered one of the foremost counties in the state in an educa- tional way. It shows that the carly legislators of the province were concerned with education and that the courts by that act re- ceived their first authority to require attendance at school.
When the State Constitution of Pennsylvania was adopted in 1790 it contained a provision for the establishment of schools throughout the commonwealth, that the poor might be taught gratis and that the arts and sciences should be promoted through one or more institutions of learning, but left to the legislature the fram-
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HISTORY OF PERRY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
ing of the provisions. Pursuant thereto the act for the education of poor children was passed April 4, 1809. It savored more of philanthropy than of wisdom. The assessors, according to the provisions of the bill, were required to take a census of "all chil- dren between the ages of five and twelve, whose parents were un- able to pay for their schooling." thus putting both child and parent in an equivocal position. Naturally the raising of a class distinc- tion between pay pupils and charity pupils made the system odious
PROF. D. A. KLINE, Present Co. Supt. of Schools.
from the beginning, and the object of the law thus became prac- tically null and void. As a whole it developed caste among even the children. Many of the poor would as soon have seen their children grow up in ignorance as to have had them considered paupers. These schools were known as "charity schools." While generally a failure yet it did some good, and in later years the commonwealth had the spectacle of boys whose fathers had paid for their attendance sitting in the highest positions besides boys whose tuition had been paid by the public, an everlasting reminder that the Creator of the universe gives to neither rich nor poor a
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COUNTY SCHOOLS, PAST AND PRESENT
superior quality of brains. In our highest position in the land, the Presidency, this is well illustrated in the cases of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt, Wash- ington and Roosevelt being children of the more wealthy, and Lin- coln being born in a log cabin and poor even when he attained that great office. This charity idea had been tried before. About 1750 about £20,000 were raised in Europe for the purpose of opening charity schools among the Germans in America. Some were opened, but the Germans did not welcome the idea of charity. The object then had a double purpose, that of weaning them from their language, and with a political object in view. It ended in failure.
The early settlers of the county territory experienced all the privations incident to frontier life. The first settlers were either driven out or murdered, and not until after the Revolution was it possible to do anything with a view to permanency. The first schools were usually community affairs, and the branches taught were the rudimentary spelling, reading, writing, and arithmetic. The houses were built of logs and were very crude. The desks or tables and the seats were made of boards and slabs, and the win- dows had greased paper in place of window glass.
A sparse population extending over a wide extent of country, mainly covered with dense forests and destitute of roads and bridges, was not conducive to the establishment of good schools within convenient distances. The occupations of the pioneers also were such that the time to be devoted to education was limited. owing to the necessity of clearing lands and erecting houses and other farm buildings, while, at the same time planting and harvest- ing the products of the soil to maintain a livelihood. There was no labor-saving machinery then and agricultural operations were of necessity slow and tedious. The threshing of the crops, now done in a day or two, then required months, as the "flail" was the "machinery" then in use to get the grain from the stalk. The daughters of the pioneers were just as much needed in the homes, as then all clothing was made by hand, and the operations of the spinning wheel and the needle (there being no sewing machines). along with the other household duties, required their constant attention.
The schools in those days were ruled to a great extent by cruel methods of punishment and humiliation. The "locking out of the teacher" was a holiday and last-day custom in many parts of the county. At Millerstown, during one of these frolics, Valentine Varnes, the teacher, had an arm injured, the use of which was impaired for the balance of his life. Many pupils had no books at all. Others had perchance a Bible, a speller or an old English reader. A few had slates. Fewer still had foolscap paper. These
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HISTORY OF PERRY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
were invariably boys, as it was considered unnecessary for girls to learn to write or "figure." The few who had copy books were also the possessors of goose quills, as Joseph Gillett did not invent the steel pen until 1820. By introducing machinery in manufac- ture the price became as low as twenty-five cents each, after which a few found their way into the schools. There was no uniformity in the use of textbooks, each pupil bringing such as the family pos- sessed. History, geography, grammar, physiology, and algebra were unknown in the schools of that day. In 1823 the Columbia Standard spelling book was the one in general use in the new county.
No attention was given to elementary sounds, yet many good spellers came out of our earlier schools; in fact, the scholars of a half century ago were probably better spellers than are their de- scendants of to-day, but the present-day pupils have far more branches. When geography was first taught the method was to have the pupil learn all the states and their capitals, even singing them in order to memorize. Blackboards were practically unknown until about 1850. The teachers wrote the copy for the copy books of foolscap paper. Shortly after the organization of Perry County the old log schoolhouses were gradually replaced by frame struc- tures, which had better light, but were not nearly so warm. About the middle of the last century the red brick buildings began re- placing the frame, being known universally as "the little red schoolhouse."
For those who disparage these early pioneer schools or "the little red schoolhouse," which followed in their wake the writer has little sympathy, as the fine new high school building in many a place is but the fruition of the seed sown over a century ago; and we know that with the hundreds of disadvantages under which they labored, they did well, and buildled better than they knew. 'These new high school buildings with plastered and papered walls, fine desks, books galore, heated throughout at the same tempera- ture, no matter what the condition of the weather, are the logical successors of these little log schoolhouses just as much as is the fine modern passenger train with its vestibuled cars the successor of the Conestoga wagon and the packet boat. Without the one we would never have progressed to the other. Practically all great institutions and machines are the results of progression and the products of many minds and years of experience and experiment.
'Throughout the state there was more or less opposition to progress in education. A strange coincidence along this line is worthy of reproduction here. A number of young men decided that they wanted an academy at Bath, Northampton County, so as to secure a more advanced education. They decided to canvass the community for subscriptions, and among others upon whom they
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called was George Wolf, a German who was located in the neigh- borhood. He refused, remarking in broken English, "Dis etication and dings make raskels." Ile later on relented and helped build the academy. In inducing the subscription his young caller men- tioned his two sons, George and Philip, as probable future bene- ficiaries of the school, and suggested that his favorite son, George, might get an education and some day become governor, to which he replied, "Vell, den, when my George is gobernor, he will be queer times." The sequel is that George Wolf got his English education in that academy and did become the governor of his state, and one of the most illustrious of his time, being the first governor to call attention to the appalling condition of ignorance which faced the commonwealth.
'The passage of the act of 1834 to a great extent can be credited to Governor Wolf, who in 1833 had become acquainted with the fact that while there were four hundred thousand children of school age in the state there were but twenty thousand in school, or while one was getting an education there were nineteen others growing up illiterate. In his annual message to the legislature he mentioned these facts and appealed for legislation to remedy this appalling condition.
The first effort at establishing a free school system in the state was in 1820, when a Dr. Cummings, a member of the Pennsylvania Legislature, introduced a bill to establish one. It failed to pass and the author was not reelected, as that act caused him to be re- garded as a dangerous man and his constituency felt disgraced by his actions. Henry Beeson, of Fayette County, introduced an- other in 1825. It too failed.
All the legislative acts prior to 1834 are generally known as acts of pauper legislation, but the legislature of that year passed the common school act which is to-day the basis of our public school law. This act completely revolutionized school affairs. School directors were elected in every district, arrangements were made for new buildings, taxes were levied and assessed, teachers were employed, and the children of the rich and the poor met on a com- mon level. In some districts of Perry County for a year or two the provisions of the act were not accepted, but generally speaking, it was the other way. In some counties it was opposed for many years; in one where the population was mostly German, two- thirds of the districts did not adopt it until after 1850, and some as late as 1864. These German communities had a sort of a paro- chial school system of their own which they feared would be de- stroyed. As an example, of the local aversion to the free school system, John Bair, Sr., father of John Bair, later president of the Peoples' Bank of Newport, refused to let his children attend the free schools of Buffalo Township for the first two terms.
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HISTORY OF PERRY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
When the free school law became effective in 1834 the court did not appoint directors to serve until the necessary elections took place the following spring. In 1836, the first year after the intro- duction of the system, Perry County stood third in the state in its support. Of the thirteen districts then reporting Toboyne Town- ship was the only one to stand out against acceptance. In 1837, Millerstown, then in Greenwood Township, had a five-months' term. As early as that year Saville Township had twelve female and five male teachers. In the remainder of the county there were only four other females employed. When it passed the represen- tative from Perry County, then but recently formed, was John Johnston, the second son of George and Margaret ( Russell) John- ston, emigrants who had come from Ireland and settled in Toboyne Township. He was of athletic build and weighed more than two hundred pounds, was well read, and was supporting Thaddeus Stevens in the passage of the bill, when he was interrupted by a member of slight stature, with the interrogation, "What do you raise in Perry County ?" Quick as a flash he retorted, "We raise men," and his erect and well formed body, coupled with his ability and quick wit, at once substantiated the statement. Within recent years the writer had a similar experience along the same line. Being queried by several companions as to "what Perry County produced," the retort was, "The county school superintendents of both your counties," for the one interrogater was from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, where Prof. Daniel Fleisher was then county superintendent, and the other was from Mercer County, New Jersey, where Prof. Joseph M. Arnold is superintendent of schools.
These early schools were open for but short periods, from one to three months, but the Act of 1854 made the minimum term four months. It was increased to five months in 1872, to six months in 1887, and to seven months in 1899. In 1893 a law was passed providing for the furnishing of free textbooks to all pupils.
Every step in advancement along educational lines in the state has been fought, and when the Act of 1854 created the office of county superintendent of schools it was considered a mighty un- popular piece of legislation, and in nearly all of the counties of the state the position carried a niggardly wage to the new official, the school directors being the final authority on salary. However, the influence of the county superintendency soon became apparent in the improved condition of the schools, in the higher standards of teachers, and in a greater interest in education generally. The organization of teachers' institutes and the establishment of normal schools were two of the indirect results of the institution of the county superintendency. As an example of the salaries first paid county superintendents, note the following: Lancaster County
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paid $1,500, the only county in the state to pay over $1,000. Only four counties in the state paid $1,000, all the rest being below $800 per annum. For a large county Berks was the most conspicuous, paying but $250, or $50 less than Perry County. Wyoming paid $150, and Fulton and Pike $100, or less than $9 per month.
Previous to the creation of the position of county superintendent the individual efforts of the teachers and directors, owing to isola- tion, were practically lost on account of the lack of supervision. Though there were advanced ideas in effect here and there, there was no way of their getting into general use. Those first county superintendents must have found as many varieties of teaching methods and customs as there were schools.
Col. Alexander K. McClure, himself a Perry Countian, in his book, "Old-Time Notes of Pennsylvania," published in 1905, speaking of the period when the county was young, among other things, says :
"Free schools were unknown and the few who dared to advocate then did not venture to seek political preferment. The crossroad schoolhouse was found in every community, but it was usttally the centre of a neigh- borhood five or six miles in diameter. Every schoolhouse had its teacher during the winter season, for which he was usually paid so much by the parent for each scholar, and "boarded around" with his patrons. Teaching was confined to reading, writing, and arithmetic, and I well remember the hostility aroused among a large portion of my school district (located in Madison Township) when the violent innovation of teaching grammar was made. It was long resisted, but finally succeeded to the extent of permitting the teacher to teach it, although there were very few who ac- cepted what was generally regarded as such a needless feature of edtica- tion for their sons. The one green memory I have of the occasional school of that time is that of the holiday frolic. It was then that the school children had not only absolute freedom to bar their teacher out and keep him out even with hot pokers if he tried to climb through a window, until he compromised by giving them a liberal supply of apples and nuts. If the teacher had walked away, as he prestumably might have done, with- out undertaking to force his way into the schoolhouse, he would have been promptly dismissed by the school authorities, and, while a majority of the parents of children would have flogged their boys severely at any other time for the antics they played upon the teacher in the holiday season, they were expected even by the strictest of parents to take a full hand in the holiday battle, and the boy who gave the teacher the bravest fight was the hero of the hour. If the teacher fought his way into the schoolhouse or entered it by compromise with the boys, the moment he was within the sanctuary of his authority discipline was instantly resumed, but there could be no punishment for the scholars who were in the fight.
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