USA > Pennsylvania > Westmoreland County > History of Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania, Vol. I > Part 47
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George Wolf, a Democrat, was elected governor over Joseph Ritner in 1829 . by a large majority. He again defeated Ritner in 1832, but by a reduced ma- jority. Then the Democratic party unwisely placed Wolf in nomination a third time in 1835. This alienated many Democrats, who nominated Henry A. Muhlenburg as their candidate. The Whigs and anti-Masons again nominated Ritner, a level headed Pennsylvania Dutchman, who was elected over his two opponents. The Argus sustained Muhlenberg and weakened its standing with the rank and file of Democracy, so that it was very poorly patronized. The result of this was that in 1839 it was sold at sheriff's sale and purchased by J. M. Burrell, a talented and eloquent member of the har, who afterwards
John'm Laire
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became president judge of the district. He proved to be an able journalist. Some of his political articles in the campaign of 1840 advocating the election of Martin Van Buren over William Henry Harrison, were taken up and answered by Horace Greeley in the Log Cabin, of which he was then editor. Late in 1841 the Argus was sold to Joseph Cort and James Johnston. In July, 1844, it passed to S. S. Turney and W. H. Hacke. They published it till 1849, when it was sold to John M. Laird. Since that time it has been under the continuous proprietorship of the Laird family.
All things being considered, we believe that John M. Laird deserves first place among the newspaper men of the last century in Westmoreland county. There may have been abler men than he, who for a brief space were connected with the profession, but there are certainly none who brought to the field the equal of his intellect and devoted their time to the work for life as he did. He began newspaper work very early in life. His first venture was as editor and publisher of a Democratic paper in Somerset, Ohio. Later he moved to Steubenville, and worked on the Republican Ledger, first as a journeyman printer, and later as its editor and proprietor. There he met and worked in the printing office with Edwin M. Stanton, who afterwards became attorney-general under President Buchanan, and secretary of war under President Lincoln. This acquaintance stood him in good stead in later years, for he used it to have President Lincoln spare the life of a young man named Smith, the son of a poor widow in Greensburg. After leaving Steubenville he returned to West- moreland county and purchased the Pennsylvania Argus from Major William H. Hacke and S. S. Turney. He was its editor and proprietor from January 1, 1850, till his death in 1887. His style was vigorous and pointed. In politics he was an unswerving Democrat, and while he may have expressed bitter senti- ments against his political opponents, he never carried them into his private life. Then he was most gracious and obliging. He hated hypocrisy and shams, and loved an honest expression, be it what it may. In 1872 he was elected register and recorder of Westmoreland county. This, we believe, is the only position he ever sought or received. When he took hold of the Argus it had a high standing as a political organ, for it had had as editors and contributors such men as Judge Burrell, James Johnston, and others. Under Mr. Laird's man- agement it lost none of its standing, though for a generation he was almost its sole writer. He was a grandson of Judge John Moore, who first became presi- dent judge of our courts, and who has been considered among the early judges. of our county. Mr. Laird died from old age, superinduced from a fall he re- ceived on the icy streets. He died January 25, 1887.
Frank Cowan's Paper was founded by Dr. Frank Cowan. Its first issue was on May 22, 1872. Its editor and proprietor was a man of superior intellectual attainments, and wrote himself largely into his paper. In its first number was a strong article from the pen of Hon. Edgar Cowan, the father of the editor, on the rights and wrongs of women in Pennsylvania law. It was a most exhaus- tive article, such as might be expected from him. It furthermore suggested
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remedies for her wrongs in the law, and treated somewhat on her social and domestic relations as well. The Paper was always bright and attractive. It devoted its columns largely to the coal, coke and iron industries, then in their infancy in this county. In 1874 it was removed to Pittsburgh, and in August, 1875. its publication was suspended because of the ill health of the editor.
For some time in 1875-76 the Democratic Times was published in the Paper office, but it was soon suspended. In the winter of 1878 the Argus office was destroyed by fire, and for some weeks it was published there also. In 1878 the office and fixtures were sold to a company which published the National Issuc, a Greenback Party advocate. Under several managements and with various editors and writers, among others Calvin A. Light, F. L. Armbrust and Uriel Graves, it was conducted till 1881. By that time, mainly through the energy of Mr. Light, the company saw its way clear to begin the publication of a daily paper called the Evening News. This was the first daily paper pub- lished regularly in Westmoreland county. In May, 1881, it was sold to J. H. Ryckman and James B. Laux, who converted it into the Greensburg Press, with both daily and weekly editions. With the change it also became Republican in politics. The first issue of the new daily was on May 18, and the weekly on June 6, 1881. Shortly after this the late H. J. Brunot purchased the interest of Mr. Ryckman. A fine brick building on West Otterman street was erected for its publication, and it has remained there ever since. Like the Tribune and Herald, it has since been incorporated. Mr. Laux remained its editor for many years and raised it to a very potent paper. Some years later he retired from its management, and is now a citizen of New York city.
There were two newspapers published in Greensburg in the German lan- guage. The first was published by Frederick A. Cope, in connection with the Gasette in 1828, and later by John Armbrust. The other was published by J. S. Steck, in connection with the Pennsylvania Argus. It was furthermore not uncommon for the early papers, the Gazette and the Register, to publish a German edition of their papers and an English as well. There was.always a call for more or less German literature, particularly in Hempfield township.
The Greensburg Record, founded April Ist, 1886, by Messrs. Darwin Mu- sick and Daniel P. Stahl, was a bright, sparkling addition to the Democratic literature of the county. It was issued as a daily and weekly. The daily, for the first time in our daily paper history, published the Associated Press news, which added greatly to its popularity. The publication of the daily edition was discontinued in December, 1892, and that of the weekly on September 11, 1895.
The first paper published outside of Greensburg, as far as we can learn, was the Democratic Free Courier, published in Mount Pleasant, by N. W. Trexel as editor, and D. H. H. Wakefield as assistant editor. The paper did not last long, and we have never seen a copy.
Another early paper was the Ligonier Free Press, edited by one Samuel Armour. The first number was issued June Ist, 1845, from the editor's print- ing office in Ligonier. Mr. Armour had come to Ligonier from Maine, no
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doubt most of the way on foot. He was about six feet and four inches high, and was very slender. Mentally, he was extremely eccentric, and yet had a genius for newspaper work. The Free Press was devoted, as its old musty numbers tell us, to "literature, morality, agriculture, news, finances and mis- cellany," and we will add, to any other fancy which entered the fanatic editor's brain. In its early issues it was neutral in politics. But the editor had no. resided long in that strongly Democratic community until he began to realize how extremely sinful and corrupt the Whigs were, and forthwith his paper began to lean towards Democracy. The birth of the Know-Nothing party in 1854 was, in his opinion, the culmination of all evil, and the final power which drove him from his Whig moorings into the Democratic camp. In an editorial he says that "an increased number of subscribers and their political preferences" had also urged him in this direction. He also changed the name of his paper from the Free Press to the Valley Democrat, the change coming with the issue of January 10, 1854. The paper adapted its size to the demands of the occa- sion ; at the editor's will it shrunk and expanded, suiting itself entirely to the amount of light and wisdom which was hurled from his brain. Nor did the modest sheet necessarily impose itself upon its patrons regularly each week. This feature was regulated to suit the supply and demand of paper. More than once, some people say scores of times, did the editor walk to Pittsburgh in one day and walk home the day following, carrying the paper on his back, walking a distance of fifty miles each way, in order that the people might be enlightened by his wisdom, and that the child of his inventive genius might live and grow. Nor had he a less stock of ingenuity than walking energy, for, when short of type of a large size, he not infrequently cut them from hard wood, and cut so neatly that no one could detect his home manufactured type from examining the printed sheet. He often made wood-cuts to illustrate his paper. A news- boy on a horse at full gallop, printed from a wood-cut of his own, indicated that news was carried to him with great speed. A ship sailing on the ocean, and under it in large letters, also of his own make, the words, "Highly important from Russia and Turkey," indicated that he had the latest news from the "front," for those two nations were then at war. In another column, with flaming headlines, he brings to the news-thirsty, housed-up inhabitants of hill and vale, the word of an "insurrection in Nickchivan"; that "the Russian Prince Woronzoff had surrendered at Tifles," that 'Schanye, the great Circassian leader and Seline Pasha were approaching each other," and that "Admiral Machinoff was rapidly overcoming Vice Admiral Osman Bey."
The muses, too, were not neglected. Under the column headed "Poetry," was that fine ballad so illustrative of the rythmic culture of the nineteenth century, entitled "The Arkansas Gentleman Close to the Choctaw Line," which filled over a column, while following it was that most classic gem of the poetic temperament as personified in English verse, entitled "Joe Bowers."
In the more modern times newspapers have sprung up in almost every town
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in the county, and there are seven daily papers printed in it, viz .: four in Greensburg, and one in each of the towns of Scottdale, Monessen and Latrobe. The papers published outside of Greensburg are referred to in the parts of this work which relate to the several boroughs and townships of the county.
CHAPTER XXVI
Common Schools.
Scarcely any record was kept of our early schools in Westmoreland county until about 1820, and even for thirty years after that they were very meager. Our early settlers, as we have said, were almost invariably either English, Scotch-Irish or Germans. Of these the Germans, or Dutch, as they were called, were behind either of the others in their general education and in the establishment of schools. Many of the pioneer preachers tried to introduce schools in connection with their churches, but their efforts in this direction were crowned with a very meager measure of success. The Scotch Presbyterian clergy, always more bold and zealous in any cause than the Germans, had the better success in the founding of schools. Nevertheless, the educational ad- vantages of that day were extremely limited at best. Schoolhouses were few and far between. Even as late as 1830 children in our best rural communities were often compelled to walk from three to five miles to the nearest school- house. One schoolhouse, where we now have ten, was more than the average in the early part of last century. Schoolhouses were built of logs, but this was not their worst feature. The roofs were made of clapboards and upon this they put a covering of clay to keep out the cold and rain. The result of this on a wet day in springtime may be imagined. Frequently great drops of muddy water fell from the roof, sometimes disfiguring a book by a single drop, and often driving the pupils to their homes.
At one side of the school room was the usual fireplace, where wood was the fuel used. One of the duties of the teacher and older pupils was to cut wood sufficient to keep the fire going. Stoves were introduced long afterward, and from their manner of construction were but a slight improvement on the fire- place. Around the entire school room was a bench usually made of a slab from a saw log, or a split puncheon, upon which the pupils sat. For a back to this bench they leaned against the wall. There was no desk in front of this wall- seat, except that the larger pupils who were learning to write had a board in front of them upon which a copy book could rest. There were generally two small windows. In the early period these were made without glass, that is, by
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the use of oiled paper. Later they were supplied with glass, but at best the room was dimly lighted. The schoolhouse was not built by the township, but by the freewill offerings of labor on the part of the neighbors. A dozen farmers. met and decided on the most central place to build a schoolhouse. In one or two afternoons they cut the trees, hewed them, rolled them together and laid them up, and the house was ready for the roof. It was rarely ever larger than fifteen feet square, and about eight feet to the square where the roof began. Rude as it was, it was not far behind the houses of its patrons in conveniences, and therefore was probably as much as we could expect from them. A greater interest in the education of their children might have prompted them to build better houses, yet it is rare, even in our own enlightened age, that the school- house is better than the average residence of its patrons.
The teacher only pretended to teach the barest rudiments of learning. If he could read, write and count with figures, he was supposed to be sufficiently educated to "keep school." The community depended largely on a chance traveler for a teacher, for but few of their own young men were teachers in the earlier period. The son of the early settler had other matters to attend to which were more urgent than going to school. He had to assist in clearing away the original forest so that crops might be grown, and, when old enough to go to school, he was expected to assist in home defense against the Indians. No schoolhouse filled with unprotected children would have been regarded as safe anywhere in Westmoreland county before 1795, for the country, as we have seen, was in constant danger of Indian incursions. In the eastern states, where the settlements were older, more attention had been paid to education, and from them our county drew its earliest teachers. Often a lank Yankee came walking westward and was employed as a teacher. Sometimes he turned out to be an impostor or a failure, but not always, for there are instances among our best families of the original progenitor in our county beginning here as a school teacher. For many years the teacher received no specified salary or wages. The schoolhouse was given him and he "kept school" in it. All who sent their children to him paid him a certain amount per month for each pupil. His income therefore depended on the size of the school. If he proved a fail- ure he was more easily gotten rid of than our modern teachers. Later the com- munity raised an amount by subscription, and this was given him for say three months teaching, or for as many months as the amount justified. The term was generally about three months, viz. : December, January and February. Under such an agreement any one who subscribed could send his children to his school. There was no division of the county into school districts-the district was bounded only by the ability of the pupils to reach the schoolhouse. Fre- quently the teacher canvassed the community for pupils, and thus an energetic teacher often added to the educational advantages of the community.
Very early in our history two good principles were shown-in crude form, it is true, but they nevertheless still hold sway in our present most perfect com- mon school system. They were, first, that when a sum of money was paid the
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teacher, all who came to him as pupils had a right to his best attention, regard- less of how many children came from one family, or how much or how little their parents paid towards his salary. This afterwards became the corner- stone upon which our common school system was founded. The other principle was, that the teacher himself had to be examined by a "committee" as to his in- tellectual attainments before he could be entrusted with the education of the children. The committee to examine the teacher was frequently the minister of the community, but, in the absence of a clergyman, a justice of the peace or some other man of prominence was appointed to perform this service. The ex- aminer's education may have been extremely limited, but he or he and his associates were nevertheless the embryonic form of our present county superin- tendent. In some degree, at all events, he tested the attainments of the teacher, and prevented a wholly illiterate man from becoming a schoolmaster. The minister perhaps made a more thorough examiner, but there were many com- munities which did not have a minister. There were, indeed, but few com- munities which had a resident minister ; their spiritual wants were ministered to regularly every four or eight weeks, but the preacher was gone from among them and on his way to the next preaching place almost as soon as the services were over. Nor was the minister supposed to know the wants of the community as well as a hard-headed old settler who had perhaps, in the east in his youth, learned to read, write and cipher. The committee came afterward, and was ap- pointed or selected to examine the would-be teacher by those who were sup- porting him.
The teacher was invariably called the schoolmaster. The wages paid him varied with the times, the thrift of the community which employed him, and his reputation as a teacher. Ten or twelve dollars per month was considered a very good remuneration for his services in 1825, and twenty-five cents per month for each pupil was the average paid him when the school was a purely subscription school. As a general rule he was an unmarried man and "boarded around;" that is, went from house to house for his meals and lodging, for to board the teacher free was one of the well established rules among our early settlers. In those days there were no regular text-books in use in the schools. The pupils were supposed to furnish their own books, and each brought from his or her home such books as their scanty libraries afforded. Nearly every pupil who could read brought a Bible or Testament. There was then a smaller book called the "English Reader," which many pupils had ; "Lindley Murray's Grammar," "History of Rome," "History of the United States," "Plutarch's Lives," "Life of George Washington," or any one of a dozen others might be found among the pupils on the opening day of a pioneer school. Still later came the "Western Calculator," a crude work on arithmetic. From these books the master must hear his pupils recite, and his work, it may well be imagined, was not an easy one. Another duty which necessarily devolved upon him was mak- ing pens out of quills. Steel pens were patented in England by Joseph Gillott, in 1831, but did not come into general use here for many years after. So all
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the earlier masters were compelled to make and mend the quill pens of the pu- pils to whom he was teaching the art of penmanship. Another duty was to write copies, from which we have the word "copy-book." The pupil brought blank paper, and the master wrote a copy in the upper line for him to practice on. This copy varied with the degree of penmanship of the pupil.
Schools at that time did not close on Friday afternoon as they do now, but on Saturday at noon. No man could possibly sustain his reputation as a thorough instructor of youth who did not regularly resort to corporal punish- ment. The teacher's duty on Saturday afternoon was to lay in a good stock of rods with which to whip the children the following week. So as soon as school closed the really successful master strolled into the woods to cut rods, both long and short ones, to wear out on the backs of the pupils. An old gentleman now in his grave, has often told the writer of a teacher in the thirties who always opened his school with prayer, and whose second regular morning duty was to pass along the benches where the boys sat, and without any provocation what- ever on the part of the boys, strike each one on the top part of the legs, striking so that the rod overlapped and left its impression on three or four legs at once. If he had plenty of time, or perhaps, if the devotional exercises had particularly inspired him, he struck one blow for each leg, but otherwise gave one blow for each pair of legs presented. This is no exaggeration at all. It came as regu- larly as the school opened, and the teacher was regarded as one of the best in the community. No charge of breaking Solomon's injunction to "spare the rod and spoil the child," was ever laid to him. Nor did the parents seem to object to this inhuman treatment. Yet. strange to say, the teacher lived to be an old man, and at his death had earned the highest respect of the community in which he resided.
What we have written applies mostly to country schools, but there were scarcely any other kind in our county prior to 1820, for Greensburg was a mere hamlet, and was the largest and practically the only town in the county. The state, it will be understood, furnished no aid whatever to the schools at that time. Men were expected to educate their own children, as they clothe and support them now. The state had not yet learned that to make good citizens it must secure for each a reasonably fair education.
In 1800 a plot of ground on which to erect a schoolhouse was set apart by Colonel John Bonnett, who lived between Laurelville and Mount Pleasant. Colonel Bonnett was of French descent, perhaps of Huguenot extraction. His only daughter was the wife of Dr. David Marchand. He was a man of high character and of generous disposition. On this lot which he set apart, he and his neighbors combined and built a schoolhouse. It was about one mile east of Mt. Pleasant, along the turnpike. For many years after its construction the children within a radius of five or six miles came there to school. It was the first schoolhouse in that section of the county and was in use for very many years. Even from Mt. Pleasant the children attended school there. The house was built of logs. So revered was it that it was photographed before it
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was torn down, and this in a day when photography was not as common an art .as it is now. Daniel Shupe had the photograph made and also had a walking cane made from one of its logs.
The schools of the day were all subscription schools. Most years they had two terms, one in the winter for the larger pupils and one in the summer for the smaller ones
A schoolhouse built prior to 1833, but in use at that time near Congruity, in Salem township, has been described by one who attended school in it that year, and who is yet living. It was built of logs, and was in the woods. There were two windows, if they could be called windows at all, one on each side of the house. These windows were made by leaving the space between two logs open, all the other spaces having been filled with mortar and chunks of wood. In these open spaces were set upright sticks eighteen or twenty inches apart, and these were covered with greased paper, the grease or oil being added so that the light might more readily penetrate it. The fireplace was at the end of the building, and was of very large dimensions. Into it large logs could be rolled and burnt, and thus the room could be kept comparatively warm. The master had small pieces of wood like shingles, upon which the letters of the alphabet were pasted, and from these the small pupil was expected to learn his A, B. C's. The only text book in use in the school was "Cobb's Spelling Book." the Old and New Testament, and the "Western Calculator." This was just prior to the adoption of the common school system in 1836.
Last Log School House in Westmoreland County.
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