Airy Hall School on Troxel Road near the Allentown Road today remains as a private home. Can anyone point out Jacob Rittenhouse Clemens?
A daily feature from our surrounding historical societies.
Today another first day of school in the North Penn School District. It has been an exciting day for teachers, students and parents for nearly 300 years.
A bit of Towamencin education history...
Historian Edward Mathews, in his 1897 history of Towamencin Township, wrote that the earliest known schoolmaster in Towamencin was Jonathan Carr. He taught in the township from 1746 to 1758. There are no contemporary records regarding his life or vocation. Another early Towamencin schoolmaster was Charles Geust. His name and profession are found on the 1769 Towamencin tax list, but there are no records as to where or how long he taught school in the township. Circa 1765 the Schwenkfelders erected a log schoolhouse along present-day Valley Forge Road near Hunter Hill Drive on the southeastern edge of Towamencin Township. The school was conducted in German.
A deed written in 1799 confirms the Towamencin Mennonites conducted school in a schoolhouse next to their burial yard in Towamencin Township, along the Old Forty Foot Road at the Great Road. George Lukens, in his diary, referred to the school as the Skippack School in Towamencin, suggesting the school was an extension of the Skippack Mennonite’s school, for use by Towamencin area residents. Towamencin youth would have attended depending upon their ability to pay, the language of the teacher, or their proximity to the school. Work on the family farm often dictated when or how long students attended the three- or four-month school term.
A Kulpsville village school cornerstone from along the Sumneytown Pke near Towamencin Beverage. District 6.Today, Towamencin Township’s largest employer is the North Penn School District. During the early nineteenth century, Towamencin only had a few part-time teachers paid by the parents of the students. Schoolmaster Lukens, John Cassel Drake, and Jacob S. Zorns taught their scholars in English, while at least one other schoolmaster held classes taught in German for the German-speaking youth of the township. Historians Edward Mathews and J. Henry Specht both wrote that Schoolmaster Lukens was teaching at the Skippack School in Towamencin in 1804. Schoolmaster Lukens’ son Comly said he was teaching as early as 1789. In George’s diary, we find the first mention of his profession as a schoolmaster when he wrote about collecting fees from students for teaching them in the frame house on his farm (now Dock Mennonite Academy) in November 1807.
In 1810, Schoolmaster Lukens wrote that he went to the Mennonite schoolhouse, and he recorded the names of the newly elected trustees: Benjamin Reiff, Jacob Wampole, and Jacob Kulp. This may be one of the earliest known written records of elected officials in what would one day be known as the North Penn School District.
December 1812, Schoolmaster Lukens taught at a newly constructed schoolhouse in Towamencin. Today we know that schoolhouse as the Tennis School. It was located along the west side of the Allentown Road near the historic Tennis-Lukens Cemetery and present-day Reinert Road. Edward Mathews wrote that he found a document on which it was written that in 1816 school supplies were being allocated for the Stauffer School. The location has never been confirmed, but it shows the township was active in educating its youth.
An 1830 school meeting notice for interested Towamencin area residents.Further evidence of Towamencin’s early involvement in education can be found in an 1830 public meeting notice, seen in this post. In the notice, township residents were called to assemble and discuss the appointment of trustees and to conduct other business of the schoolhouse near Godshall’s graveyard, today the site of Towamencin Mennonite Church. The schoolhouse, as it turns out, was used not only as a school for English-speaking children, but for German-speaking children as well. George wrote in his 1809 diary that a German teacher stopped by the schoolhouse one day while he was teaching, to pick up a key so he could conduct a school in German for the local German-speaking youth.
The Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776 Article III, Part B, Section 14 states, "The General Assembly shall provide for the maintenance and support of a thorough and efficient system of public education to serve the needs of the Commonwealth." Section 15 states "No money raised for the support of the public schools of the Commonwealth shall be appropriated to or used for the support of any sectarian school." However, the government, preoccupied with the Revolutionary War, had neither the time nor the funds to act on public funding of education. Circa 1790, Pennsylvania called for the establishment of schools for poor students to receive a free education. However, the government did not have the funds to put together a plan of action for the establishment of a taxpayer-funded system. Instead, during the eighteenth century most localities across Pennsylvania provided education by schoolmasters using meetinghouse schools and charging fees for the education they provided. This was the case as well in Towamencin Township.
Now Dock Mennonite Academy.In 1834 the Pennsylvania Free School Law provided specific funding through local and statewide taxes so all children, including the poor, would be able to receive an education. Pennsylvania law required local school districts to be formed and eventually to oversee the construction of township schoolhouses so children would receive an education. Residents were to contribute to the construction of schoolhouses and for all students’ education through local taxes. Many municipalities had trouble adopting the new idea and were somewhat lax in getting the new education system initiated. However, by 1850, after the courts resolved some funding and other issues, municipalities came into compliance, and publicly funded schoolhouses started springing up throughout the region, including Towamencin Township.
There was little oversight in education in the eighteenth and much of the nineteenth century. Localities often hired local unlicensed, self-trained schoolmasters who often taught students during the winter months in poorly heated, substandard schoolhouses with no specific curriculum. In 1861, a Pennsylvania Common Schools report, issued by the Superintendent of the Pennsylvania Common Schools, listed Towamencin as having six schools. One schoolhouse was substandard as far as building condition, and all six were insufficient as far as basic furniture needs. School was scheduled to be in session four months a year. Towamencin Township employed six teachers by this time, at an average salary of $24.00 per month. All the teachers were male. There were 159 students: 91 males and 68 females. Most teachers required students to read from the Bible each day. Today most of those mid-nineteenth century Towamencin Township one-room schoolhouses, and others built in the later part of the nineteenth century, remain as private homes.
Airy Hall School on Troxel Road near the Allentown Road today remains as a private home. Can anyone point out Jacob Rittenhouse Clemens?The Airy Hall School on Troxel Road near the Allentown Road was built in 1851 and rebuilt in 1883. John Cassel Boorse of Kulpsville was a schoolmaster there from 1857 to 1859. The school was in District #2, known as Krupp’s District, which was in the northeast section of the township. There was an earlier schoolhouse known as the Loux School, nearby, along the Allentown Road close to Orvilla Road, however it was torn down prior to the construction of the Airy Hall School. The old Airy Hall School remains as a private home.
Fry’s School, on Kriebel Road, is located a few yards east of Kulp Road in the southwest section of the township. By some accounts, it was first built in 1830 and rebuilt in 1896. The schoolhouse remains a private home.
The Kriebel School, on Kriebel Road near Anders Road, was first built circa 1850, and rebuilt in 1876. The school was in District #1, known as Kriebel’s District, in the southeast section of the township. Before the school was built, children of some neighboring farms went to the Schwenkfelder schoolhouse near Valley Forge Road. The Kriebel schoolhouse has also been restored and remains as a private home.
A stylized image of how schools looked in the mid 19th century. From an 1860 woodcut by Enos Benner printer and publisher in Sumneytown, Pa. Find the abacus.A Kulpsville village schoolhouse was located along the east side of the Sumneytown Pike near present-day Reiff Road as early as 1850. The schoolhouse is shown on the 1857 Kulpsville village map and subsequent nineteenth-century maps. The schoolhouse was reconstructed in 1868 and a second story added in 1883. The school was in District #6, also known as the Central District. Its use as a school was discontinued by 1920.
Another, larger Kulpsville school, a brick building first known as The Towamencin Public School, was built on Forty Foot Road about a hundred yards east of the Sumneytown Pike in 1909. The school was located on the present-day Walgreens Pharmacy parking lot next to the now closed Wawa convenience store. The school had three large classrooms and helped to relieve overcrowding in Kulpsville Schoolhouse #6 in the village and other one-room schoolhouses in Towamencin Township. This, and other socioeconomic reasons, led to the consolidation of one-room schoolhouses in the surrounding fields of the township to the village of Kulpsville. In 1929, additional classroom space was constructed next to the first school on Forty Foot Road. In 1937, the two buildings were annexed. Transportation for students was supplied by school buses. School was in session nine months a year. In 1957, more classroom space was added, and education was enhanced by offering additional studies, extracurricular activities, and a cafeteria for lunch as well as on site health services. Towamencin Township offered schooling up to the 10th grade for its residents. Those who went on to high school continued their education at the Lansdale High School on Penn Street.
The Towamencin School was eventually renamed The J. Henry Specht School in honor of the former principal, school board director, author, and historian. Locally everyone knew of J. Henry Specht’s love of history, even his students. Kulpsville resident Jon Leight recalls when he was a student, bored with math class taught by J. Henry Specht, he and others would sometimes lure him into a local history question, and he would go on spinning yarns of local history and folklore, forgetting about the previous subject at hand. After the J. Henry Specht School was closed, it was used as a community building, a church, and lastly as an antique emporium. The J. Henry Specht School, one year shy of a hundred years old, was razed in 2008.
The Pleasant Valley Schoolhouse, on the Old Forty Foot Road a quarter mile west of Sumneytown Pike and the Towamencin Mennonite meetinghouse, was built in 1859 and rebuilt in 1891. The school was in District #5, along the western section of the township. It was built to replace the aging schoolhouse at the Towamencin Mennonite Meetinghouse. Recently, an 1859 three-page construction agreement surfaced, with a drawing and detailed building specifications for the new schoolhouse. The agreement, signed by the trustees of the Mennonite meetinghouse school and Towamencin Township builder Jesse Widman, shows that the new schoolhouse was to be built at a cost of $269.00. As part of the agreement, Widman was to be given the old schoolhouse building materials less the school desks, blackboard and other interior furniture and supplies. The use of the Pleasant Valley Schoolhouse was discontinued in 1921, and today remains a private home.
The Stauffer School was built sometime prior to 1816. It is not known how long it remained open. It was thought to be located along the Old Forty Foot Road, not far from present-day Bridge Road, near where several Stover (from the German name Stauffer) families lived in Lower Salford and Towamencin, worshipping at the nearby Funkite and later a Brethren meetinghouse. The Stauffer School may have simply been the meetinghouse, used on weekdays as a schoolhouse, which was common then.
The Sunny Hall School on Reinert Road at Tomlinson Road was built in 1885, located in the Tennis District, which was in the northeast section of Towamencin. An old legend claims the stones used to build the schoolhouse came from the Tennis School on Allentown Road. Although not an official record, an 1893 map of Kulpsville shows the Tennis School still in existence after the Sunny Hall School was already in use. More likely, the stones used to build Sunny Hall came from the small, abandoned quarry on the Allentown Road next to the Tennis-Lukens Cemetery, near where the Tennis School was located. Today the Sunny Hall schoolhouse is a private home.
Construction of the Tennis School was completed in late November or early December 1812 on William Tennis’ land near the Tennis-Lukens Cemetery across the Allentown Road from the Enos Lukens farm. Enos was married to William Tennis’ daughter Ann. George Lukens was the first schoolmaster to teach at the Tennis School when it opened on December 14, 1812. It is not known how many years Schoolmaster Lukens taught there. George, his Uncle Enos and William Tennis worked together on a variety of farm and market endeavors. Perhaps the plan to have Schoolmaster Lukens teach at the new school Enos Lukens and William Tennis built was one of those endeavors; this time the education of Towamencin youth. The Tennis schoolhouse no longer stands; it was dismantled sometime in the last years of the nineteenth century.
Names of teachers known to have taught in Towamencin Township in one-room schoolhouses in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, in addition to George Lukens, were Enos Benner, John C. Boorse, Mary Ann Boorse, Jonathan Carr, Franklin Cassel, John C. Drake, William Frank, Charles Geust, John R. Johnson, Andrew Kriebel (eventually became a school director), Rev. Daniel Kriebel, David Kriebel, Isaac Kriebel, Rev. Reuben Kriebel, Jefferson Lewis, Elizabeth Lukens, Enos Miller, Benjamin Moore, Abraham Moyer, M. L. Oberholtzer, John Ramsey, Jacob Rittenhouse, James Vanfosen, Thomas White and Jacob S. Zorns. Few records are extant of their careers, but the results of their work in educating Towamencin youth over the past three hundred years has left an enduring positive mark on our community.
Follow Towamencin History on Facebook. While a historical society does not officially exist in Towamencin Township, Morgan Log House & Historical Research Center is a resource for the history of Towamencin.
