Tri-Counties Genealogy &
History by Joyce M. Tice
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Early Schools of Chemung County |
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Bradford County PA
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Chemung County NY
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Tioga County PA
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| Article: Early Schools of Chemung County |
| Chemung County |
Article by Helen Mac Dougall Samson (1909-1995)
in 1976
Sent in by Walt Samson |
Retyped by Daryl Eldrett Watkins
Painting by Cecile Herzig Moore |
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From The Past
By Helen M. Samson
July 8, 1976
Early Schools
The early settlers had little room for non-essentials when they packed
up and traveled to their new homes in the wilderness after the Revolution.
Each family brought the Bible and perhaps had room for a battered schoolbook
or two for they knew that any education their children were to have depended
upon themselves.
The first school seems to have been one held in the weaving room of
Israel Parshall near Chemung. This was in 1793 and soon after , in 1793
also, a school was taught in the log home of Horsehead’s first settler,
John Breese. There may have been an earlier one taught by William Jenkins
in a log building near Lowman in 1788.
Some of these first efforts to educate the young operated only in winter
as boys were needed in the fall together the crops and again in the spring
to help with the planting. Girls were not supposed to require learning
except in the arts of home making. Lenient fathers did allow them to go
with their brothers and acquire the rudiments of reading, writing and simple
numbers. Most early districts required parents to supply wood for the stove
in the center of the building and it was usually a certain amount for each
child attending.
Teachers were often men. Some of these were fellows who had lost out
in other professions and were glad for a job that carried with it a roof
over one’s head and meals because all early teachers "boarded around" as
part of their pay. Other teachers were young girls who had mastered the
work through the eighth grade or even only the sixth and returned to teach
in the school where they had been a star pupil. Later, more professional
women taught for most of their lives unless they managed to marry their
way out. Some of them were remembered as guiding lights and friends to
several generations of the same family. Pay was a few dollars a month and
in the 1900’s contracts were signed for work in city schools for $300 a
year.
Many were the stories told of the pranks played by children in the old
days when boys came to school in the winter more or less as a diversion
rather than to learn. Often they were older and much bigger that their
young teacher. Miss Catherine Miller who was a long time teacher in the
Horseheads district told of one such boy whom she was going to punish for
some act requiring such action. He escaped by climbing to the roof. He
remained there all day and she could see him late in the afternoon as she
rode her horse slowly toward home. He decided to come down then and decided
he had enough education to last him a lifetime.
In another school on the Ridge Road the big boys were determined to
get the best of an elderly man who was in the habit of coming to school
with a bottle of whiskey in a pocket and after setting tasks for the children,
taking a nap with his feet on his desk and his chair at a comfortable angle.
One morning, before his arrival they placed gun powder in cracks in the
log siding and perfected a method of igniting it when the time was right.
The teacher followed his normal routine and when all was still the trap
was sprung. After he picked himself from the floor, the smoke was cleared
and teacher tried to discover the culprits for punishment. No one had any
knowledge of the affair and the incident entered the stock of neighbor
hood tales to be retold for years.
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First Added to the Site on 22DEC 2002
By Joyce M. Tice
Email: JoyceTice@aol.com
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