Bradford County PA Chemung County NY Tioga County PA Tri-Counties Genealogy & History by Joyce M. Tice Schools of the Tri-Counties Bradford County School History 1891

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History of Bradford County, Pennsylvania, with Biographical Selections., by H. C. Bradsby. Illustrated. Chicago; S.B. Nelson & Co., Publishers, 1891.

The primitive schools in the county are told of mostly in the account of the respective townships where they were. The very first was a religious school, simply to train the Indians concerning religion; that they might read the Bible was one purpose of teaching them the alphabet. In 1778, tradition has it, there was a small school in old Springfield, where were, before the hegira, about forty families; but it is only a dim tradition. After the re-settlement, about 1784, the subject of schools was taken up. A certain Master Root opened a school in Athens in 1788; then Benedict Satterlee in 1808 taught a school there, and in 1811 a school-house was built in the place. In 1789 Uriah Terry taught school in Maj. Gaylord’s house. Thomas Wigton taught a school in Wyalusing about the close of the century. As early as 1790 a small log school-house was said to have been built at Merryall, and David Lake started the first school in 1791. The next year Theodosia Wells taught in this building. It is said a school was opened in Wysox as early as 1790. In 1802 Eliphalet Mason taught a while there. The school-house was on the flats near Strickland’s. A Mr. Brevost taught the first school in Asylum. Loren Kinsbury taught a school in Canton in 1801. In 1805 Capt. Samuel Griffin had built a school-house in that place, in which a Miss Segur taught. The first school-house in Smithfield was built in 1807. Gen. Samuel McKean built a school-house in Burlington in 1820.

In an address before the Teachers’ Association, Supt. Charles R. Coburn said: "Clarissa Woodruff taught school in Orwell in 1804, and, a year or two after, Laura Frisbie. In 1807-8 Roswell Lee taught in Warren."

Free schools were provided for by a law of 1834. This law was slow to find its way to the public favor. A county superintendent of schools was not elected in Bradford county until 1854. Emanuel Guyer was the first elected, and his salary was fixed at $500 per annum. This was raised by the directors, as the law provided they might do, to the sum of $1500 per annum. This "extravagance," as it was esteemed, produced quickly the "Guyer war,"—the man and the office were roundly abused. He was followed in office by Charles R. Coburn, who has filled the chair of professor of mathematics in the Susquehanna Collegiate Institute. His coadjutor in the school work was O.J. Chubbuck, and they founded in 1857 the County Teachers’ Association, and this was followed soon after the County Teachers’ Institute, that is now one of the flourishing and permanent institutions of the county. In 1863 O.J. Chubbuck was elected school superintendent; a practical teacher, and whose motto might have been "hew to the line, let the chips fall where they may." He had been heart and soul in the aid of his predecessor, and was well equipped to carry on every reform and improvement of detail that Mr. Coburn had attempted, and, in deed, to add new ones, especially in the office work. And at the end of his term the office was well fixed in public favor, and not only free schools were the popular thing, but our present graded schools were well under way toward permanent establishment.

The perfected free or public schools have now been in full operation more than a generation—long enough for results to manifest themselves. This is the ripe fruit of seventeen centuries of schools. Nearly twenty centuries ago a beautiful and gifted girl taught in Alexandria—taught, as all schools were then taught, by the metaphysicians and philosophers, in lectures in the gardens and groves, and from the porches. The life-teachings and death of the noble Hypatia have inspired the pen of the historian, the essayist, the scholar, and, above all, the poet—beautiful maiden, noble Hypatia, whose lecture theme was; "Who am I? Where am I? Whither am I going? This was her crime, for which she was seized by the mob and torn in pieces, her flesh scraped from the bone with oyster shells, and fed to the dogs. This is the story of a great woman. Her fate, so sad then, is but the more glorious now, through the added centuries. This is a type of the best production of an age when all people educated themselves, or, rather, when children did not go to school. What can the schools show now? Not an unfair question at all. We live and struggle for results, not to twiddle our thumbs after we have put in practice our beautiful theories; and, because the theory is perfect, therefore the practice of it must be even more perfect.

Cynthia M. Westover, a once Towanda girl, is, perhaps, as fine a type of what may aid our present ideas of education as the country affords. She is selected as being a better instance than that of any of our past or present boys, because boys are surrounded with infinitely more possibilities for self-development than girls. Most fortunately for this excellent young woman, she was from early childhood her "father’s boy," and his companion, as traveler, geologist, miner and prospector; and in her varied accomplishments has but few equals among the living. With no shading upon the best feminine instincts of woman, her mind and body grew in health and strength. Her father was a geologist and expert miner, and the child learned to ride almost before she could walk. She rode with her father all through the western mountains and mining regions from Mexico to the Canada line in his prospecting journeys. During these years the child became an expert shot and horsewoman, and learned the Spanish language besides. Once, when a little girl, she shot dead an Indian who had his tomahawk uplifted over the head of a white woman. Again, when her father’s camp was surrounded by hostile Indians, she galloped out upon her pony, and brought relief. The redskins saw her, but they were used to meeting the child riding about after the cows, and did not disturb her. She had played many a time with the little Indian children, and thus won the good will of the older ones.

These years were the making of Cynthia M. Westover. They gave her health, practical knowledge and splendid independence and self-reliance. They were years of self-development, and are a strong, living proof that real education is developing an ever-growing self-reliance. She was so much at home with the shy wild creatures of the wood that she learned their calls, and they came to her like domestic birds and animals. She had strange power over them, and used to come into camp with wild birds and squirrels upon her shoulders. Besides that, she could lasso a steer with the best of them. When, at length, she went to graduate at the State University of Colorado, she paid for her last year’s tuition with the price of her own small herd of cattle, which the gallant cowboys mostly took care of for her.

The girl mostly fitted herself for college. After graduating at the normal department of Colorado University, she took a full course in a commercial college. In Denver she taught school a while, taking charge of the truant and bad boys of the streets. Her great force and magnetic power, as well as her wonderful executive ability, showed itself in the way in which she straightened out the crooked sticks among the rude children she dealt with. The little girl who had brought the birds and animals to her side at her call, controlled without effort the almost equally untamed children of Denver streets. She was a music teacher in Towanda, during a part of the time she was a resident of the place. A linguist, geologist, ornithologist, mathematician, musician, and botanist, learning all of these mostly as she learned the Indian and Spanish language—not from a master mured within the walls of a school-room. Miss Westover is now Secretary in the office of the department of street cleaning, New York City, under Gen. Beattie, receiving this important and responsible position simply for the good reason that she passed the best examination of the many men who were applicants for the place. And here she has displayed the same magnetic power, coupled again with striking practical executive ability, that has marked her course everywhere. Fifteen hundred Italian laborers are employed in this department. Cynthia Westover can talk to them in their own language, and "boss" them as few men have been able successfully to do. During an illness of Commissioner Beattie, lasting several weeks, she managed entirely the affairs of the whole street-cleaning department of New York. A vast amount of work and responsibility that only a few men could perform and do the work as well as this young woman.

The young girl came East to perfect her musical education, able from her own earnings on the ranch, and the sale of cattle, to pay her own way mostly. In a little while she appeared in private opera, and was offered a place in an opera troupe. Instead, however, and much to test herself, she took the civil service examination for custom house inspectress, more to find out what it was like than anything else, and was promptly appointed; accepted with hesitation, and proceeded at once to learn the Italian, German, Spanish, French, Danish and some of the Chinese languages, as necessary to that position. A splendid mathematician, she is referred to in the department for any critical calculations desired; has mastered the subject of street-cleaning in all the principal cities of the world, and here, as elsewhere, dominates, by superior knowledge, those in positions above as well as below her.

In answer to a special request of the writer, Miss Westover has kindly furnished the following outlines of her life and education:

"My great-grandfather was Alexander Campbell, Scotch-Irish Seceder, founder of the sect called Campbellites, or Disciples of Christ. In 1841 he founded Bethany College, West Va., and later, Hiram College, at Hiram, Ohio, and the Northwestern University, Indianapolis, Ind. My father’s mother was Alexander Campbell’s daughter. Grand-father Westover was a descendant of the Westovers of Virginia. Three brothers, early in 1600, settled with a few followers not far from the site on which Richmond now stands. The little village still bears the name of Westover, and the Westover mansion, built in the year 1749, stands to-day, very little changed, except by age. My mother was a Lewis, descendant of the same family as John Frederick Lewis, R.A.—the Englishman who attracted attention by his studies from wild animals, sketches of manners and costumes in Spain, etc., and from whom, I suppose, I inherit some of my love for the studies of nature.

"I was born in Afton, Iowa, on the 31^st day of May, 1859. Very plausible arguments have been offered, both for and against a public education, and could mankind lead their lives in that solitude, which is so favorable to many of our most virtuous affections, we should be clearly on the side of a private education; yet, my instruction was of neither class, absolutely, as you will observe from the cuttings inclosed. Since I came out into the world, had I not had some address and knowledge of it, different from what is to be learned in books, I would not have been qualified, with good principles and innocence alone, to encounter the difficulties which have been thrown in my way. Courage and perseverance have not failed me, while, often, others by and by grew puzzled, disheartened or disgusted.

"From the age of three years I was taught, through necessity, to think and act for myself; my invention was never suffered to languish; hence, at a very early age I knew how to conduct myself through the ever-changing emergencies, which are too numerous to be comprehended in any system of advice. When I entered college I was backward, it is true, in some studies, but particularly bright in others; my mind seemed to be athirst for instruction, and it took but a short time to get equal percentages with my classmates, in the, to me, heretofore unknown studies, such as spelling, history, Latin, rhetoric, etc. I attribute my true appetite now for knowledge, to the fact that my memory was never surfeited and enfeebled by being "crammed" when I was young; and my perfect health to the outdoor exercises and amusements which I necessarily got, following my father over the Rockies (I have never been under the doctor’s care). I could not contract habits of idleness while keeping pace with the active movements of my father, neither was there the danger of my mind being filled with more knowledge than it could retain or arrange properly—for example, while in college I graduated from one class fresh in mind, and not overworked, while the faculties of three associates, older than myself, were seriously impaired by overstretching of them."

As an evidence that the schoolmen are alive somewhat to the importance of object lessons for the young, and that there are other lessons than merely those of the curriculum, it may be told that Prof. Thomas Hunter, of the Normal School, of New York City, in an address before the graduates pointed to Miss Westover as an example worthy their study and emulation. His words were considerate and wise. When the magic pen of genius tells the simple story of her life—childhood, girlhood, and development into strong and best womanhood—so rounded, so strong—such a type, so superb that it stands alone, it will make a book for the youths of all time and all countries. With no "vaulting ambition" the girl, like Byron, "awoke to fame."

This is a well-rounded life, mentally and physical, and the best side of it is not from the school room. The one sentence she uses; "Since I came out into the world, had I not had some address and knowledge of it, different from what is to be learned in books, I would not have been qualified, with good principles and innocence alone, to encounter the difficulties which have been thrown in my way." Here is a great truth, in a great woman’s life. When our systems of education can say, or have said in their behalf as much, then men who can think clearly and strongly will be answered fully and forever when they again propound their recent interrogatory: "Are Our Schools a Failure?" If there are imperfections in our schools, if they grow one-sided men and women, defective in body or mind, ill-starred in the struggle for life, then let us proceed determinedly about their amendments. This is one way of advancing ourselves along the rugged road of civilization. The attempt to advance is seldom harmful; while restful inaction is sometimes followed with slow rust and decay. Rest assured of one thing: Whenever our education is perfected then the best people always will be those upon whom the schools have had the most to do. As it is now the king’s, or the millionaire’s sons, on whom every resource of education is fully exhausted, are not the world’s intellectual or physical phenomena. The very dregs of unschool-roomed poverty have a royal train of the immortals, headed by a Shakespeare and a Burns. Nor can this be used as an argument in favor of illiteracy or self-assigned ignorance; no more than it be used as an argument by the school men that these were incomprehensible exceptions to the law of the average of mankind, and possibly much life in the school room would have added luster to this burnished gold. Let us rather conclude that the evolution of the school is still going on, and hope that it will go on until education, the supreme thing in life, becomes a perfected science.

Academies.—The first one was commenced in Athens in the other century, and a full account of it will be found in the chapter devoted to that place.

An academy was started at Le Raysville, January 8, 1830, with Giles DeWolf, Josiah Benham, L.W. Woodruff, Isaac Seymour, Lyman Bostwick, Lemuel C. Belding and Gould Seymour, as trustees; in its day a valuable adjunct in the cause of a higher education, which, as was the case with most small academies, filled an important place until superseded by the State schools.

The Towanda Academy was started June 16, 1836. James P. Bull, J.D. Montayne, Isaac Myer, Hiram Mix, Burton Kingsbury, Enos Tompkins, David Cash, N.B. Storm, George A. Mix, trustees. This was superseded by the establishment of the Susquehanna Collegiate Institute, which is still one of the important educational institutions of the county.

The Wysox Academy was started April 8, 1840. Harry Morgan, William Myer, Joseph M. Piollet, Joseph M. Bishop, Harry M. Spalding, Victor E. Piollet, Daniel Coolbaugh, David H. Owen, trustees.

Rome Academy, March 24, 1848. Trustees, John W. Woodburn, Lemuel S. Maynard, William W. Woodburn, William E. Maynard, Samuel C. Mann, Joseph Allen, W.W. Kinney, trustees.

The old Troy Academy was commenced in 1842, an educational institution, whose memory not only lingers much as a pleasant dream in the minds of its alumni, but is embalmed in written words by one of its fair girl students. Thus the greatness and immortality of all our institutions, but more especially our schools, are dependent upon the genius of some of the girls and boys, who have played hookey, gone in pairs to the spring, or roamed and picked wild flowers, and who, dreading the stern master and his rule, have slyly bubbled with innocent tricks or deceptions on the Dominie Sampsons of the rural academy. The old building is gone, the spring-path and the spring itself are now, in the crunch of improvement, impossible to find, but their blessed memory will linger, like a sweet dream, forever. Life and marriage, and other inconsequential things, may, perhaps, all be failures, but the old country academy never. Rev. Freemen Lane was the first teacher in the Troy Academy, in 1839.

The Wyalusing Academy started into existence on September 7, 1859, under the imposing name of the Wyalusing Educational Union. Trustees, Henry Gaylord, Augustus Lewis, E.R. Vaughan, J.R. Welles, Washington Taylor, J. Depue, Benjamin Ackley. The board was organized, Henry Gaylord, president; Andrew Fee, secretary. A suitable building was completed in 1861; Miss L.A. Chamberlain, principal, who was succeeded the next year by Mr. La Monte. This building was in time turned into the public schools.

The first school in Towanda was taught by Miss Weltha Tracy (afterward Mrs. Reuben Hale), before 1803, in a small building on the bank of the river north of the lime-kiln. Eliphalet Mason taught four months in the winter of 1803-4. Daniel Scott (afterward Judge Scott), before the year 1807, taught in a building opposite the present residence of H.L. Scott. A man by the name of Osborn subsequently taught the same school.

At an early date schools were occasionally kept in the Foster neighborhood, and frequently attended by the children from the village.

Mrs. Gregory’s School. As early as 1811 Mrs. E.B. Gregory opened a boarding school, in her own house, for young ladies and girls. She afterward taught in the log house which was subsequently occupied by Jesse Woodruff as a tailor’s shop. Dr. Goodrich taught the next school after Mrs. Gregory’s, at Scott’s. Sometimes a school was kept down on the "Fox-Chase" flats, which, like the others, accommodated the entire neighborhood. The first regular school in Towanda was held in a wooden building, not far from the river bank, a little north of the court-house. After the erection of the "fire-proof," in 1825, several terms of school were taught here, and Wm. F. Dininger, D.F. Barstow and a Mr. Dudley are remembered as teachers. Schools were also taught in the attic of the court-house.

Many of those who taught or rather kept school, were poorly qualified. Of the earlier teachers who were fitted for this important work and succeeded well may be mentioned—Rev. Wm. J. Richardson, D.F. Barstow, the celebrated James (commonly "Jim") Crooks, Hannah Ridgway, Rowena Scott, Mrs. Dr. Whitehead, Geo. A Mix.

The Towanda Academy.—Among those who worthy pedagogues were O.H. Platt, United States Senator of Connecticut; Henry M. Hoyt, ex-Governor of Pennsylvania; Prof. F.W. Gunn, deceased, an eminent educator and founder of "The Gunnery," an educational institution of celebrity in Connecticut; Prof. George R. Barker, a distinguished teacher; Miss Blackman, the historian of Susquehanna county; Professors Nash, Worthing, Lyman, Scott, Burrhans, Vandercook and others. The Academy was continued until after the erection of the old public school building and the incorporation of the Susquehanna Collegiate Institute.

Public Schools.—A public school building (wooden) of two stories was erected in 1851-52 on the corner of Pine and Second Streets (where the old building yet stands), and occupied for school purposes until 1873, when the increase of population and enterprise of the citizens demanded a more spacious edifice of modern design and architecture. The present magnificent brick school-house on State street was completed in 1873, and occupied in the fall of the same year, and an additional building in 1883, 25 x 32 feet, of two stories with basement in the Third ward. The First ward school building was completed in 1889—an elegant brick.

Young Ladies’ School.—In 1851, Miss Anna Ross (subsequently married to Rev. Mr. Latimer) and Anna Jewett (Mrs. M.C. Mercur) opened a school for young ladies, and were succeeded in 1854 by the Misses Hanson, who established the "Towanda Female Seminary," and continued the school four or five years. The house now occupied by Chas. H. Allen, on Second street, was used as their seminary building.

The Sisters of Mercy.—Through the efforts of Rev. C.F. Kelly, the church purchased the C.L. Ward mansion, and in September, 1877, opened a school under the direction of the Sisters of Mercy. The school prospered, and numbered about 800 pupils. It is free to all and is supported by the congregation. The usual number of sisters is ten, who, besides their duties in the school, visit the sick and the poor.

Susquehanna Collegiate Institute was chartered May 13, 1849. The petitioners for the charter were Revs. S.F. Colt, F.D. Drake and Hiram Stevens, and J.D. Humphrey. It was the child of the Presbytery of the Susquehanna, "to teach the higher education and the religion of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." The first name, "Collegiate Institute of the Presbytery of Susquehanna," was changed to its present name February 9, 1852. Its location depended upon circumstances, the charter only specifying Bradford county. Towanda offered the largest inducement, and here it was located, ten acres purchased, and the corner-stone laid July 4, 1853. Rev. Samuel F. Colt was principal the first three years, and Charles R. Coburn professor of mathematics, until he was elected County Superintendent. Mr. McWilliam succeeded Rev. Colt, but soon retired and was succeeded by Rev. David Craft, who was principal two years. Two principals were elected, W.H. Dean and O.H. Dean, and were in charge three years; succeeded by Mr. McWilliam, who was in charge five years; then John D. Hewitt, one year, when Rev. S.F. Colt was again principal, and so remained until 1870, when the institution passed into the hands of E.E. Quinlan and G.W. Ryan, who remained in joint charge three years, when the latter was elected principal of the public schools of Towanda, and from then to the present Prof. Quinlan has had exclusive control of the institution and has built it up to one of the leading schools of the land. Prof. Quinlan is an able instructor and possesses rare executive abilities. The college was never in so good a condition as now, and it counts its friends and patrons from all over northern Pennsylvania and southern New York. The present faculty is as follows: Edwin E. Quinlan, A.M., principal; Rev. Rolandus Kocher, A.M.; Frederick C. Wixom, Ph. B.; Clarence J. Marshall; Miss Rosa Fee, preceptress; Miss Katharine D. Swick, A.B.; Mademoiselle J. LeQuin and Miss Lillie Stewart

The school property of Pennsylvania is estimated to be worth $32,958,638; the cost of tuition, building fuel and contingencies are $11,902,260.82; fuel contingencies, debt and interest paid, $3,178,458.92; building, purchasing and renting, $2,054,004.39; tuition, $6,669,797.51. The estimated value of school property in Bradford county is $334,980, having 383 school-houses, 450 school-rooms, 17 school-houses built during the year, 199 houses in good condition, 70 school-houses supplied with furniture during the year, 449 schools, 38 school-houses in which the higher branches are taught, 143 male teachers, 515 female teachers.

The following are the details by townships as they are numbered:
 

Bradford county has 58 school districts, 7,480 male scholars, 6,917 females. Whole tax levied for school purposes, $108,177.60: State appropriation, $19,363.24; teachers’ wages, $75,835.36; total expenditures, $177,142.82; total resources, $19, 991.58; total liabilities, $55,883.42.

The Teachers’ Association continues to meet quarterly. At the Institute of 1890 held at Towanda, the following were the officers: President, G.W. Ryan; vice-presidents, D. Fleisher, M.G. Benedict, U.G. Palmer, C.P. Garrison; secretaries, C.J. Marshall, M.G. Ronan, F.H. Seward, Etta Foster, Anna Cash; music conductor, L.E. Rowley; organist, Miss Honor Sheridan; stenographer, Miss Sarah Chatham; enrolling clerks, E.E. Chubbuck, M. Shores, D. Post, J. Manley, D.F. Lindley. There was an attendance of over 500. The institution, under the management of G.W. Ryan, is probably as prosperous as any in the State.