Marple in the 1850s: Part Six — Schools
By Sam Pickard
This is Part Six of an ongoing series on Marple Township in the 1850s.
Part Five focuses on Manufacturing in Marple during the 1850s.
Part Seven focuses on Churches in Marple during the 1850s.
Pennsylvania was relatively late among northeastern states to establish public schools, only authorizing them statewide with the passage of the School Act of 1834. Despite the passage of the law, individual districts were still permitted to vote on the establishment of public schools, which Marple appears to have done in about 1835 or 1836.[1]
The Marple School District was administered by several school directors serving one-year terms. In the 1850s, these directors included notable citizens such as John F. Taylor (who built a mansion for summer vacationers), Joseph Rhoads Jr. (son of tanner and wealthy landowner Joseph Rhoads), and Walter Green (who’s beehives and honey won him acclaim).[2]
Students and Teachers
While an imperfect measure, the 1850 census recorded 190 children and teenagers attending school.[3] The 1860 census recorded only 180 children at school, though mid-20th century Marple historian Clarissa Smith—presumably citing official records—wrote in a 1958 newspaper article that in the same year there were 249 children in the township’s schools, 128 boys and 121 girls.[4]
While Smith primarily wrote about a later period in the 19th century, it is likely that students in the 1850s would have experienced something similar to what she described in another article. Class was in session from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m., and from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. each day, with 15-minute recesses in morning and afternoon. Lunch was typically eaten in the back of the school room with boys on one side and girls on another. Students were seated in double desks arranged in rows, with a large stove in the center of the room providing heat. Students would graduate after passing the “seventh reader,” and while some might go on to high schools or business schools, most students did not continue their education. Some children might not make it this far, dropping out of school to assist their families on farms.[5]
Not much is known about the schools’ teachers during this time. After graduating primary school, girls could take a county teacher’s exam and begin teaching at 16 years old. Specialized privately run and state-sanctioned normal schools (teacher training schools) began to open in Pennsylvania during the 1850s to provide more formal training for those who wished to become teachers, and the idea of continuing education for those interested in entering the field was gaining ground.[6]
The 1850 census enumerated only one person in the township, 28-year-old Hannah Lewis, with the occupation of “teacher.”[7] In 1860, the census recorded two teachers—20-year-old Mary Velotte and 21-year-old Martha Parvin. Velotte lived with her family on Old Marple Road, and presumably taught at School House No. 2 on Sproul Road. Parvin, who lived with the family of Dr. J. Morris Moore, taught at School House No. 1 next to the Presbyterian Church.[8] A November 1856 newspaper advertisement for a “Competent male teacher” offered pay of $30 a month, while Clarissa Smith wrote that in 1860 the township’s teachers were paid $37 a month.[9]
During the 1850s, the township had three public schools, two of which were rebuilt during the decade.
School House No. 1
Marple School House No. 1 originated as a privately-operated school for the township’s children. In 1818, John Craig had granted a lot at the northern corner of Sproul Road, Church Lane, and Marple Road to three trustees on the condition that a school be erected on that spot. This land is now occupied by a portion of the Marple Presbyterian Church’s cemetery. A one-story school called the “Marple Seminary” was built that year and was operated as a private school until the passage of the 1834 common school law. This building was used into the 1850s and was demolished in 1855.[10] In May of that year, the directors of the Marple School District published a notice in the Delaware County Republican newspaper soliciting builders to erect a new school building on the site of the 1818 structure.[11] In 1857 the Delaware County American & Media Advertiser wrote that the new school building was “more large [sic] and better adapted to the purpose,” of educating the township’s children.[12] The building they constructed was a two-story stone structure with a classroom on the first floor and a hall on the second floor. It was in this hall that tanner James Lewis, who was a conductor on the underground railroad, held an abolitionist meeting in 1859 or 1860.[13]
School House No. 2
School House No. 2 had been built in about 1791 as a privately-run school administered by the Chester Quaker Meeting. Located along Sproul Road in what is now Saints Peter & Paul Catholic Cemetery. In 1836, land had been purchased along what is now Crum Creek Road to build a public school and Henry Graham Ashmead’s 1884 county history reports that the school on Sproul Road was abandoned.[14] This may not have been the case, however. An 1848 map of the county shows only the school on Sproul Road and the directors of the school district sold the Crum Creek Road parcel in October 1857, making no mention of buildings on the property.[15]
In May 1857, the school directors had requested that interested builders attend a meeting “at the School House, near the Lamb Tavern, at which time they will receive proposals for erecting a new School Building.”[16] The notice appears to confirm that the 1791 school house on Sproul Road was still in use at the time and presumably had housed a public school, even though it was still owned in trust for the Quaker Meeting. A new school building was erected on the site, which served until it was replaced by a new building further up Sproul Road in 1877.[17]
School House No. 3
The last of Marple’s school buildings in the 1850s was School House No. 3, located on Cedar Grove Road. The newest school building at the start of the 1850s, this was the only public school not replaced during the decade. Little is known about its appearance, aside from that it was a smaller stone building dating to 1837.[18]
[1] Henry Graham Ashmead, History of Delaware County, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: L. H. Everts & Co., 1884), 582-583; Stephanie Hoover, “Pennsylvania’s Common Schools: A History of the State’s School System,” PennsylvaniaResearch.com, 2017, https://www.pennsylvaniaresearch.com/pennsylvania-common-schools.html.
[2] Ashmead, History of Delaware County, 583.
[3] 1850 U.S. Census, Schedule 1.—Free Inhabitants, Pennsylvania, Delaware County, Marple Township.
[4] 1860 U.S. Census, Schedule 1.—Free Inhabitants, Pennsylvania, Delaware County, Marple Township; Clarissa Smith, “Old Marple Seminary Building Now Is Used By Sunday School,” Chester Times (Chester, Pennsylvania), 20 January 1958, 9.
[5] Clarissa Smith, “Marple Schools’ History: Nobody Knows Where The First School Was,” News of Delaware County (Upper Darby, Pennsylvania), 25 August 1966.
[6] Smith, “Marple Schools’ History”; Hoover, “Pennsylvania’s Common Schools.”
[7] 1850 U.S. Census, Schedule 1.—Free Inhabitants, Pennsylvania, Delaware Co., Marple Twp., sheet 211A, line 40.
[8] 1860 U.S. Census, Schedule 1.—Free Inhabitants, Pennsylvania, Delaware Co., Marple Twp., page 94, line 12, page 112, line 24.
[9] “A Competent Male Teacher Is Wanted,” Public Ledger (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), 25 November 1856, 4; Smith, “Old Marple Seminary.”
[10] Smith, “Old Marple Seminary”; Ashmead, History of Delaware County, 582-583.
[11] “Notice to Builders,” Delaware County Republican (Chester, Pennsylvania), 18 May 1855.
[12] “Marple Store,” editorial, Delaware County American and Media Advertiser, 17 June 1857.
[13] Smith, “Old Marple Seminary.”
[14] Ashmead, History of Delaware County, 582.
[15] Joshua W. Ash, Map of Delaware County, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: Robert P. Smith, 1848); Delaware County Deed Book E2, 470.
[16] “To Builders,” Delaware County Republican, 15 May 1857.
[17] Ashmead, History of Delaware County, 582.
[18] Ashmead, History of Delaware County, 583.