Ref: The Hearthstone Town and Country Pennsburg, Montgomery County, PA Thursday - March 27, 2003 WARNER'S SCHOOL HOUSE The Littlest Red School House Upper Hanover Township 1856-1948 PART 2 OF 5 Editor's note: This is the second installment of a five-part story on the history of Warner's School House written by a great-great-grandson of the farmer whom the school house was named. Each week for four more weeks we will publish a portion of the school's history in this section of the paper. German Still Taught - In 1863, the school district's authorized texts were: Spellers and Readers, Saunders Series; Arithmetics, Stoddards and Greenlief's; Geography, Warren's; Grammar, Smith Bullion's. Mensuration, etc. at the discretion of the teachers. German to be taught as heretofore. In autumn 1863, teacher Oswin F. WAAGE read to his Warner's pupils the speech that President Lincoln had delivered November 19 at the dedication of the Gettysburg battlefield cemetery. (The battle had been July 1-3, 1863). After eight years of renting, William WARNER bought the Upper Hanover farm from Jesse YEAKEL on March 31, 1865. He paid $5,000 for about 75 acres. By 1870, Theodore's brother Jesse, 24, had married and was living in the WARNER farmhouse with his wife, Susan (SHIFFERT) WARNER, 20. The SHIFFERT family must have been significantly involved in the area because, in 1871, the Warner's School House briefly was called Shiffert's School House. It's possible William WARNER moved back to the Lehigh Valley at that time, leaving his sons to take care of the farm. On June 18, 1871, in the village of Greenville, Upper Hanover Township, Theodore WARNER married C. Elizabeth ARROWSMITH of Easton. 11 Township Schools - By 1872, the name Warner's School House stuck for good. At this time, the other Upper Hanover schools were Schwenk's, Croll's (also called Perkiomen Heights, Haring's and Jacob's), Pewee (Bethesda and Schultz's), Palm (Gery's), Reed's, Kleinsville, Church (Bullfrog Academy), Red Hill ((Hillegassville), Greenville and Pennsburg. In 1872, part of the Upper Hanover School District broke away. The village of Pennsburg left the school district to form its own district. Soon after, the Greenville and Red Hill schools also split off. Warner's School and the others remained in the Upper Hanover District. Brick Building in 1875 - Warner's School House was rebuilt from June to October 1875. The small square building that went up in 1856 came down. In its place rose a one-room brick building that would serve schoolchildren for 73 years. The new structure had red brick walls three bricks thick. The school house was 26 feet wide and 31 feet long, closer to the district's standard size. The classroom ceiling was 10 feet high. The building still had no bell tower. Construction cost $984.76, and material from the old building was sold for $38.70. Teachers still were paid $30 a month. Now the school year would last six months, opening in October. In 1875, the village of Greenville was incorporated as a borough called East Greenville, separate from Upper Hanover Township. The "East" was added to Greenville because there already was a Greenville in Mercer County, western Pennsylvania. Still in Upper Hanover, Warner's School House was less than a mile from the new East Greenville line. According to an 1877 map, the WARNER farm was this year in the hands of a B. MILLER, who might have been renting. William WARNER had a daughter named Maria, who married a MILLER, so B. MILLER might have been a WARNER son-in-law. Warners Leave - William WARNER sold his farm to George KURTZ on November 7, 1881. By now, WARNER was living in Hanover Township, Lehigh County, just north of Allentown. His son Theodore had moved to Phillipsburg, New Jersey, where he became a railroad car inspector, a carman. KURTZ paid William WARNER $6,000 for the property, but by June 6, 1885, the land was resold at a sheriff's sale to Henry J. SMITH and N.B. KEELY. In 1885, Wentling's School House was added to the Upper Hanover schools. Now the district had nine schools for grades 1-8. The village of Pennsburg broke away from Upper Hanover Township to become a borough in 1887; Red Hill did the same in 1902. Literary Gazette - On December 2, 1887, Warner's School teacher Frank Y. HOFFMAN founded the Warner's Literary Society. The purpose was to publish anonymously the writings of Warner graduates in a Warner's Literary Gazette. With the motto, "You Can If You Will," the Literary Society was active six or seven years and would reappear briefly in the 1930s. Alice L. WELKER was appointed teacher at Warner's in 1888. She probably was the school's first woman teacher. Like other teachers in the region, she had two years training at Kutztown Normal School. She received her diploma only after the Upper Hanover School District approved of her teaching. In 1889, the school board recommended that Kutztown grant WELKER a diploma. In 1892, first-grader Katie DERR met third-grader Jonathan WASSER at Warner's School. Jonathan carved their initials, "KD & JW," in a brick next to the school's front door. Over the next decades, Jonathan and Katie would fall in love and marry, and their two daughters, Anna and Vera, also would attend Warner's. On January 23, 1894, Henry SMITH and N.B. NEELY sold the old WARNER farm to Thomas J. and Emma L. TRUMBAUER. The TRUMBAUERS would farm in Upper Hanover for 16 years. >From 1894 to 1899, Warner's teacher Dan K. DOTTERER was paid $35 a month. In 1896, a year after the school year expanded to seven months, the school board voted to renovate Warner's School House. They decided to replace part of the floor, move the coal stove closer to the center of the room, install a natural slate blackboard and plaster with cement the east wall outside, the wall farthest from the road. Bell Added in 1901 - In the summer of 1901, the school expanded to 26 by 38 feet. This extended the building's front 7 feet out, to include a small cellar, an entrance hall over the cellar and a 9-foot-8-inch-tall bell tower up top. The right side of the entrance hall had a wood trap door to the basement. Coal was stored in the cellar. In was delivered through a small ground-level window facing the road. The rest of the building still had no basement. According to school records, an Oscar SCHMOYER collected money for the bell. In the new entrance hall, students stowed their coats and lunches. Girls' belongings were kept on the left, boys' on the right. The shelves were far left and right. The hall's floor was wood, as was the old classroom floor. The exterior of the building addition was red brick, matching the brick in the basic structure. The hall had a window on each side of a front porch, and a third window, less than half the size of the others, centered between the porch top and the building's roof peak. Just above the porch top was a dedication stone, indicating the bell-tower addition was built in 1901. Outside the school house was a pump with a handle to draw drinking water from a well. Looking out the front door, pupils could see the pump a little to the left. The teacher typically would ask a boy to fetch a bucket of water from the pump. Inside, the pupils would drink from the bucket with cups or a "community dipper." Picture - Warner's School House pupils from the 1934-35 school year pose at the front door. Mabel SCHWENK was their teacher. 1934 was the first year SCHWENK served as teacher at the school.