Rostraver Township Bicentennial Celebration
Created April 6, 1773Rostraver Township was first occupied by the white man during the French and Indian War (1754-1763). The region was originally a great wooded area covered with the finest of our native forest trees, such as giant oaks, beeches, walnuts, maples, and elms, with enough evergreens to give beauty to the landscape in winter.
When the white men first came into this region there were no permanent Indian towns or villages in what is now Rostraver Township. The area was claimed by the Mingoes, one of the Iroquois nations, as part of their hunting grounds. However, it was more used by the Delawares and Shawnees who had been driven by the white man into this section from eastern Pennsylvania.
There is material proof that some ancient peoples had occupied this section at some distant time as there are no less than nine permanent Indian camp sites or forts within the present boundaries of Rostraver Township. They were called Indian forts by the early settlers as evidence found indicated that they had been some kind of fortification. The location of these old Indian Forts is as follows:
Some of these sites are on hill tops, Shepler - 1,416 feet, being the highest point in Rostraver Township. Others are near the rivers and some were near strong flowing springs. There are also other locations that were places of habitation as artifacts of various kinds have been found in many places in the township.Shepler - On Shepler Hill
Rankin - Near Route 71, Rankin Farm
Peters - Peters Farm near Youghiogheny River
Irons - Gibsonton
Ft. Hill - Near Fellsburg
Nicholls - William Nicholls Farm
Speers - Mouth of Speers Run
Jones - On hill above Mazzei Farm
Manown - Lower end of Monessen
Regardless of the fate of these early inhabitants of Rostraver, we do know that they once lived here in considerable numbers and that they could have left us an interesting account of their way of life had they been able to record permanently their history.
The name of the township has an interesting origin. It has been traced back to Rostrevor, a village in County Down, Ireland. So busy were these early settlers, and so occupied with immediate and practical things, that though they probably named their new community Rostrevor out of affection for the native village of some of them, they neglected to leave to posterity any record of having done so. The settlers probably spelled it according to sound and so it is Rostraver. We know for sure that at least one pioneer family - the McClains - came from County Down, Ireland.
The early settlers of Rostraver township were a hardy, thrifty, and industrious group. There is abundant evidence that most of them had strong characters and convictions, with reverence toward God, and had come to Western Pennsylvania with the desire to find homes and a stable community inn which to prosper and raise families.
A few came directly from Europe, but far the greater number from the East or from Maryland or Virginia. They did not come to hunt and fish and to seek adventure. Generally they had left better homes in the East, but were willing to endure all manner of hardships for a few years with the hope of abundance later on. 1 hey learned very soon to love their new homes and to fight for and defend them, as we have seen in the Revolutionary War, as though they were palaces. However rough the land, however small the clearing, or however rude the log cabin of the settler, it was his own.
Whether they came directly from Europe, or from farther east in this country, as stated before, for the most part the settlers had left good homes there and had had schooling. This accounts for the fact that, after the acquisition of land, what they most desired was neighbors. They were eager to form a community or join one in which they could share social, religious, and civic privileges and responsibilities. A natural outcome of such ideals was their almost immediate concern about establishing churches and schools.
Quite a few of the settlers, especially those from Maryland and Virginia, brought their negro slaves with them. After these slaves were set free by a state law in 1782, it was for their children and grandchildren that the colored school known as Pleasant Green was built near what is now Pricedale, around which they lived. That little settlement is still a colored community and it's church is still called Pleasant Green.
The coming of any family or group of families over the mountains and the settlement of
the same is very similar to that of all the others, for conditions affecting travel and facilities for it were about equal regardless of the means of those concerned. Those who came were nearly all young. Often a young bachelor came across the mountains, located a tract of land, cleared part of it, and sometimes even built a house within a year. Late in the fall he would return to his former home to get married, and early in the spring set out with his young wife for their new home. He usually had a horse on which she rode and on which was also carried a few indispensable household goods which could not be purchased or made here in those early times.
The young settler himself usually walked all the way and carried a rifle on his shoulder, which he was almost certain to need on the journey and must have in this new country. They carried also a few pounds of hard-baked bread, and usually he was fortunate enough to shoot a deer, wild turkeys, or other small game, which supplied them with food for their two or three weeks' journey over the mountains and through the wilderness. Often they traveled for days without a sign of human habitation, but if they passed near a settler's house, no matter how humble and crowded, they were taken in and warmly welcomed.
The long journey was generally undertaken in the spring when sleeping outside was neither dangerous nor very inconvenient. They were, moreover, often going to a settlement where they were expected by relatives, friends, or at least acquaintances, and while on the journey had much to look forward to with pleasure.
If the young pioneer had his house ready, he and his wife could take immediate possession. Otherwise the newcomers were taken in by friends until a cabin could be ''raised.''
The average house was about fifteen by thirty feet. It was usually eight or nine to the top of the first story. The second story was rarely finished. It was termed the loft and reached more often by a ladder or by wooden pins driven into the logs than by a staircase. Chimneys were usually built of stone and mortar, but occasionally one was constructed of small pieces of wood laid in mortar sufficiently thick to protect it's walls from the sparks of the fire. Windows were of greased paper unless the settlers could afford to have glass transported from the East. The roofs were made of clapboards, that is, board like pieces split from logs with straight grain. The floor of the first story was made of clay; that of the second story, if it had a floor, was of clapboards like the roof. The door or doors had wooden hinges.
The furniture was nearly all homemade. The neighbors often spent the day after the raising of the house helping the owner make the essential furniture. The homemade beds of these very earliest settlers were primitive in the extreme. A single fork, placed with its lower end in a hole in the floor and its upper end fastened to the joist, served for a bedstead by placing a pole in the fork with one end through a crack in the wall.
These early settlers were busy people. Up to the time of the Civil War, and indeed for a few years afterwards, the products of Rostraver were almost entirely agricultural, but agriculture then took so much more man power than now because of the primitive ways by which the work had to be done.
The land itself was much more difficult to cultivate. The farmers had rude wooden plows, but harrows were scarce. Corn was always the first and most essential crop. Every farmer raised potatoes also.
Grain was cut with the sickle until the cradle was invented in about 1830. A really successful threshing machine was not invented until 1834.
Grass was cut with the scythe until 1812, when the mowing machine was invented. The strongest man could cut from one to two acres a day. The horse drawn rake did not come into use until shortly before the Civil War. Even wagons were very scarce at first, and the hay was hauled on a rude sled or dragged with a grapevine, used instead of the rope of later days. The transition from reaping by means of the sickle, through the various stages of invention represented by the cradle, the reaper, and the binder, to the combine, is an amazing story of the progress made in two hundred years.
Prior to 1790 there was scarcely a market for any farm produce, and each farmer was content if he could raise enough to live on from year to year, improve his lands, and perhaps increase his livestock and his tilled acreage. The farmer who took his produce on flat boats to Pittsburgh was an exception. With the coming of distilleries, however, there was a market for rye, and when the iron industry started, it made a market for horses, cattle, oats, and corn. These tillers of the soil were busy people, for to what we know as farming the pioneer added a whole "string" of home industries that were then necessary for comfortable living.
From necessity the early settlers were clothed almost entirely in homespun garments of linen or wool, or a mixture of both called linsey-woolsey. Flax was grown and the manner in which it was turned into linen thread is interesting. Flax is a fibrous plant, from the bark of which all linen was made. The seed is so small that a gallon of it would sow about two acres of ground. It grows about two and a half feet high and bears a pretty blue blossom. When ripe it was pulled up by the roots and dried on the ground in small shocks like wheat. The seeds were easily removed by threshing it with a flail. The stem itself was very brittle when dry, and the bark of the stem was very tough, and so when bent rapidly or broken on a crude machine called flax break, the bark remained whole, while the brittle stems were reduced to small pieces which were easily separated from the fibre. Finer parts of the fibre were spun into linen, and the coarser part was made into a fabric called a tow.
Spinning in the 1700's was not confined to the pioneer woman of the West. Women of the East of high class families who could afford imported linens were glad to spin and knit and weave. Mary Ball, the mother of Washington, could do all three. Looms were expensive, and only about one settler's family in twelve could afford one, though every family had one or more spinning-wheels.
Wool was prepared for home spinning by carding, which was done by two hand cards which looked not unlike the curry combs used on horses. It could then be spun and woven like linen or tow. It was difficult, however, to keep sheep in those early days because the forests were full of wolves and bears, and foxes too would destroy the young lambs. As the country grew older, these animals disappeared, and many sheep were kept in Rostraver, but wool carding by hand was abandoned as there was a Carding Mill on Route 71 between Sweeney's Restaurant and the Willow Brook Golf Club. At a later date there were wool factories run by water power, accessible to Rostraver, and the work they did was not expensive. The earliest settlers in Rostraver for about thirty or forty years spun and wove their cloth by hand.
Skins were also used for clothing in the very early days, Indian fashion. In winter men working much outdoors wore caps made of coon skins, and buckskins trousers were worn by men in all ranks of life.
Women wore short dresses of linsey-woolsey in the summer, some of which were colored with dyes made from leaves and berries. In winter they wore wool. Many went barefoot in summer while at their work, and sometimes even attended church without shoes. In winter they wore moccasins. Calico and other cottons did not come into use until after the Revolution.
For their meat supply they depended mainly on their trusty rifles. Every settler was expected to know how to handle a gun. The forests were full of game. The most dangerous of the animals were the black and brown bears. Their meat much resembled pork, and the pioneer invariably laid in a supply of it in the late fall and winter, preserving it much as pork is now cured. There was also an abundance of deer. Dozens were shot in a single year by one pioneer, who hunted only in his leisure hours. Jerked venison such as the Indians prepared was common among the early white men. Small game such as wild turkey, pheasant, quail, and squirrel was also exceedingly plentiful. Moreover, both the Youghiogheny and the Monongahela and also the various creeks abounded in fish.
Getting salt was the greatest problem in those days. The settler could not produce it, and neither he nor his stock could do without it. Of course, he knew where the deer licks were, but getting even a little bit there was a slow process. It had to be brought here on packhorses from Hagerstown, Maryland, or from Philadelphia. The commonest way to get it was to send a train of packhorses east laden with skins and furs and have it returned laden with salt. In 1790 a barrel of salt was worth twenty bushels of wheat. Even as late as 1820 farmer boys went east for salt. A horse could carry two hundred and fifty pounds of salt besides its boy rider. The speed of travel was about twenty-five miles per day. The boys looked forward all year to the trip in the fall when they could be spared from the farm work.
Another necessary industry of the farm stead was boiling the sap of the sugar maple to make syrup and sugar. The Indians had used the sap of the walnut tree as well as that of the maple.
Besides making soap at home, lye had various other uses. Hominy was made from hulled corn. Hominy was boiled or fried and usually served with meat. It was a favorite dish in those days. Making sufficient candles for a family was no small task. The most primitive kind which our early settlers mostly used was the tallow dip.
Fortunately Rostraver's woods, like all others in Western Pennsylvania, were full of wild fruits such as strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, wild grapes, plums, servesberries (sarvisberries), etc.
There were no cooking stoves in Rostraver until the eighteen hundreds. The fireplace was supplied with a crane by means of which an iron pot or kettle could be swung around over the fire. Meat was boiled in the pot or kettle or roasted on spits or boiled by pushing it on sticks and holding they over the fires as we still do sometimes at picnics. Frying was done by placing the pan on the hot hearthstone or directly on the hot coals. Bread was baked in a Dutch oven placed before the fire and turned at intervals, or banked with hot coals if the fire was low. There were always a few women in a community who knew how to grow and cure herbs for simple remedies, and they shared their knowledge with others.
Next to the farmer, the millright was the most essential member of the community, and mills were usually the starting points for our earliest villages and post offices when the latter were established. The pioneer had to go to the mill perhaps more frequently than any other place. There he waited for his grist to be ground and took his flour home with him, the miller having first taken his share as toll for grinding it. It was natural for a blacksmith to locate his forge near by. He could thus shoe the horses while the grist was being ground.
The first mills, run by waterpower, were operated by a water-wheel known as the tub mill-wheel, which frequently gave its name to the stream (such as Tub Mill Run) which turned it. The tub mill-wheel was in a round enclosure that resembled a large tub.
The Cedar Creek Mill was one of three that were within the confines of what is now Rostraver Township. It was operated for a time by William Patterson, the grandfather of A. Guy Patterson, and the last man to run it was James Goodman. A short distance up Cedar Creek was Old Concord School, and later Concord Methodist Church and the new Concord School. Thus the community around the Rostraver Post Office, whether it was ever termed a village or not, had all the earmarks of one. The old school house was used for a time as a store after the new Concord School was built.
The third mill was at Webster. The land on which the Webster Grist Mill now stands came from a grant from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania of one hundred and seventy-five acres on July 6, 1796, to Peter Rothwell, who a few days later deeded the same to James Collet. The land was bounded by the lands of George Martin, Benjamin Fell and Andrew Beazell, James Bruce and the Monongahela River.
The town of Webster was laid out by Matthew and Ephriam Beazell in 1833 and named in honor of the great orator and statesman, Daniel Wester, then at the zenith of his power. It was for a long time the largest town in Rostraver, and is one of the oldest coal towns on the Monongahela.
Over on the Youghiogheny also, almost from the founding of West Newton (also called Robbstown for a time from the name of the man who laid it out as a town in 1796) until the National Road was built in 1820, there was a great deal of shipping to Pittsburgh.
In those days travel on Rostraver's two rivers must have been a great treat to the settlers because of the picturesque valleys of these rivers, which were as yet unspoiled by the coal and other industries that make the valleys so busy today. No river valley in the United States surpassed that of the Youghiogheny in the variety of its native trees and wild flowers. Even today botanists from all over the country still haunt its banks around Ohiopyle, which is situated at a picturesque falls in the river south of here in Fayette County.The first settler came during the French and Indian War. The first actual settler was Isaac Hill, who came from Winchester (now Westminister), Carroll County, Maryland, in 1754. He was only eighteen years old, but he took up a large tract of land in the southwestern part of what is now the township that first year, and with the assistance of his negro slave, who accompanied him, built a cabin thereon. Lewis S. Blackburn of Belle Vernon, a direct descendant of the Hill family, gives the location of the cabin as directly across the road from the residence of Thomas Moody on Route 71, near Altier's Dairy Bar. First settler Hill and his negro companion lived by hunting and fishing. They frequently raided the great flocks of wild turkeys which roosted in and about Turkey Hollow. It is interesting to note that this name still clings to the valley opening upon the Monongahela River just above Webster. They lived in this log cabin about a year, but were forced to go back over the mountains for safety as the French
had stirred up Indians to make war on the English settlers.
After the Hills the next settler was George Weddell, who came with his family from Hagerstown, Maryland, in 1758. This family settled in the northeastern part of the township and built a frontier stockade which they called Fort Weddell. It was in the vicinity of the Robertson farm which is on Route 31 about two and a half miles from West Newton. The remains of the fort and the original house of the Weddells are both gone, but the old family burying ground, just over the hill from the Robertson farm, still marks the settlement for us today. Many descendants of this family still live in Western Pennsylvania.
So attractive was this region between the Youghiogheny and the Monongahela, that no sooner were the French driven from Fort Duquesne, renamed Fort Pitt by the victorious English in 1758, than settlers came in such numbers that the district was organized as a township as a part of Bedford County as early as 1771. On July 16 of that year the Court of General Quarter Sessions of Bedford County appointed township officers to serve in Rostraver Township. When Westmoreland County was organized on April 6, 1773, Rostraver became one of its original townships and its boundaries were: Beginning at the mouth of Jacob's Creek and running down the Youghiogheny to where it joins the Monongahela, thence up the Monongahela to the mouth of Redstone Creek, and thence with a straight line to the beginning. It was later reduced to its present size when Fayette and Allegheny counties were created.
Matthew Beazell, one of the few of our early settlers born in Germany, had emigrated to America in about 1760 and with his wife, whom he had met and married on shipboard, settled in Berkeley County, Virginia. In 1773 he brought his family and settled in Rostraver. The tract of land he purchased in 1775 contained two hundred and ninety acres which was in the vicinity of what is now Fellsburg and Webster. In fact the Beazell land extended to the mill site in Webster. Matthew's son, William married Rebecca Fell, daughter of Benjamin Fell, another of the early settlers in this part of the township, and a very distinguished one. Benjamin Fell came to Rostraver from Bucks County in 1783. There are still many descendants of the Beazell and Fell families in Western Pennsylvania, and they have reason to be proud of their forefathers.
The Budd family, consisting of Joseph Budd, Sr. and his two brothers, Conklin and Joshua, came from Somerset County, New Jersey, before the Revolutionary War. Conklin soon went elsewhere, but Joseph and Joshua became large landowners at the ferry named for them on the Youghiogheny just south of West Newton. Joseph Budd, Sr., gave the land for the Salem Baptist Church and for the cemetery attached to it, and he assisted Nathaniel Hayden, David Davis, and others in erecting the church in 1792. There are still many descendants of the pioneer Budds in the township.
In an account of the settlers in Rostraver we must not forget Colonel Edward Cook. Although his home and part of his grant of land are now in Fayette county, it was all in Rostraver Township, Bedford county at first. The Colonel, who was born in 1738, was
of English descent, but his family had come to America and were settled in Lancaster County as early as 1720. He selected as a place to settle, the beautiful region now known as Rehoboth Valley. At any rate in 1770 he came with his wife to make his home here. In addition to the tract of about two hundred acres which he settled on first, which still belongs to his descendants, the Joseph Cook heirs, he later patented or purchased many more acres in Rehoboth Valley and also some lying on the Monongahela River below Fayette City, formerly Cookstown, the site of which he also owned. At his death he had close to one thousand acres. In 1772 he began building a stone house (now the home of Robert Cook, whose children are the sixth generation from Edward) which was not completed until 1776. This house is certainly one of the oldest, if not the oldest, stone house in Western Pennsylvania.
The Cunningham family is of Scotch-Irish descent. James Cunningham, the first of the family that we hear of in Rostraver, came here in 1784 from Lancaster County, where his father had settled in 1725. James owned some four hundred or more acres of land. He had a distillery on his farm where the people often met to discuss the grievances that resulted in the Whiskey Insurrection in 1794. His son Robert, born in 1790, served n the War of 1812 and was badly wounded, but lived to be eighty-four years of age. There are many direct descendants of this family in the township. The founder and first pastor of the Rehoboth Presbyterian Church, the oldest church in the township, the Rev. James Finley, was born in County Armagh, Ireland, in 1725. He was the owner of four hundred acres of land in Rostraver, Rehoboth Church standing near the center of the tract.
Miss Ella M. Flanagan, upon whose farm Sweeney's restaurant stands at the intersection of Routes 51 and 71 (now 201) is the last of her family which was also a pioneer one.
The Household family came originally from Norfolkshire, England. Their tract of land in Rostraver, however, came into possession of the family from the maternal grandfather of William Household (born in 1833), Ebenezer Walker. The later was of Welsh descent and came to Rostraver from Virginia, where his family had settled before the Revolutionary War.
The Houseman family, came from Winchester, Maryland. Christopher Houseman, who had served in the Revolutionary war in Captain John Van Meter's Company, received a grant of one hundred and forty acres of land in Rostraver called St. Kitts, in 1787.
The founder of the Lowry family, Stephen Lowry, came to Rostraver at the age of thirty from Dublin, Ireland in, 1774. He purchased about two hundred acres of land from Adam Wickerham, which he cleared and upon which he built a log house. His farm became one of the best known and best equipped estates in the township. It is situated on Route 71 (now 2201) About three miles from West Newton. For many years Stephen Lowry took the products of his farm on flat boats to the New Orleans market, a custom not uncommon in those days among farmers living near the river. He and his wife are buried in Rehoboth Cemetery. They have direct descendants still living in the township.
The first of the Martin family to settle in Rostraver, George A. Martin, was of Dutch descent. There is an interesting story current among his descendants to the effect that he and his family, traveling up the Monongahela River in 1785, were stopped by an ice gorge in Turkey Hollow, and while waiting for the ice to move, found a tract of one hundred and eighty acres of land to their liking and settled upon it. It is situated on the hill above Turkey Hollow.
The McClain family is of Irish descent. Alexander McClain, the first of the family to come to Rostraver, came directly from County Down, Ireland. His son, John McClain, lived at what is now Port Royal on the Youghiogheny, where he raised a large family, some of whom settled in the township while others went to the other states.
The first of the Porter family to settle in Rostraver was John, who came from Ellicot Mills, Maryland, in 1788 or 1789, although his ancestors had come to Virginia from England as early as 1622.
Colonel John Power, born in 1757, a young officer in the Revolutionary War, was a distinguished early settler. He married Margaret, a daughter of the Reverend James Finley in 1778. In 1788 Colonel John received a grant of two hundred and forty-seven and three fourth acres of land.
Of the Shepler family which had emigrated from Germany and settled near Winchester, Virginia, Matthias with his brothers, Peter and Philip, came to settle in Rostraver before the Revolutionary War. The original Shepler tract, which comprised over four hundred acres, includes the highest point in the township, according to government survey.
Dr. Bela Smith, the first of his family to settle in Rostraver, came from Connecticut to the "Forks" between 1785 and 1789, as a Yankee school teacher, although he had studied medicine in Connecticut. He soon gave up teaching to practice medicine, and we learn from his descendants that he used to go down to Fort Pitt to doctor the soldiers there.
The Stewart family which is of Scotch descent has one of the oldest patents on land in the township. James Stewart received the grant of two hundred and ten acres called Gallio, in 1784, and to make it more interesting, his patent was signed by Benjamin Franklin.
The Timms family was of Irish descent. The first of the family to settle in Rostraver was Mrs. Mary Timms with her two young sons, Samuel and Caleb, who came from Hagerstown, Maryland, at the end of the 1700's or in the early 1800's.
The Todd family is of French descent for their ancestors lived in Brittany before emigrating to America. They first settled in Lancaster County, but in 1779 Robert Todd, the grandfather of the late Robert Sowers Todd and George Miller Todd, came here and settled on a farm a mile and a half from Rostraver Post Office, on part of which the old Concord School stands. He was a miller as well as a farmer. It is highly probable that he once operated the mill on Cedar Creek. There are many descendants of this family still in the township.
Like the early settlers in other parts of our country, those in Rostraver Township had the universal desire to worship God publicly. The task of building churches in the wilderness would seem to us in this easy world of today a feat of courage and endurance that would have caused "our hearts to faint and our limbs grow weary.”
Many of the early ministers preached for years without churches. They traveled long distances on horseback from one preaching place to another and were in constant danger from Indians and wild beasts.
The first settlers of western Pennsylvania were of the Presbyterian faith.
Rehobath Presbyterian Church is one of the oldest organizations west of the Allegheny
Mountains. It dates back to the coming to this section of Reverend James Finley from the East Nottingham Church in the New Castle Presbytery. He was the youngest of seven sons of Michael Finley who emigrated from Ireland to the American colonies in the year 1734. His early visits here were in the days when the countryside was nothing but a wilderness. For some time the gospel was preached in a log house on the land owned by Colonel Edward Cook about one mile from the site of the present Rehoboth Church building. Some time in the year 1778 Reverend Finley is supposed to have organized Rehoboth in the morning and Round Hill in the afternoon of the same day. He remained the pastor of these churches until the time of his death January 6, 1795.
An extract from the will of Reverend James Finley reads, "It is my will that two acres of my land on which the meeting house, Rehoboth, and the graveyard stand, and including the path from the northwest corner of the graveyard to the nearest spring, shall be under the care of the eldership of said congregation forever." So it was that the beginning of Rehoboth property came about.
The present Rehoboth building was erected where the brick church had stood. It was begun in 1899 and completed in 1900 and stands today nestled among the rolling hills, a structure of beauty and a monument to God's eternal plan.
Contributions to the minister's salary were called stipends and were expected to be in accordance with the financial circumstances of the members.
Musical instruments and song books were hard to acquire for churches, because there were few to be had and most congregations were unable to afford them. Fells Church is another old landmark in Western Pennsylvania. The stone church was built in 1834, replacing the log church which served the congregation from 1792 until that time.
Like most of the buildings at that time the first church was made of logs. Much of the work was done by the two families, Fell and Beazell.
Standing high on a hill-top between West Newton and Route 51 overlooking a beautiful countryside is the old Salem Church organized in 1792. It is the oldest Baptist organization in the county. The first known pastor was Reverend Barkley.
Other churches in the township are branches of these mother churches. They
include the following:In Rostraver Township religion and early education were closely related in that theWebster Presbyterian - erected 1881 - originally supplied by Rehoboth
East Salem Presbyterian - supplied by Rehoboth - Discontinued
Concord Methodist - erected 1849 - originally supplied by Fells
Webster Methodist - erected 1866- originally supplied by Fells
Olive Branch Baptist - erected 1857 - supplied by Salem
schools in many instances were built near the churches as illustrated by the following
lists:When the first school in the township was established is not known positively but it is assumed that it must have been in the 1770's. This first building was called the Center School because it was near the geographical center of the township.Rehoboth church ............................ Harmony School
Fells Church ................................... Lebanon School
Salem Church ................................. Salem School
East Salem Presbyterian .................. Mount Pleasant School
Concord Church ............................. Concord School
Center School was made of logs and poles, had a thatched straw roof, an earth floor, and was lighted by two small paper windows. A huge fireplace occupied one end of the structure and a crude door on wooden hinges gave admittance at the other. In 1805 a better building was erected. This one had two glass windows, a wood floor and clapboard roof, which was covered with clay to keep out the cold and rain.
G. H. Lower, the first teacher of this school, came from New York. He was a fine scholar who created quite an interest in education while he remained in the township. In addition to teaching the common branches, he taught a class of six in Greek and Latin.
Most of the buildings in these early times were built in about the same way as the Center School. On one side of the schoolroom was the necessary fireplace that the teacher and the larger pupils had to supply with wood. Around the entire room there was usually a bench made of a slab from a saw log on which the pupils sat. The walls of the house served as the backs of these uncomfortable benches and the more advanced pupils were provided with a board placed in front of them for their copy books.
Before the time of the public schools in Pennsylvania these schools which were built and maintained by groups of families were called subscription schools. This name was given them because each family represented subscribed a sum of money to the support of the school. It usually amounted to twenty-five cents for each pupil per month although the amount varied with the community. Like ministers of the early churches, the teacher's salary was often paid in products of the farm. One record states that John Powers gave eight bushels of corn, two bushels of oats, and one gallon of maple syrup for the salary of the teacher at Lebanon School. Another man made his payment with five coon and three fox skins.
The school term was usually for the three months of December, January, and February and school was in session for six days a week from daylight until dark. Occasionally a half holiday was declared on Saturday afternoon when the teacher took time to lay in a good supply of rods with which to whip the children the following week.
Most of the instruction in the schools in the early 1800's consisted of individual teaching of reading, writing, spelling, and arithmetic. There were no uniform textbooks, so pupils had to furnish their own. They brought whatever books were in their homes and these were used according to the age of the pupil, being handed down from older to younger members of the family until they were worn out. The Bible was the most common book used to read from, since it was also the only one many of the pupils possessed.
A popular textbook that came into use early in the 1800's was the United States Spelling Book. It was the first textbook published west of the Alleghenies and was used in at least one of the Rostraver Schools.
Schoolhouses were used for social gatherings in the community, since churches were used strictly for religious purposes. The spelling bee was one of the most popular forms of entertainment for old and young alike.
In 1861 a school for colored children was established in Rostraver Township. It was called the Pleasant Green School and was located near the Rostraver High School, on the bluff by the Pleasant Green Colored Church. The old colored families, descendants of the slaves who were liberated in the township when Pennsylvania abolished slavery in accordance with the Act of 1780, were represented on the roll book for 1861.
Concord was the last subscription school to be established and the original building was erected in 1830. The development of the Concord Subscription School project grew out of the need for a schoolhouse and a place of assembly in the central part of the township.
The Concord Subscription School was erected by the Concord School and Meeting House Committee. This group was governed by a carefully drawn-up constitution.
The fine heritage will continue only if the residents of Rostraver remain a steadfast, law-abiding, and God-fearing community willing to face hardships as did their pioneer ancestors.----------------------------------------- Prepared by Rose Arone who was Co-Chairman along with John Kopp, Co-Ordinator of
the Rostraver Bicentennial on April 6, 1973.