One Room Schoolhouse in PA Restored School Museum

Concord School, Loyalhanna Township Pennsylvania

Date added: November 26, 2024

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Pennsylvania
School

Right side of school, taken from willow tree (2011)

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According to Concord School's last teacher, Miss Mary J. Bash, who taught there from 1925 to 1953 and whose family then owned the farm on which it stands, the schoolhouse was erected in the early 1850s as an independent school and was constructed of brick made in a nearby field.

It was the third building that was used for school purposes in the district. The first two were built of logs and were located on the opposite side of the road from the present building. The school previous to the present building was known as the Hart School. There were no desks in this school, but benches were made around the four walls of the school for seats.

Miss Bash, who presumably recounted what she had learned from local informants and garnered from any extant records, had this to say about the origins of the Concord Independent School District:

A number of years ago some people met at the home of Mrs. Kirk McConnell the mother of Judge Alexander McConnell and Mrs. James Foster for the purpose of organizing an independent school district. Judge McConnell and his brothers attended this school. Among the early settlers who lived in the district were the Georges, Hensels, Robinsons, Fennels, Kerrs, McBrides, Adairs and Stewarts.

Several documentary sources, however, provide evidence that the schoolhouse actually dates a few years later than claimed by Miss Bash. A map of Westmoreland County published in 1857 depicts a schoolhouse, presumably the Hart School, on the west side of the road opposite the vacant site of Concord School. The annual reports of the Westmoreland County Superintendent of Schools first began to name districts and enumerate schools in 1855, including the other Loyalhanna Township schools, as well as in 1856 and 1857, but they made no mention of the Concord District. "Concord School, Ind." appears for the first time in the "Tabular Statement" or roster of county schools "for the school year ending in June 7^th, 1858," and the county superintendent's report for the year noted that Concord was one of twelve Westmoreland districts with "decidedly better" schoolhouses than some of those in the eighty-three other districts that he had categorized as possessing "first class schoolhouses." According to the "Tabular Statement" the Concord District's one school had been in operation for an average of four months during the past year with one male teacher and an enrollment of fifty-four pupils. Thus the schoolhouse must have been in use no later than March 1858, and probably was completed by the late fall of 1857 to accommodate the winter school term. Construction of the schoolhouse almost certainly began no earlier than April 1856 when its site was acquired by Henry McBride as part of a farm purchased from Samuel Hart, whose family had owned the property since the early 1800s. Henry McBride appears to have been a key supporter of the effort; not only did he provide a site for the school but he probably also is the Mr. McBride who, according to Miss Bash, engaged a teacher to replace one who had resigned mid-term. There also is some evidence to suggest that he valued education more than did Samuel Hart. The 1850 census records that two of Henry McBride's children had attended school within the past year, while none of Samuel Hart's children had done so. Although the 1858 school report records that the Concord District had spent only $1.63 on "school houses, purchasing, building, renting, repairing, etc." with no tax levied for building, the report of the following year states that "tax levied for building purposes" in the district totaled $565.75 and the "cost of school houses, purchasing, building, renting, repairing, etc." amounted to $828.75, figures, no doubt, reflecting the cost of the new schoolhouse and indicating that its construction was supported by a combination of public and private funds. Nothing has been found in the historic record to explain why public funds would be used for the construction of a private school. In 1860, the county superintendent reported that Concord Independent District had "One school; house very good; school good, and directors and people active and intelligent," and a road survey petition of the following year confirms that the independent district's school was of brick construction. The Concord District's new brick schoolhouse must have presented a striking contrast to those of the Loyalhanna District; clearly the neighbors who had met at the home of Mrs. Kirk McConnell some years earlier had achieved their goal.

Concord School operated successfully as an independent district into the early 20^th Century. In 1861 the Westmoreland school superintendent observed that Concord was one of the 109 county schools categorized as sufficient as regards its buildings and furniture; it also was one of 101 graded schools. For the 1860/61 term school was taught at Concord for an average of four months by one male teacher whose average month salary was $29.00. The school's enrollment numbered forty-two (twenty-four male and eighteen female students) with an average attendance of thirty-one. During the period from 1858 to 1871, Concord's annual school term was almost five months long on average. Enrollment averaged 47.5 pupils, with a high of sixty in the 1868/69 term and a low of thirty-six in 1862/63 and 1865/66, while the actual attendance averaged 32.9 students, with a high of fifty-two in the 1857/58 term and a low of twenty in 1859/60 and 1870/71. Throughout the period teachers were exclusively male, except for two terms when females were employed. Between 1858 and 1864, the salaries of male teachers averaged $27.50 per month, while female teachers received only $18.00 monthly for the 1859/60 term and $16.67 for the 1862/63 term. The average monthly wage for male teachers jumped to $40.00 for the 1864/65 term and thereafter was either $40.00 or 45.00, except in 1870/71 when it dropped to $37.00. One later state report, the one of 1885, suggests that these patterns continued. For the 1884/85 school term, Concord operated for an average of five months with one male teacher who received $45.00 on average monthly; the enrollment was fifty-one with an average attendance of forty students. By 1900, however, enrolment and attendance had declined by slightly more than fifty percent; in October of that year teacher Laura D. Elliot reported that the school's enrollment was ten boys and thirteen girls with an average monthly attendance of seventeen, and in the following month the school's enrollment increased slightly to twelve boys and fourteen girls.

A roster of school teachers prepared by Mary Bash indicates that before 1888 Concord teachers, with few exceptions, were male, while twenty-three of the twenty-eight teachers serving from the 1888/89 term until the school closed were female. With the notable exception of Henry M. Jones, one of the school's most prominent teachers who also served for some years as the Westmoreland County Superintendent of Schools, and Miss Bash, Concord's longest-serving teacher, only three of the identified teachers served for more than one term.

In addition to its educational function, Concord School provided a venue for community groups and programs. In 1858 and 1859, before the Union Reformed and Lutheran Church was built in nearby Fenneltown, the "Rev. R.P. Thomas was engaged to preach for the [congregation] in Concord School-house. A singing school and a literacy society also met in the schoolhouse, and the school served as a venue for "the teacher's examinations … given by the county superintendent."

In 1911, the Concord Independent District released control of its school to the Loyalhanna Township Public School Board. Concord became one of eight township schools, and was referenced as school "number 6". These schools each technically had eight grades, and upon completing the eighth grade children wishing to continue their education could attend high school in the nearby town of Saltsburg. Consolidation proceeded slowly in Loyalhanna Township over the course of the early 20^th Century, and children were transferred to new schoolhouses as older schools were abandoned or replaced. In 1920 Moween acquired a new school, and in 1923 a two-room schoolhouse was erected in Elrico, which was replaced by a larger building in 1930. Harmony School closed in 1926. Concord School managed to continue in operation under its dedicated teacher Mary J. Bash, who served from 1925 to 1953. Attendance began to decline in the 1930s, however, and by 1953, its last year of operation, Concord School only had six students. Nevertheless, the schoolhouse apparently was kept in repair during those years and received modest improvements including the construction in 1940 of a small frame entry vestibule onto whose roof the belfry was relocated, as well as electric service. In 1952, the Loyalhanna Township School District entered into an agreement to become a part of the Saltsburg Joint School Authority, and at its April 21^st meeting of the following year, the township school board authorized Concord's closure and the transfer of its students to Elrico School. Two years later, the school board voted to sell Concord, along with Stewart and Myers Schools, which also had closed, at a public auction to be held on November 21^st, 1955. While Stewart School was offered for sale in fee simple, only the schoolhouses and outbuildings at Concord and Myers were to be sold, no doubt because the school district did not own the property on which they stood, with the proviso that the buildings were to be removed within sixty days. However, the Concord sale evidently did not occur since the abandoned schoolhouse survived.

When Concord School closed, the land on which it stood belonged to the heirs of Albert Bash who had purchased the former McBride farm and school site from John M. and Susanna Fennel in 1906. Albert Bash died in 1936 bequeathing the farm to Mary A Bash and Frank E. Bash. The property remained in the Bash family until 1968, when the heirs and administrators of Mary A. Bash and Frank E. Bash, including Mary J. Bash, sold the property to Pittsburgh residents Roy and Marilyn Voshall. The Voshalls retained ownership of the farm for fifteen years, and in 1983 conveyed it (with various exceptions for utility rights-of-way, mineral rights, and a 4.66-acre lot subdivided in 1921) to Girard W. and Eleanor C. Ent.

Shortly after acquiring the property, Mrs. Ent took steps to save the vandalized and deteriorating schoolhouse by rebuilding its collapsing rear wall, thus embarking on what became a more than twenty-year campaign to restore and interpret Concord School as a private "learning-living school museum" that "offers visitors the feeling of being in an actual one-room school." Through Mrs. Ent's vision and dedication, the schoolhouse has been preserved and furnishings, artifacts and documents relating to the community's educational heritage have been collected to enhance visitor experience. In 2005 Eleanor Ent's efforts to restore Concord School received public recognition, when the Westmoreland County Historical Society presented her with its Arthur St. Clair Preservation Award "for her work in historic building preservation" and for her "dedication in bringing local history to life."

Learn more at the schoolhouse office website.

Building Description

Located in a rural setting near the northwest corner of a 75-acre farm at the intersection of two secondary roads, Concord School is a small brick schoolhouse with a rectangular one-room plan, gable-end entry and small open belfry that was erected c. 1857 and features simple detailing typical of that era. The once-abandoned building was rescued from impending collapse and restored as a private museum in the 1990s by its current owner. The schoolhouse faces Loyalhanna Dam Road with a short setback, and the surrounding level grassy yard has a few trees and several small outbuildings and structures. A mix of agricultural land and forest with scattered farmsteads and modern residences comprises the neighborhood around the schoolhouse, a landscape relatively little changed from the early 20^th Century.

Measuring 26 feet wide by 36 feet deep, the one-story, gable-roofed schoolhouse is of brick construction above a stone foundation and features a regular fenestration pattern on the three-bay gable-end front and side elevations composed of 6/6 sash windows with stone lintels and sills, along with an open pyramid-roofed belfry and two small brick chimneys centered on the roof ridge; the detailing of the wooden trim is quite simple but reveals Greek and Gothic Revival influences typical of the mid-19^th century.

The front elevation features a central entry with bracketed hood, flanked on each side by a single window. The foundation is constructed of local sandstone, roughly squared and dressed, and laid in a random ashlar pattern with small blocks alternating with long rectangular blocks creating a Flemish bond pattern. The brick walls are laid in the common bond with five-to-eleven stretcher courses between header courses. Conforming to traditional best practices, the walls are three bricks thick with a layer of soft brick between layers of fired brick; the brick purportedly was made on a nearby farm. The windows have dressed sandstone lintels and sills and narrow plain trim, all of which is original fabric, as are the sashes whose muntins have a Grecian ovolo molding profile, typical of the mid 19^th Century. The windows originally had shutters, as evidenced by hinge ghosts on the window frames and extant wrought-iron shutter dogs, spike-driven into the brickwork. The windows were repaired in 1996 (work which included the replacement of broken glass, reglazing, caulking and minor wood repairs), and panel shutters were installed in 1999 as a security measure. The entry retains early plain trim, but the extant panel door was installed in 1927 in compliance with Pennsylvania fire code regulations, and the deteriorated sill was replaced in kind during the 1990s renovations. The opening originally had a double door; one four-panel leaf survives and has been preserved as an artifact. The front entry is accessed by four ashlar sandstone steps, one of which is a 1994 replacement in-kind of the missing original. The wooden handrails at the front entry and bracketed entry hood also date to the 1990s (features installed to provide for safety and weather protection). The overhanging roof eaves retain their original box cornice, which incorporates a scalloped fascia reflecting Gothic Revival influences, Grecian ovolo bed molding and returns on the front gable; the cornice was repaired in 1995 (work that encompassed consolidation of minor areas of deterioration, particularly at the returns). The extant belfry, reconstructed in 1995 based on physical and photographic evidence, is centered on the roof ridge just behind the front gable on the footprint of the original (which had been moved to the roof of a small frame vestibule added to the front entry in 1940; both vestibule and belfry had collapsed by the 1970s). The belfry features a canted, slate-clad apron, square corner posts with simple spandrel brackets that create a round-arched effect on each side and a slate-clad pyramid roof. Installed to replace the original, which had been stolen, the bell is a period replacement from a contemporary schoolhouse.

The side elevations of the schoolhouse both have three regularly spaced windows, and the materials and detailing of the foundation, walls, windows, and cornice match the front elevation. The roof on both sides is clad with Peach Bottom slate, a highly valued slate from southeastern Pennsylvania. The two small square brick chimneys centered on the ridge behind the belfry are original features; both have arched brick covers and were designed to vent heating stoves.

The building's windowless rear wall features a stone foundation, brick walls, and cornice treatment matching those of the other three elevations. A portion of the rear wall, which had collapsed after the abandonment of the school, was reconstructed in 1983 (the first restoration measure undertaken by the present owner upon acquiring the property) utilizing salvaged brick; since not enough reusable brick had survived, a doorway was inserted during this work (which also provides a secondary means of egress). Sandstone steps matching those at the front entry were added at the rear entry in 1994, and a recycled 19th-century panel door was installed in the rear entry two years later.

The brick walls of the schoolhouse enclose a single room with wooden floor and plaster walls and ceiling, molded woodwork and a raised platform at the southeast end of the room; the ceiling height is approximately ten feet. The floor is framed with hand-hewn joists, running from side-to-side, that are supported midway by a stone footing aligned with the roof ridge. Most of the flooring, comprised of four-inch, tongue-and-groove chestnut boards secured with machine-cut nails, is original; however, a badly deteriorated central section under the stoves, measuring approximately three by twelve feet, was replaced to match in 1996. At that time, the supports for the platform were reinforced and a plastic vapor barrier installed in the dirt-floored crawl space. The floors were refinished in 1997, and an insulated fire pad installed under the stove. Original plaster survives on the schoolroom's front and side walls, as well as a portion of the rear wall. The plaster is attached to saw-cut lath nailed to saw-cut furring strips. The plaster was repaired in 1995 (work that required patching cracks and small areas of broken/missing plaster). The interior woodwork also is original. It consists of an eight-inch baseboard with quirk-bead molding and six-inch architrave door and window trim. The trim has a fillet, ogee, fillet molding profile, and the stepped aprons of the windowsills feature a quirk-beaded lower edge. Trim similar to that of the front door and windows was added at the rear entry in 1996. The walls and trim were repainted in 1997, at which time a section of early "painted" blackboard that survived on the rear wall was preserved. Original plaster also survives on about two thirds of the ceiling; it is attached to saw-cut lath nailed to the ceiling joists. The plaster was repaired in 1995 (work that required patching cracks and infilling missing plaster in kind). In 1997, the ceiling was repainted. The schoolhouse was wired for electricity sometime in the mid 20th-century, and the four hanging ceiling lights date to that time; the electric service was updated in 1995, and the missing frosted-glass shades replaced. A ceiling hatch above the platform provides access to the attic, where the saw-cut common roof rafters are visible. A stainless steel flue was installed in the attic to vent the stove in 1997.

Concord School faces northwest to Loyalhanna Dam Road with a setback of approximately fifty feet, and the surrounding level grassy yard has a few scattered deciduous trees. Thick hedgerows incorporating evergreens border the road frontage of the property, and the area between the schoolyard and the road corner is heavily wooded. Open cropland adjoins the schoolyard on the south and east. An abandoned unpaved driveway leads northward from Koontz Road through the small woodlot to the schoolhouse, and the present access lane runs along the southern edge of the large field to the east; both terminate in an informal parking area southwest of the schoolhouse. A mix of agricultural land and forest with scattered farmsteads and modern residences comprise the neighborhood around the schoolhouse, a landscape relatively little changed from the early 20^th Century.

While no early outbuildings survive, Concord School once had two privies located to the rear near the east corner and a small coal or wood shed near the north corner. In addition, a stable is said to have stood near the intersection of Loyalhanna Dam and Koontz Roads, and historical records mention a well on the property but its exact location is unknown.

The property currently contains seven small features (two privies, four sheds and a flag pole) that were relocated to the site or constructed for interpretive purposes or for temporary storage. The metal flagpole, installed in front of the schoolhouse in 1998, is the only one of these features to have a permanent foundation. A frame privy of early 20th-century date, relocated from another one-room school in conjunction with the restoration effort, was placed in the vicinity of the schoolhouse's non-extant privies. A small frame wood/coal shed similarly was placed near the north corner of the building in the early 2000s. Adjoining the parking area southwest of the schoolhouse are four other relocated outbuildings: another privy at the edge of the woodlot and a granary (used for artifact storage) and two corn cribs near the edge of the field.