HISTORICALLY SPEAKING
From the Allentown Messenger dated August 4, 1932, and subtitled "Swamp Institute After 1873," Mrs. James West’s story of the old school house near the Washington Township Library.
The folks who were the first to sit in the new Union School House in the Fall of 1873 are rather elderly now, and a light beams in their eyes, and a smile brightens their countenances as they live again the scenes about the little red school house, beside the woods, along the quiet road in District No. 45their Swamp Institute.
Across the years we hear again the little bell the teacher rang at school time, and the chapter she read out of the Bible every morning first thing, and then, together with bowed heads, we said the Lord’s Prayer. It used to steady things all day. Remember how we used to reason in our childish minds that there was no sense in studying grammar and geography, or history, either? We would never be preachers and travel. We were going to be farmers, and book learning would not hoe corn or plant pumpkins; no, sir-ee. We thought it most unreasonable to be punished for making faces. The person for whom they were made deserved them; and no use sending us home to wash our facesthey would only get dirty again. Thus we argued to ourselves and with each other. But, as it is impossible to put old heads on young shoulders, our teachers struggled to put book learning into our heads regardless of our rebellion.
While I sit and dream of the school days of the districts back in the years following the 1870’s, I see in fancy the tall, erect form of Mr. Gibby, the county superintendent, seated in one of the guest chairs beside teacher’s desk, his immaculate appearance, his refined manner and kindly face, and the way he stroked the long beard that swept his vest front.
Remember he we used to prepare twice a year for these visits of Mr. Gibby? We knew he would put the whole school in one spelling class, and we wanted our school represented on his roll of honor, so we tried to fasten in our minds the right way to spell all the words that he would be likely to ask, and now and then, on Friday afternoons, we had a spelling match of what we called Mr. Gibby’s words. Remember how he tried to catch us on the word "raspberry?"
Remember who first laid their books with you on the new, smoothly varnished shining desks? Remember when J. R. and William Burk and their sister Georganna came there, and Albert, the only son of Josiah S. Robbins, and Tom and Genevieve, the younger children of Edward Evernham, and other children from the farms to the south and west of the new school house all the way over to the Allentown-Yardville roadEdward and Walter Thomas, Emma and George and Annie Stelle, the Huley children, and sweet, demure, Ella McCauley, and the German girls named Klappeneker, and Carrie and Rare Lippincott, and Ella Burtis and Alice Hooper, and the Daily girls?
Remember the family of the blacksmith? Remember his shop beside the crooked, lane-like road the trails its way past thrifty farms and passes the spot where the old school house had stood, and comes out at the harvest home woods? Johnson Lutes had painted his blacksmith shop and his barn and sheds with the same neighborly red clay paint like the new school house. But his dwelling, near the shop, was white, and all about the neat green osage orange hedge made the little farm trim and homey.
From this unpretentious happy home the blacksmith sent his family to the new school houseCarrie and Lizzie and Rob and Tom Lutes. Remember how proud Tom was of his new boots with the red tops? When he got out of sight of the school house he took them off and carried them home.
Kept in hallow strangeness in a little corner of my memory is the mystic purity of the fair face of Carrie Lutes as I saw her in her young womanhood, in gentle grace and spiritual exquisiteness passing through the door into the Methodist Church. In my girlish admiration of her, a product of a godly home, she seemed an angel walking with God on a plain above the common clay of the rest of us. And I did not wonder when word came that God had whispered and her gentle spirit had flown to Heaven.
Remember the boys who played ball with you, or marbles, or duck on davie? And truant, too, it may be, for there in the 1870’s boys knew where to find the chestnut trees, and where the shellbarks grew. Remember the girls who sat around on the benches or under the trees and knitted bits of colored yarn into horse lines through a spool with four pins in the end of it? Perhaps Charlie Yard was there and his cousin Julia, the only daughter of George Yard, and Anna and Susan and Eddie Yard, the children of James Yard. And there was Richard Laird and Norris and Ernest Cubberley and Mary Rodman, and others.
And from the farms spread out to the north and the east of the school house to beyond the Allentown-Robbinsville road they came across fields and followed cow paths down lanes to school and felt quite consequential if they carried some candy in their dinner kettle. Annie and Bessie Dilatush, Holmes William, May James, Will and Florence Lukens, James Donovan, Susan and Mary Varian. And the five Scobey boysJohn and Kenneth, Runyon, Will and Howard. And for the sons of Simon DilatushWill and Pierson and Clark. And the family of George HulseJohn, Will and Eliza.
Remember the comedy in pantomime, and the poems you learned to recite? Remember when Eliza Hulse (Mrs. Blandford) recited for you the verses of "People Will Talk?"
You may get through the world, but ’twill be very slow. If you listen to all that is said as you go; You’ll be worried and fretted and kept in a stew. For meddlesome tongues will have something to doFor people will talk.
If quiet and modest, you’ll have it presumed that your humble position is only assumed; You’re a wolf in sheep’s clothing, or else you’re a fool. But don’t get excitedkeep perfectly coolFor people will talk.
If you dress in the fashion, don’t think to escape. For they criticise then in a different shape; You’re ahead of your means, or your tailor’s unpaid; But mind your own businessthere’s naught to be madeFor people will talk.
Now the best way to do to is to do as you please. For your mind, if you have one, will then be at ease; Of course you will meet with all sorts of abuse; But don’t think to stop themit isn’t any useFor people will talk.
Historically Speaking is a regular column presented by John Fabiano, president of the Allentown-Upper Freehold Historical Society. For information about the historical society, send e-mail to [email protected].