Return to Milestones Vol. 3, No. 2
The clever poetry of James Vale Downie entertained us in earlier issues of Milestones. Now, we will see that he was no stranger to historical research and analysis, as this highly informative history of Greersburg Academy unfolds. Since this article was originally written thirty years ago, the status of both Academy buildings has changed and many of Mr. Downie's recommendations have been adopted.
In the village of Darlington, seven miles west of the Geneva College campus, stands a two-story building which has many features of interest and distinction.
Erected in 1802, it is probably the oldest structure in the county still standing and in serviceable condition. Greersburg Academy, "the old stonepile," was sold in 1883 to the Pittsburgh, Marion and Chicago Railroad, which, in spite of its grandiose name, never ran farther than from New Galilee, Pa., to Lisbon, Ohio, and was used for many years as a railroad station. Now owned by the Youngstown and Southern, successor to the P. M. & C., it is used as a dwelling; but its historical associations would amply warrant its acquisition by the county, or other public interest and dedication as an educational shrine and a monument to the men, most of them Presbyterian preachers, who, under the leadership of Rev. Thos. E. Hughes, brought the lamp of higher learning into this region.
A few of the ancient Indian trails that skirted the wilderness watercourses had been crudely graded for the use of pioneer wagons and pack animals. In 1802 the Big Beaver tumbled out of a tunnel of oak, hemlock and giant sycamores into the broad Ohio; which gave access by barge and keelboat to Pittsburgh and civilization. There was a ferry at the mouth of the Beaver and a ford at Fallston, half a mile upstream, usable in summer and at times of low water. An Indian trail wound up Brady's Run and over the hills to Achortown. A branch mounted Brady's Hill and struck out for the Little Beaver at Greersburg, passing a few stumpy clearings in the forest and sparse plantations along the way. This trail became the Darlington Road of the stage coach era. Over it travelled during the ensuing half century a constantly growing tide of traffic to the new northwest -settlers' wagons, herds, foot travelers and coaches, on their way to the Muskingum and Sandusky on the Lake. At one time there were five flourishing taverns in Greersburg, later Darlington, and corresponding accommodations for wagoners and drivers.
But this came later.
In 1802 the warwhoop of Delaware, Wyandotte and Shawanese still echoed in the Beaver glens, while deer, bison, bear, and wolves roamed the dark defiles of first growth timber.
There was a frontier village on the Ohio known as Beaver Town and a hamlet on the Little Beaver called Greersburg.
After the defeat of the Indian tribes under Blue Jacket by General Wayne at the Battle of the Fallen, Timbers, in August, 1794, settlers from Westmoreland county began to move into the wilderness north of the Ohio, particularly the pleasant and fertile valley of the Little Beaver. Most of them were Scotch-Irish Presbyterians. Their first concern was the establishment of a place of worship. They organized in 1797, Mt. Pleasant Presbyterian Congregation at Greersburg. To this pastorate, Rev. Thomas E. Hughes, a licentiate, was called in 1799.
The story of what followed has a familiar ring to those conversant with the founding of Geneva college. We quote a paragraph from Dr. Bausman's History of Beaver County:
"No sooner had he been settled in his charge at Greersburg, than he began to plan for establishing a school similar to those in Washington County (Rev. Joseph Smith's "study" at Buffalo and Dr. McMillan's famous "log cabin college" at Chartiers). He built a log cabin on his lot and began in it the work that lay near his heart; and at a meeting of the Presbytery of Erie, held at Mt Pleasant Church in Greersburg, April 13, 1802, he brought up the project of establishing an academy and laid his plans before it."
Presbytery approved.
Work was begun on the building which still stands and Parson Hughes got on his horse and travelled as far as Boston, preaching the gospel and soliciting funds for Greersburg Academy. The academy was chartered Feb. 24, 1806, by the Legislature of Pennsylvania, which appropriated $600 toward the establishment of the school, "to be paid out of the monies arising from the sale of the in lots and reserved land adjoining Beaver-town." No actual money came from Harrisburg on behalf of the project at that time.
It will be remembered that Beaver County was erected March 12, 1800 upon land taken from Washington County (a small triangle south of the Ohio at the western boundary of Pennsylvania) and from Allegheny County. It included originally about half of what is now Lawrence County. The town of Beaver was surveyed in November 1792 by Daniel Leet. In 1800 it comprised a few houses, stores and a tavern where the first law court was held. Of these buildings no trace remains. The town of Greersburg was laid out May 13, 1804, by Abner Lacock on land owned by Thomas Sprott, William Martin and George Greer, who gave his name to the village. It was incorporated under that name March 28, 1820. The name was changed by Act of Assembly, April 6, 1830, because of confusion with the name of Greensburg, resulting in frequent errors in the transmission of mail.
On Nov. 16, 1812, the tuition was fixed at $16.00 per year. Mr. James Rowland was chosen teacher of languages and other branches.
The minutes for March 14, 1837, were dated "Greersburg". Those for Oct. 11, 1837 were dated "Darlington." Subsequent minutes reverted to the Greersburg dateline.
On June 20, 1838, the Legislature passed laws regulating academies, appropriating annuities as follows: each academy having one teacher and 15 pupils, $300.00 per year, payable, $75.00 per quarter. To each school having two teachers and 40 pupils, the allowance was $500.00 annually. "Male academy teachers shall be capable of teaching Greek, Roman classics, Mathematics and English, or English and German literature. In Female Seminaries, all branches of an English, or English and German education. Latin and Greek not required," for the females.
Many great and good men went forth from Greersburg. John W. Geary, who became Governor of Pennsylvania, and a distinguished officer in the Mexican and Civil Wars, was a student there. Other worthies whose names have been preserved in the records were: Joshua Beer, Robert Semple, John Munson, John Core, William Reed, Joseph Harper, Robert Dilworth, John H. Cunningham, Albert Dilworth and four sons of Rev. Thos. E. Hughes.
Many additional names of distinguished alumni of the academy are recorded in Dr. Bausman's History of Beaver County, but the most important mine of information regarding Greersburg, with lists of students and graduates, will be found in the minutes of the Board, which have fortunately been preserved.
At the end of each school year, or session, the students were examined by the Board of Trustees and awarded certificates of promotion, or graduation, in accordance with their findings. Committees of trustees were assigned to the various classes-in one case there were at least a dozen student groups-and these reported to the full board. The examination was brought to a close by a general "exhibition" of proficiency, followed by the award of diplomas, or certificates, and dismissal of the session.
Minutes of the Board for one subsequent meeting are headed, "Darlington Academy," but later minutes revert to the original style. The school continued to be called Greersburg Academy until its operation as a private school was discontinued in 1915 and the building then occupied by the Academy, not the "old stonepile," but a two-story brick edifice erected in 1883, was turned over to the Darlington School Board at a rental of one dollar per year.
The first Board of Trustees was chosen in 1806, following the act of the Legislature chartering the institution. The election seems to have been held by and with the consent of a voluntary association of local citizens. While Presbytery had approved the founding of the academy it is not recorded that it appropriated any money directly to this project or that it exercised any direct control in the organization of the school. Preachers and laymen of various denominations were elected to the first Board of Trustees, which consisted of the following persons:
Rev. John McPherrin, Rev. George M. Scott, Rev. Thomas E. Hughes, Rev. William Wick, Rev. James Satterfield, Rev. Nicholas Pittenger, Caldwell Semple, Alexander Wright, David Potter, Dr. Samuel Adams, John Beer, George Dilworth, William Scott, Joseph Pollock, and Hugh Hagerty.,
The Board, having organized, proceeded to the following resolution.
"Resolved: That breakfast shall consist of bread, with butter or meat and coffee; Dinner of bread and meat with sauce; Supper of bread and milk."
Rev. Thos. E. Hughes was chosen to superintend the literary affairs of the academy, as was but right and proper. He was a great and good teacher, well versed in history and the classics. Meetings of the Board, which was heavily loaded with theology, opened and closed with prayer.
By resolution all students 'were lodged in the academy and were required to board with the steward. The price of tuition was $3.00 per quarter and boarding seventy-five cents per week. The trustees agreed to erect a building at the north end of the academy ground for the accommodation of the Steward, the building to be 26 feet in length and 22 feet in breadth. U take this to mean the small park across the railroad, now occupied by the Civil War monument. The building was of wood and all trace of it has now disappeared.)
Sept. 2, 1806, the Board determined that "Mr. Hayden (assistant principal) should be paid in the proportions of eighteen scholars; the scholars to be divided into not more than five classes. After the present session the scholars shall pay for boarding $10.00 per quarter, if paid in advance; $12.00 at the end of quarter."
Tradition has it that John Brown of Ossawatomie attended Greersburg, but this has never been verified. An even more charming report, which has been repeated so often that it is embodied in the folklore of the region, is that the great Rev. William Holmes McGuffey, D. D., LL. D., compiler of the famous McGuffey readers, received his academial training at Greersburg. It is said that the good Mr. Hughes was riding through the country one evening soon after the foundation of Greersburg and that he heard while passing a roadside cottage, indistinct in the twilight, the voice of a woman in prayer. The voice was that of a mother pleading that God would open up some way for the training of her little boys for His service. Learning from the family with whom he spent the night the circumstances and worthiness of the mother referred to, Mr. Hughes, it is said, made arrangements for one of them to enter the academy, and this boy became the writer, Dr. McGuffey, who later provided two generations of schoolboys with his series of school readers, those wells of English undefiled. "If this story is not literally true," says Dr. Bausman, "it ought to be." That is probably sufficient warrant for including it here.
Another equally fascinating fable regarding the early days at Greersburg is that of the theft of the sign which hung and swung on rusty staples over the sidewalk in front of the Bear Tavern, a stage coach depot located across the street from the academy and about a hundred feet south-near the present center of the town. It was kept by a man named Heth.
Three students of the academy unhooked the creaking advertisement, which was decorated with a crude picture of a grizzly bear, flippantly referred to by the students as "the daughter of Heth," standing on its hind legs and proceeding toward Ohio with its mouth open and tongue extended, and made off with it to their boarding house in the next street under cover of the December darkness. Unluckily the rusty hooks creaked so loudly, or the bear emitted an angry growl sufficient to alarm the proprietor, who promptly secured a constable and followed the culprits to their lairs. Here he found the door locked, but firelight flickered beneath the adjacent shutter. The constable hammered on the door, but it now appeared that the three boys, one of whom was preparing himself for the ministry, were at their prayers. A sonorous voice came through the shutter.
"Oh, Lord, a wicked and perverse generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given unto it. And do thou, 0 Lord, deliver us from the daughters of Heth as from judgment of the unjust. Amen."
To intrude upon this solemn, though vaguely suspicious devotional rite was, of course, unthinkable. The proprietor of the bear and the constable were obliged to return to the tavern without the sign.
If this tale is not historically accurate, anybody who is at all familiar with the ways of college students, not excluding young theologians, will agree that in all other respects it is true to life.
The record for the Civil War period is blank or obscure. Apparently the academy was closed. Doubtless, the entire student body enlisted in the army. Darlington sent a large quota of soldiers to the front. The names of many of them are carved on the weatherbeaten monument which stands in the small enclosure across the railroad tracks, facing the "old stonepile."
Greersburg Academy, the lamp of classic learning in the Little Beaver Valley, no longer exists. Its golden flame was extinguished in 1915. The bell which swung above the stonepile when Thomas Jefferson was President of the United States and Aaron Burr (1806) was building barges at the mouth of Brady's Run with dreams of a western empire in his amazing noggin, no longer calls young Greensburgers to the Cicero, Homer, and Euclid. Doubtless the bell was moved to the new brick building in 1833. The small cupola, which once surmounted the stone building, is gone, although its platform still remains. Of the numerous privately operated academies which offered opportunities for advanced study before the advent of the tax-supported public highschools, few continued as late as 1883, and fewer still as late as 1915, the date when Greersburg closed its doors as a private school.