EDUCATION: Hartman's School, 1946, Adams County, PA

Contributed and transcribed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Kathy Francis 

Copyright 2005.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/adams/
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B. A. JACOBS WRITES OF HARTMAN’S SCHOOL

I have just read in the “News Comet” that Hartman’s school, near Mummert’s 
Meeting house, is to be abandoned permanently.  The school was called Hartman’s 
from the name of the first farm house due west from the schoolhouse, which was 
owned by a Mr. Hartman, whose daughter was the first wife of the late Adam Bupp 
and the mother of Jane Helsel, late of East Berlin.

The stone schoolhouse was built before any church was built where Mummert’s now 
stands.  The present Mummert’s Meeting house is the second building for church 
use there.  The cemetery is exceptionally old and was always called “Mummert’s 
Graveyard.”  Before the church was built, funeral services were conducted in the 
schoolhouse, which was furnished with long desks and loose benches for the 
students.

When a funeral was held there during the school term, the desks were piled up in 
the back of the room, the benches being turned into seats for the mourners.  The 
children were dismissed and could either play ball outside or go home.  Matthias 
Mummert, who lived at the Emanuel Baker place, was married to Elizabeth Jacobs, 
daughter of the second Samuel Jacobs.  The graveyard bears Mr. Mummert’s name 
because the land for the purpose was his gift.

Original Grant To Henry Jacobs

The original grant to Henry Jacobs, who came to the Beaver Creek on April 12, 
1749, embraced to the west the lands now owned by John Frey, the Emanuel Baker 
place, the Mummert Meeting house, Farmers’ Picnic grove, the Hartman school 
site, Jacobs mill, the Charles Burgard farm and the “College Farm,” recently 
bought by Walter Shellenberger.

In 1782, a daughter of the above Matthias Mummert died and was buried on the 
Jacobs College farm cemetery.  The letters U. S. cut on the child’s tombstone 
were placed there to show that they were not “Tories” of that Revolutionary 
time.  This Matthias Mummert died of a cerebral hemorrhage, then called a 
stroke, the first case of its kind known in his section.

The Studebakers buried at Mummert’s are the forebears of the famed Studebakers 
of South Bend, Ind., and for a time lived on the Masemer farm, later owned by 
the late John Bechtel.  Much of the above information I received from Samuel 
Jacobs, Arendtsville, who died about 10 years ago at 95.  His mind was clear to 
the last and he told me that the schoolhouse was there when he was a child, 
although he had never learned the date of its building.

News Comet – Friday, June 21, 1946