AREA HISTORY:  Public Schools, Dover Township, York County, PA

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History of York County, Pennsylvania.  John Gibson, Historical Editor.
Chicago: F. A. Battey Publishing Co., 1886.
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INTRODUCTION OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS – Page 679

John Sharp, who, in 1885, was living at the age of eighty-one, served thirty-two 
years as a school director for Dover Township.  His is a son of Capt. George 
Sharp, who was killed in 1814 by being thrown from a horse near Weiglestown.  
The present public school system, under the act of 1834, was not accepted in 
Dover Township until the passage of the act of 1848, which recognized all school 
districts in the State as having accepted the system, and during the winter of 
1849-50, the great contest arose in this township, to introduce the “free 
schools.”  John Sharp, Peter Stough, Peter Boyer, Jacob Emig, George Beck and 
Samuel Meisenhelder, composed the first board of directors.  Schools had been 
regularly kept up before this time, under the supervision of two directors.  
Andrew Dinsmore, of York, in the fall of 1849, held the first examination.  The 
incidents of this examination would no doubt be interesting to relate, but we 
forbear to give any of them here.  Some of the directors were not favorable to 
accepting all the provisions of the school law, and resigned.  The court then 
appointed John Sharp, Moses Hoover, Adam May, Sr., Jacob Sheaffer, and Henry 
Bender, to serve.  Two of these resigned on account of opposition to the system.  
There are now fifteen schools in this township.