AREA HISTORY:  A Pause, Fairview Township, York County, PA

Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Kathy Francis

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History of York County, Pennsylvania.  John Gibson, Historical Editor.
Chicago: F. A. Battey Publishing Co., 1886.
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A PAUSE – Page 646

In one of the fertile valleys of Fairview which, in springtime and summer, is 
continually clothed in rich verdure, in autumn in radiant beauty, and in winter 
in still sombre hues, each of which furnish special charms to the writer, was 
spent the time of earliest hopes and purest joys.  Near the rippling waters of a 
pure mountain stream, a tributary to the Fishing Creek, stood the familiar “old 
schoolhouse,” within whose sacred portals and around it, ‘neath the spreading 
branches of the giant maples, walnuts and oaks, in innocent study and rollicking 
play, the early school days were spent.  The reign of the Yankee schoolmaster 
with his profound knowledge of the three “R’s” – “Reading, ‘Riting, “Rithmetic,” 
had not ended when those days began.  It is yet remembered how well he taught 
his pupils to pronounce big words, and to “mind the pauses,” to write a “large 
round hand,” and to “cipher the Single Rule of Three.”  To him, Cobb’s and 
Comley’s Spellers, and Walker’s Dictionary, were next to the Bible in 
importance, and the pupil who did not con them well, would have little time to 
“slide down hill” on the snow, or play “town ball” during the noon hour.  He had 
many virtues worthy of admiration.  His faculty of talking history to the boys 
on “rainy days,” instilled many useful facts in the minds of his pupils.  On a 
hilltop a few hundred yards south stood, many years before the time above 
designated, one of the first schoolhouses in the county.  No vestiges of it are 
left, and nothing to indicate the spot where it stood, save the color of the 
soil, and the taller grain, or grass, that marks it in summer time.  The farm of 
which the site forms a part, and where the writer spent his early days, was 
taken up under a title issued by the Penns, to George Hall, in 1732, and has 
since been owned successively by John Nicholas, Joseph Prowell, Samuel N. 
Prowell, and Silas Prowell.

While some may sing in raptures of the beautiful Hudson, chant the praises of 
the “Blue Juniata,” wander in silent admiration along the mirrored waters of the 
peaceful Mohawk, or weave fanciful stories of fairies and angel-loiterers among 
a thousand “Sleepy Hollows,” the recollection of the scenes of one’s own 
childhood are more endearing than them all.  Here,

     Smiling Spring her early visit paid,
     And parting Summer’s lingering bloom delayed.