AREA HISTORY:  Quaker Schoolhouse of Lewisberry, York County, PA

Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Abby Bowman

Copyright 2005.  All rights reserved.
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History of York County, Pennsylvania.  John Gibson, Historical Editor.
Chicago: F. A. Battey Publishing Co., 1886.
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THE BOROUGH OF LEWISBERRY, Page 637

THE QUAKER SCHOOLHOUSE
About one-fourth mile west of the Newberry Friends’ Meeting House, for many long 
years stood the old log-schoolhouse.  It has disappeared, and now no vestiges of 
it are left.  Who all the teachers were it would be interesting to tell, if we 
knew, but even tradition sayeth not.  Thomas Garrettson, a kind-hearted and 
gentle Quaker, for more than twenty years successfully enlightened the minds of 
the young, belonging mostly to the families of the same religious belief, long 
before the common school system had been adopted.  Kind old Thomas, as he is 
still remembered as such by a few of the oldest citizens still living, offered 
the young followers of Elias Hicks an inducement of an extra hour to play, if 
they would all spend one hour of each fourth day with him at regular meeting.  
His schoolhouse, with its sixty or seventy pupils, was, as nearly as could be 
expected, an example of neatness.  To the pious Friend neatness is next to 
godliness.  It is said that he once told a boy who came to his school one 
morning with soiled hands: “The best way for thee to observe an interesting 
chemical experiment is to wash thy hands, using plenty of soap.”

On the east and on the west side of this characteristic old building, along the 
walls, were the writing desks, at which the pupils sat for that purpose only.  
Above them were the long narrow windows, five feet long and two feet wide.

Jesse Wickersham taught school in this building about the year 1812.  At a much 
later date Joseph Wickersham, now a prominent citizen of Newberry Township, was 
a popular teacher of this school.