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THE SCHOOLS OF ORANGE COUNTY.

The eastern part of the State of New York, including all those portions which were settled in the seventeenth century or in the early part of the eighteenth, have this common feature in their educational history. They all show three periods of development, separate and distinct from each other, and these periods are characterized, largely, by the initiative under which the schools were organized and maintained.

The first of these periods, which we may call the colonial period, reaches from the first settlement of the country down to the time of the Revolutionary War. During this time, about seventy-five years, whatever schools there were in Orange County, were organized and supported entirely by the settlers in the different neighborhoods, for the instruction of their own children.

There were no large villages in Orange County at that time. The communities were purely agricultural, with small hamlets scattered here and there, such as are found in agricultural districts to-day, and the educational advantages were very limited. This period culminated in the struggle for independence, during which even these limited advantages were almost entirely swept away.

During the war of the Revolution, the settled portions of the State were overrun by armed bands again and again. The valley of the Hudson was harried by the contending armies, back and forth for years, and, even where there were no armies, the virulence of the feeling which existed between the patriots and the Tories, was such that there was little more safety for life and property in those localities than there was at the very seat of war.

Under these circumstances, the schools were generally closed and the generation which grew up during the Revolution was largely without regular instruction.

Toward the end of the war, when actual hostilities had largely ceased, there was a great awakening throughout the State to the necessity for more and better schools than had ever existed heretofore. Mingling with those who had enjoyed better educational advantages, in the camp and on the field, had taught the pioneers the value of education, and they determined to make it possible for their children to become better equipped, educationally, than they had been.

Private academies, for classical training, were established in the small towns and villages and a new period, which we may call the period of the private schools, began.

In response to this sentiment in favor of higher education, the Legislature passed the University law in 1784, establishing the University of the State of New York and giving the authority and the aid of the State to the academies which had already been established and encouraging the establishment of others. The object of this movement by the Legislature, as defined in the act establishing the University, was "to encourage and promote education in advance of the common, elementary branches."

It is a characteristic feature of the thought and feeling of this period that the State should give its aid and authority to private institutions for secondary instruction long years before it recognized in any way, its duty to the common school and elementary instruction.

Soon the private academies became so numerous that the opportunity for higher education reached to every part of the State. These schools did a grand work. For three-quarters of a century they opened up opportunities for the ambitious boys and girls whose parents were able to pay for their tuition.

Then, a new idea appeared in educational matters--the idea that the child of the poor man has as much right to the opportunity for education as the child of the rich, and that it is the duty of the State to provide this opportunity for rich and poor alike. So the period of the free schools followed that of the private academies.

THE COLONIAL PERIOD.

The first settlements in what is now Orange County were made not far from the same time in both the eastern and western extremities. The county then included what is now Rockland County, and was bounded on the north by the line separating the counties of Orange and Ulster. This line ran from the mouth of Murderer's Creek "westward into the woods as far as the Delaware River." These settlements were made previous to 1700, but the time is not absolutely certain with respect to either of them.

In the western part of the county, in what is now the town of Deerpark, the first settlers were Dutch and Huguenot families, who came from Kingston and New Paltz. In the eastern part the settlers came up the Hudson River and consisted almost entirely of English speaking people from New York and the Long Island towns. In fact, so close was the association with New York, that for some years the New York reports included Orange and our county had no independent county government.

In 1693, according to the report of Governor Fletcher, made by Matthew Clarkson, secretary of the province, there were in "Orange County not above twenty families, for the present under the care of New York."

In 1698 there were reported to Governor Bellomont about thirty families and 140 children in Orange.

These children were scattered over a wide district, in pioneer homes, where luxuries were unknown and where even the necessaries of life were difficult of attainment. There were no schools for their instruction at this time, nor for a number of years afterward, but it is evident that many of them at least did secure the elements of an education, either from their parents or from some other source, for we find them later, in the Dutch and Huguenot settlements at any rate, as the men of affairs, prominent in the church and in the community, able to read and write and to transact business in a business-like manner.

The young people of this generation learned "to read and write and cast accounts," at any rate. There were few, if any, schoolhouses, and tradition has it that the teachers, like the tailors and the shoemakers, went about from house to house, giving instruction in the three R's.

At this time no text-books had been published in America and books of all kinds were very scarce in the frontier settlements, so that the few books attainable were quite generally provided by the teacher as the tools of his profession. The hornbook was used for teaching beginners. This was a flat piece of wood with a handle. On the flat part of this there was fastened a piece of horn, scraped thin to make it transparent. A strip of paper on which the lesson was written or printed, was placed between the horn and the wood. These lessons, protected by the horn, would last a long time and could be used by many different pupils. The hornbook was used for teaching the letters, some of the combinations of vowels and consonants and either the Lord's Prayer or some other verses of easy reading. A copy of the Bible was often the only printed book in the school and was used as a reading book.

The material for the instruction in arithmetic, in language and the more difficult words in spelling were contained in the teacher's note-book, which he had carefully prepared, under the direction of some other teacher, similarly equipped. These note-books contained the rules and tables in arithmetic, many problems, lists of words for spelling and selections for memorizing. In fact, the teacher's note-book was his tool-chest, and its size and completeness were his recommendations. The possession of a Bible, a psalm book, a copy of Dillingham's arithmetic or some other English work, and a few books of general literature were sufficient to mark the pioneer pedagogue as a man of great distinction in his profession.

When the pupils had learned to use the quill pen, which the teacher fashioned for them with his penknife, they were provided with a few sheets of paper, bound together in strong covers, and they proceeded to make, more or less carefully, a note-book like the teacher's. Some of these note-books, still preserved, show the character of the work done in these early schools. Besides the matters enumerated above some have riddles and anecdotes, evidently intended as practice in language. One which I have seen, written by a young lady, has the following exercise for punctuation:

"There is a lad in this land Hath twenty nails upon each hand Five and twenty on hands and feet And this is true without deceit."

Much attention was paid to penmanship, and the copies prepared by the teacher were often as perfect as the engraved copies of the modern copy-book. These copies were kept by the pupil and practiced with painstaking care. A reproduction of a copy written by Joseph Dolph, with a quill pen of his own make is given to show the skill in lettering with which some of these old schoolmasters prepared their copies.

It would be of great interest if we could know more of these pioneers of the teacher's profession and their work. But there are few records of them left. They were generally men, in the early days always men, and probably few of them possessed much learning beyond the rudiments which they taught.

There was no opportunity for higher studies and the few young men who desired to enter college had to find a tutor, usually a clergyman, who could give him instruction in the preparatory studies.

When the first schoolhouse in Orange County was built I do not know. It is possible that there was a building used for this purpose on the Quassaick, now Newburgh, during the occupancy of the Palatinate colony, previous to 1730. It is certain that a building for school purposes was erected there soon after 1752, although it is not possible to determine when this school was opened. There is reason to suppose that a teacher was installed soon after the transfer of the Glebe lands to Alexander Colden and Richard Atherton "as trustees thereof, for the sole use and behoof of a minister of the Church of England, as by law established, and a school-master, to have the care of souls and the instruction of the children of the neighboring inhabitants." This transfer was made in 1752.

The land known as the Glebe was part of a grant of 2190 acres on the west side of the Hudson River, "beginning on the north side of Quassaic Creek and extending up the Hudson 219 chains and into the woods 100 chains," made for the benefit of a colony of Lutheran, refugees from the Palatinate of the Rhine. They had crossed over to England and Queen Anne directed that this grant be made for them. From this tract 500 acres were set apart, "according to the queen's pleasure," for the support of their minister and 100 acres for the schoolmaster's lot. Although the Queens interest had been manifested in 1708, the patent was not issued until 1719, and then the land soon passed into other hands.

After the transfer of the Glebe lands in 1752 as mentioned above, a house was built for the schoolmaster, "with a school-room in the rear." Little is known of this school. Ruttenber, in his history of Orange County, gives the names of some of the teachers who were in charge of it at different times before the Revolution, as follows: Lewis Donveur, in 1768; Joseph Penney, in 1769; Thomas Gregory, in 1773. In 1774 John Nathan Hutchinson became the teacher and continued in the school until shortly before his death, which occurred in 1782.

There were other schools in various parts of the county, previous to the Revolution. One James Carpenter, a teacher at or near Goshen, is mentioned in certain records in 1762.

In the town of Deerpark, as it is now constituted, there were at least two school buildings which were erected before the war. One of these was located about a mile from the boundary of the city of Port Jervis. on the east side of the Neversink River, and the other where the village of Cuddebackville now stands. In this latter building Thomas Kyte taught for some time. In 1775 he married Lea Keator and removed from the valley to the town of Wantage, Sussex County, New Jersey, where he became a prosperous farmer and where some of his descendants still remain. In 1776 Thomas White, an Englishman, was employed as teacher in the same district. He came, with his wife Elizabeth, and lived at the home of Ezechiel Gumaer near the Neversink River. The school was also conducted in one of the rooms of the Gumaer house. Later, when the house was reconstructed as a fort, for the better protection of the people of the neighborhood, and several families had gathered there, the school was continued in the fort. Mr. White remained throughout the entire period of the war, and the children who were so fortunate as to be his pupils, enjoyed advantages which very few could have at that time. He was a man of some literary attainments, small in stature, but quick and active in body and mind.

Mr. Peter E. Gumaer who was one of his pupils, says of him, in his history of Deerpark: "I conclude that Mr. White had been taught in one of the best of the common schools of England, and in a very perfect manner so far as he had progressed. He was a very eloquent reader and could perform the same with an air suitable to the nature of the subject on which the reading treated. I have always considered him as the equal of the best readers I have ever heard."

Commenting on the advantages which Mr. White gave his pupils and the value of his services to the community, Mr. Gumaer says, "This man's services have been a greater benefit to the third generation of the descendants of this neighborhood than those of any other individual, in consequence of which he ought to be held in remembrance by our descendants and be incorporated in our history, as the first important originator of education among us."

Mr. White spent his old age on a farm in the town of Wallkill and is buried in the churchyard of the Presbyterian church at Otisville. In his will he left a sum of money from the proceeds of which there should be paid each year, to the minister of each of four different churches, for preaching a special sermon, to be known as The White Sermon. The four churches benefited are the Dutch Reformed church of Port Jervis, the Congregational church of Middletown, and the Episcopal and Presbyterian churches of Goshen.

The school on the east side of the Neversink River, near Port Jervis, was in session at the time of Brant's raid on Tuesday, July 20, 1779. The Indians and Tories under Thayandanega, or, as the whites called him, Joseph Brant, came down the Delaware valley and separated into two divisions. One party followed the river and the other crossed the point of land between the two rivers, keeping near the base of the mountain and crossed the Neversink near the old Indian burying ground. The object of the raid, as stated by Brant in his report to the commanding officer, was to secure booty, especially beef cattle. But it would appear from the method of attack that there was another object, that of capturing or killing Major Decker.

The attack was made simultaneously upon the home of Major Decker and upon the farms four miles down the river across the State line, in New Jersey. The men of the Major's family were away attending a funeral and the house, although it was surrounded by a stockade, was easily taken and burned. It is probable that the most of the men were attending the funeral when the attack was made. This funeral, or at least the burial, was held at the meeting house of the Dutch Reformed church, which stood on East Main street, near the culvert over which the Erie Railroad crossed that street. This also was burned later in the same raid. One of these bands came upon the school house with the school in session. The teacher, Jeremiah Van Auken, grandson of James Van Auken, who was the first magistrate of the Minisink region, was killed and scalped and the children scattered. According to the deposition of Mehary Owen, one of the Tories who accompanied Brant on this raid, that chieftain had issued strict orders that no women nor children should be injured. This deposition was taken by Henry Wisner, Esq., at Goshen, and, while there is little dependence to be put upon the word of such a renegade, there is no proof that any of the children were harmed.

The story so often told and sometimes discredited, that Brant himself came upon the party that had killed Van Auken, and put paint upon the clothing of the children to protect them, is too well authenticated to be rejected. It is more than tradition.

There are persons still living who have heard the story told by those who were there, on that day. Among others, Margaret Decker, daughter of Major Johannes Decker, horn in 1770, was there at school that day. She afterward married Benjamin Carpenter and left many descendants. She told the story many times to children and grandchildren, substantially as it has been told by the people of the valley since 1779. Several of these grandchildren are still living and agree in all the main points of the story as she told it to them. This is only one of many cases where the story is a family tradition.

Peter E. Gumaer was a lad nine years old, at the time this occurred. He was a neighbor and playfellow of those children in the other district who were in school that day. He grew up with them and knew them intimately all their lives, for he outlived them all, dying beyond the middle of his ninety-ninth year. In his account of Brant's raid, given with slight alterations in Eager's History of Orange County, he tells the story substantially as it is told by the descendants of these children. The addition of a brush and the color of the paint are touches not found in the original story.

This sketch of the schools in colonial times is fragmentary and unsatisfactory, but, there is so little that has been preserved concerning them, that no account can be other than fragmentary.

THE PERIOD OF THE PRIVATE ACADEMIES.

The movement for the establishment of schools of higher grade began with the people themselves. They knew what they wanted and proceeded to obtain it in the most direct way. The method was much the same all over the State. The farmers and other well-to-do people of a considerable section subscribed the money necessary to put up a building and to provide the furniture and equipment needed. Then, when the building was ready for occupancy, it was leased to some teacher, whose compensation was the fees for tuition, paid by the students who attended. More than 300 of these institutions were established in the State.

In this movement for improved schools, the county of Orange was one of the first in the State to act. There were two other schools of this type which were incorporated before The Farmers' Hall Academy in Goshen, but the incorporation was not until several years after these schools had been in operation. The Clinton Academy at Easthampton and the Erasmus Hall Academy in Brooklyn, were both chartered by the Board of Regents in 1787, while the Goshen school was not chartered until April first, 1790.

The building for the Farmers' Hall was erected in 1773 and the school was maintained as a school for instruction in academic subjects during the Revolution, with some interruptions.

To this school, in 1781, there came a man who was to do more for the cause of education in this county than any who had preceded him. Noah Webster had graduated from Yale in 1778 and had begun the study of law at Hartford. The invasion of New York from the north, by Burgoyne, called for the services of every able bodied man, and young Webster marched to the valley of the Mohawk, as a private in his father's company of Connecticut militia. After the campaign was over, he returned to the study of law and was admitted to the bar in Hartford in 1781. Instead of waiting at Hartford for a practice, he decided to enter the profession of teaching and probably came to Goshen in the fall of the same year.

The following letter of introduction, written by Henry Wisner, Esq., a magistrate of Goshen, would seem to indicate that Mr. Webster was not a new comer in Goshen at that time and he had probably completed his first year in the school when it was written:

Goshen, N. Y., August 26th, 1782. Sir:

The bearer, Mr. Noah Webster, has taught a grammar school for some time past, in this place, much to the satisfaction of his employers.

He is now doing some business in the literary way, which, in the opinion of good judges, will be of great service to posterity. He, being a stranger in New Jersey, may stand in need of the assistance of some gentlemen with whom you are acquainted. He is a young gentleman whose moral as well as political character is such as will render him worthy of your notice.

Any favor which you may do him will be serving the public and accepted as a favor done your friend and very humble servant,

Henry Wisner.

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