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This is my passion and important for you to know as this site's author. The Civil War time period is
a favorite of mine. Possibly because that time
period dates back to the roots of Haine family members in Western Pennsylvania. The surnames of
Haine or Hoehn can be traced to the Butler County area north of Pittsburgh. In the area of
what is now Cranberry Township exists the original farming roots of Haine. If you can provide
more information on the surname, please E-Mail me. I would
appreciate any historical information. Please see the Family link
for exploration of the surname's history. With a note of thanks to its author, Beau Boughamer, below is the text of a
document about Education in Cranberry
Township that appears on the Cranberry Township web site. The information was
compiled and published by the Historical Society of Cranberry Township. Please take note in this excellent excerpt, that
the original one room school was Haine and/or Hoehn. My goal and objective on this site is to
verify two original families with different names or one family that changed its
name. This could dispel a myth that exists today. Both surnames are of German origin. I hope to
eventually post images on this site, old and new, of the Haine Elementary School in what is now
the Seneca Valley School District.
Attending school in the 1800s and early 1900s
was vastly different from what it's like today. Most of the pioneers who
settled Cranberry Township were self-educated people. Few of them had received
formal classroom instruction. But they were determined that their children
get a better education than they had received. So they enrolled their brightest
and most talented youngsters in subscription schools, or what we would
now call private schools.
The schools were conducted by men of good reputation
who knew how to read, write and do arithmetic. Attendance was not compulsory,
and teacher certification was not required. Parents paid tuition in cash
or the cash equivalent of butter, milk, cheese, eggs, meat or firewood.
Children whose parents couldn't afford to pay performed chores such as
splitting firewood, tending the woodstove, emptying ashes, shoveling snow
or cleaning the floor.
Classes were held in a teacher's home, often a
log cabin, or in a log cabin built for educational purposes. The log cabins
were built of rough-hewn logs and had small windows covered with oiled
paper instead of glass. They were headed by a stone fireplace or a potbellied
cast iron wood stove placed in the middle of the room. The seats were plank
boards or logs cut flat on top. The seats had no backrests, and the legs
of the youngest children often didn't touch the floor. Desks were pieces
of flat timber attached to the wall by wooden pegs.
Books and paper were scarce and expensive. Often
a Bible or dictionary was the only book available. Some teachers provided
a box of sand which was moistened and smoothed on the surface. The students
were taught to use sticks to scratch letters and numbers in the sand.
Another early teaching aid was the hornbook. The
hornbook was a flat wooden board on which was pasted a sheet of paper printed
with the alphabet, the numbers one through ten, and the Lord's Prayer.
The paper was protected under a transparent sheet of flattened cattle horn.
Hornbooks were used to teach spelling, reading, writing and basic arithmetic.
Students were expected to provide their own slates.
Slate is a naturally occurring type of rock which can be split apart into
flat sheets. Slate was found locally, among other places, along Coal Run
on the Rowan farm, where the Fox Run homes are today (on Rowan Road). Stubby
pieces of soft, fine-grained white limestone were used as chalk.
Students attended grades one through eight in
the same room, taught by the same teacher. While one class recited or received
special instruction, the others listened or studied quietly. School was
held from September to April so the children could help their parents with
farm work and house work the rest of the year.
In 1835 Pennsylvania adopted the "common
school system" by enacting a law which permitted communities to tax
landowners in order to pay teacher salaries and buy textbooks. In 1852,
Cranberry Township teachers held their first conference--comparable to
an in-service day--at Plains Church on the Franklin Road. Later, teachers
from throughout Butler County met in Butler.
By the mid-1850s, textbooks had become more readily
available. Those recommended for use in Butler County schools were the
McGuffey Primer, McGuffey Spelling Book, and the McGuffey Reader series,
Numbers 1 through 5. Also Ray's Practical Arithmetic, McNally's Geography,
and the Graham Series of grammar books.
The McGuffey books were compiled by William Holmes
McGuffey, one of the leading educators of his day. They had a tremendous
impact on education. Previously, students had proceeded from the ABCs to
spelling, and were expected to master words of up to four syllables before
they began reading. Under the McGuffey method, first-year students went
directly from the alphabet to reading; and through reading, they learned
spelling. The books were illustrated with sketches of dogs, cats, birds,
farm animals and children at play. Associating words with pictures speeded
up the learning process.
Education in the 1800s and early 1900s proceeded
at a slower pace than it does today. But what the students learned they
learned exceedingly well. In arithmetic, for example, a full year was devoted
to the numbers one through ten--adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing--before
higher numbers were taught.
By the mid-1800s both men and women were teaching
in Cranberry Township schools. They were paid $20 to $22 a month. By 1876
the pay was raised to $30 to $38 a month. Daily classes began with a reading
from the Bible, the Lord's Prayer, and the Pledge of Allegiance. The practice
continued until 1962 when a Supreme Court decision prohibited prayer in
public schools.
By 1874 Cranberry Township had six one-room schools.
With the exception of Bear Run School, the schools were named for the landowners
on whose property they were built. There were then four men teachers, two
women teachers, and an enrollment of 230 students.
In 1911 Pennsylvania enacted the "Compulsory
Education Act." It required young people to attend school until age
13. The age limit was later increased to 17. Those who lived more than
two miles from the nearest school were exempt. Until 1923 youngsters could
also be excused, with parental permission, in order to work.
Cranberry Township appears to have anticipated
compulsory education since its schools were equally distanced throughout
the township. Virtually all young people lived within two miles of school.
Each school had a bell which was rung 15 minutes before the start of daily
classes. Students hiking in from the countryside would hear the bell and
walk faster to be in their seats for the start of classes.
The school buildings of the early 1900s were greatly
improved over the log cabins that preceded them. With the exception of
Johnston School, which was of red brick, the buildings were timber- framed
with flatboard siding and had glass windows. Wooden desks and chairs with
backrests had iron frames and legs mounted to the floor.
Teachers not only conducted classes, but served
as building custodians, playground supervisors and nurses. They started
the fire in the morning and assigned older boys to carry in locally- produced
coal from the coal bins outside. Drinking water was carried in metal buckets
from a pump in the schoolyard. During severe winter weather, when students
arrived numb with cold, the teacher kept a basin of water for them to thaw
their hands. Students were expected to raise their hands and ask to be
excused to use the wooden outhouses (toilets)--one for boys, another for
girls--located on the outskirts of the schoolyard.
Discipline was very strict. Most teachers kept
a slender tree branch or a flat-edged wooden yardstick beside the desk.
They did not hesitate to use them on students for disrupting class, talking
back to the teacher, or other violations. Often, if parents learned that
a child had been switched at school, that youngster received another strapping
when he or she arrived home.
School buildings were used as social centers as
well as for education. Literary societies and musical groups held meetings
there. The students also put on plays, musicals and speech recitals to
which parents and the public were invited.
The schools were as follows:
By 1951, only three of the original six one-room
schoolhouses--Sample, Johnston and Haine-- were still in use as schools.
On the evening of Thanksgiving Day, 1951, Cranberry
Township was rocked by a tremendous explosion caused by the rupture of
a high-pressure natural gas transmission pipeline. Fortunately, no one
was killed or injured.
But because the same pipeline passed close to
Sample School, people feared for the safety of their children. So Sample
School was closed. Its students completed the 1951-52 school term by attending
classes in the basement of the old Hope Lutheran Church on Franklin Road.
Plans were then made to consolidate students from
Johnston and Haine schools, plus those dislocated by the closing of Sample
School, in a modern elementary school scheduled for construction on Rowan
Road.
But Cranberry (later Rowan) school wasn't completed
on time for the September 1952 semester. So classes were held at Plains
Church, Hope Lutheran Church and Dutilh Church.
Cranberry (later Rowan) School was finally completed
and opened. It had six rooms, four teachers and 110 students. To accommodate
growing enrollment, the present Haine School was opened in 1967.
By that time, Cranberry Township had (in 1960)
joined Southwest Butler (later Seneca Valley) School District. Since then,
junior and senior high school students have attended Seneca Valley. (They
formerly attended high schools in Evans City and Mars.)
Today, Cranberry Township's last surviving one-room
schoolhouses have outlived their usefulness for educational purposes. Sample
School is owned by the township and is used for storage. Johnston School
is now a private home. In 1990 their original schoolbells were installed
at Rowan School as part of an expansion and renovation project.
But the days of the one-room schoolhouses still
linger on in the memories of those who attended them. Every September,
graduates of Cranberry Township's one-room schoolhouses gather in reunion
to recall their experiences while attending school during "the good
old days."
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