Source:Fleming-little-girl-2/content

From Pittsburgh Streets
A Little Girl In Alleghenytown ❈ ❈ By George T. Fleming
Concluding Chapter of Mrs. Wilbur's Reminiscences of Her Girlhood—School Days in the Old First Ward—The Rebecca Street Building, John Kelly, Principal—Quaint Methods of the Early Years of Our Public Schools.
Religious Training Not Neglected—Studying the Dictionary—Gallantry as Exemplified in Tender Youth—Sister Jane Remonstrates in Vain. Excellent Teachers Are Remembered—When Death Called Father From the Happy Home.

A CONCLUDING installment of Mrs. Wilbur's reminiscences of her girlhood in old Alleghenytown is presented today. Mrs. Wilbur was the daughter of Alexander A. Wightman a founder and machinist, residing on Lacock street below Federal in the old First Ward of the former city of Allegheny. She was the niece of Thomas Wightman, one of the best known glass manufacturers of this city for more than 70 years. In her narrative at the point where broken off last week, Mrs. Wilbur had reached the period of her school days in the old First Ward School on Rebecca street. This was a large school for the times. George H. Thurston, in his directory of Pittsburgh for 1856, says it was then under the management of A. D. Simpson, principal, and had 704 pupils enrolled. This was a few years after little Miss Wightman had left the school. Her own story narrates:

"As soon as I was old enough I was started to the school of the ward in which we lived, the First Ward. The school house was just new and was a grand building. It stood at the foot of Seminary Hill facing Rebecca street, on the site of the present building there. The hill came sloping down to the rear of the school; there was a yard all around the building. There was a stone wall in front with an iron fence on it; the wall was low, about three feet high. While in the school yard during school hours we were in charge of our teachers, but going and returning it was up to our parents to see to our safety. We were always marched out in perfect order, proceeding down the wide stairway in pairs and keeping step. The building was four stories in height. It was well designed—the halls were wide. There were a number of recitation rooms and sufficient cloak rooms for all purposes. Boys and girls were taught in separate rooms. Girls were not allowed to speak to a boy in the school yard under any circumstances—that is ordinary circumstances. This rule was rigidly enforced.

Love's Very Young Dream.

"I had a boy acquaintance whom I first knew when my father was building the three houses I told of last week. This boy's father was the contractor on this work. I was accustomed to go to the buildings with a small basket to get chips for my mother. The boy, whose name was Milton Claney, was generally there when I went. We had great times picking up the nice clean chips and shavings. I liked Milton—he was such a nice boy—and I think he rather liked me. My mother did not object to our childish friendliness. She felt I was safe in his company."

We must smile at the old lady's naivete as her mind goes back 75 years to her first manifestations of interest in the opposite sex, and our smile will likely broaden when we read of Milton's gallantry and manliness. Little Miss Wightman did not like the principal of the school, at that time the celebrated John Kelly, who, it seems, was regarded somewhat as an ogre by the wee scholars. Well, Prof. Kelly was a strict disciplinarian and in those days corporal punishment was one of the principal's first duties—the infliction of it rather.

Old-Time School Methods.

Mrs. Wilbur, nee Wightman, narrates:

"Milton's room in school was directly across the hall from the one I was in. His teacher was Prof. Kelly, a man that I shunned if any chance threw me in his presence. When taken to task about this dislike by my father, I said I could not help it. I said Mr. Kelly had three noses and was so awfully ugly I just couldn't like him. My father tried to disabuse my mind of this impression, but did not succeed. I believed that the principal was cross to all his pupils and particularly to the only one I knew, and that was Milton, a mere childish fancy I know now. Milton always waited for me across the street from the school house after school was out and used to carry my heavy bag of books home for me. We never talked about school at all, if I remember right. It was a great relief to have my school bag carried, for I was fond of skipping the rope, and would skip home with one I managed to take to school with me and hide in my desk, for there was a shelf in it in which to keep our books when not in use. The ink wells were set in holes sunk in the top of the desk. Our copy books were taken up every morning after an hour spent in writing and distributed again the next morning. Our copies were set for us and it was the ambition of us all to keep our copy books clean and neat. We used steel pens, though I have seen my father use a quill pen. We bought our pens at a stationery store on Federal street. We furnished our own school books and usually purchased our copy books at the same store as our pens and pencils. Our text books were expensive; they were kept on sale at this store also. I can remember hearing parents complaining about the changing of text books—readers, grammars and geographies—but that was the way it was when I went to school in the late forties and early fifties. We committed our lessons to memory and in class stood up in a line with our feet touching a chalk mark on the floor. We were required to keep our hands behind our backs. We had large classes and it took a good while to get through the lesson. I was often very tired when we went back to our seats, but if I had recited well I did not mind the fatigue."

Methods Long Continued.

Having come to Pittsburgh from a distant state, and methods in the public schools there having been vastly different from those in Pittsburgh, this delineation of school work in the old First Ward, Allegheny, recalls to a certain Gazette Times man the fact that in his first schooling here in 1863, all that Mrs. Wilbur has mentioned regarding school methods was still in vogue. The girls took jumping ropes to school and managed to hide them; certain boys, gallant, brave and true, etc., were wont to carry certain girls' books home for them; the other fellows called these boys sissies and bumped them occasionally, especially when snowballs were in bloom. We had set copies, however, in Prof. Alex Cowley's system. We had classrooms and toed a chalk line and were usually a bit tired when the lesson was concluded. We "trapped" in spelling class, and occasionally had a spelling match. One of this man's most unsatisfactory recollections is that at the tender age of nine, when in the third reader grade, he occupied every place in the large class from head to foot. Of course, it will be taken for granted that the teacher was "a mean old thing." This experience and the recollections belong to the history of the old Franklin School, in the original Sixth Ward of Pittsburgh, the school house on Franklin street below Logan street.

Bible Taught.

Mrs. Wilbur describes religious training in the public schools as she received it. She says:

"School sessions were always opened in the morning with prayer—a short one by the teacher; then each class was called up in succession and toed the chalk line, where each pupil was required to recite one verse of Scripture. The program was as follows: We selected a chapter from the Bible and read it over. It was then explained to us. We next recited the first verse—if it was short we took two verses. The verses were recited from memory the succeeding morning, and thus we went through the chapter until we had memorized the whole of it. All the pupils in our room were girls. Each girl in turn was required to recite the whole of the chapter. I for one, if there be others of my schoolmates living, can recite now all of the chapters so learned in my childhood. It took up considerable time to go through these religious exercises and we naturally had the same chapter for a week or more. Sometimes the recitations dragged, for some pupils were slow. These Miss Ewing, our teacher, would have remain after school and say the chapter over to her. There was no way of getting out of a perfect recitation of the Bible lesson. Miss Ewing is the only teacher I remember perfectly well. She was surely a good woman, at that time I judge about 40 years old. When I left Allegheny in 1853 or '54 she was still teaching.

"The scripture lesson over, we had a column of dictionary to spell and define. It was necessary to give the derivations of the words, the pronunciations, the definitions and the synonyms—in fact the full story of each word in the lesson. I do not know of any such teaching now in the public schools for pupils of my age at that time, for all these school experiences were before I reached the age of 12. Our next recitation was grammar which was a very irksome study for me, which terminated the forenoon session. We were promptly in our places at 1 o'clock. Our first task was the reading lesson. We went through all four of McGuffey's readers all that we were given at that time. We were given next United States History which we read and after several readings required to tell what we could remember of the several pages gone over in class by reading them aloud. History lessons were a great pleasure to me unless they were about battles; then I was simply distressed. We had lessons in natural philosophy also. We cyphered on the blackboard, which was the last exercise of the afternoon. We had to commit the rules of arithmetic and recite them, more than half of them incomprehensible to me, but I could do the sums fairly well when I had tried them on my slate at my seat. We had to stand on a bench to reach high enough on the board and I was much afraid of falling as were others, and some became so restless that we would nearly upset the bench. Sometimes this would happen and wind up the day except to collect our books. Some one would be designated to get our bonnets and wraps. We put them on where we sat, then at the tap of the teacher's bell we arose and marched to the door where each one turned and courtesied to the teacher and then marched down stairs by twos and did not break ranks until outside of the iron gate. My! What a sigh of relief would then escape this little girl.

Happy Days of Childhood.

"Sometimes there would be waiting for me, either Milt Claney or 'Ned' Jenkins. 'Ned's' father kept a confectionery store on Federal street and he had to pass our house on his road home. Sometimes 'Ned' would take my bag of books and Milt would haul me home on a little wagon, or on a sled, if there was snow or ice on the ground. A great drawback to my happiness was my elder sister, Jennie, three years my senior, who also attended the old First Ward School. In my last year I had been promoted to her room, but was put in a lower class. She was of an entirely different disposition—very sedate and remarkably studious. She could not tolerate seeing me riding home in such an undignified manner. She told mother how big a tomboy I was and mother would look very sorrowfully at me and ask me kindly if I was not ashamed of myself, that I was under a cloud most of the time.

"My school bag was made of carpet, and purchased at the Federal street stationery store. It was the first of its kind in the school, and I was very proud of it. So were the boy friends of mine. Just imagine nine books, slate and pencil in one bag and know that it was heavy. Mother was glad to have one of the boys carry it for me, and always thanked him when she saw him, but the bag was generally left on the front portico, or, perhaps, thrown into the hall if the door was open. Jennie carried her books piled up on her slate, and with the bundle on her arm walked sedately home."

Seminary Hill.

Under date of October 8, 1922, Mrs. Wilbur writes:

"I have read the article in today's Gazette Times—the one telling about Samuel Hays and Sugar Creek and Franklin. I enjoyed them, as well as other members of the family. Some of the names are very familiar now, and the picture was also very interesting. But I want to write a little more about this First Ward School house in old Allegheny. It was at the foot of Seminary Hill. At that time this was quite a hill. There was a real building that stood on the top. It was called a seminary, but it was not there long after I been going to school. The hill was sloping and we always planned to have a May party on the summit on a Saturday. The weather invariably interfered—too cold or rainy. There were some trees and grass on the top, so that our disappointment was great. We did not have many holidays. I was fond of outdoors. It was quite a distance to walk to school, and if it had not been for carrying the bag of books I would have enjoyed it all right.

"The Jenkins boy, 'Ned,' was quite large for his age. His father kept a confectionary store in Federal street, the second door from Lacock street going up toward the depot on the same side of the street. I almost always stopped to look in the window at the display of candies on the way to the Dyer's grocery store for cheese, as written about before. Dyer's store was on the other side of Federal and several squares above, nearly opposite the depot, or rather the railroad tracks, as the depot was not built when the accident happened that I wrote about in last Sunday's article.

Teachers Remembered.

"The First Ward School was a good school, and there must have been good teachers there. I was promoted from one room to another so fast I remember the names of only two teachers. One was Miss Ewing; the other was a Miss Robinson. When I left school they both taught in the one room. One would take a class into the recitation room and the other would have her class in the schoolroom and keep order at the same time.

"In writing about my early school days, I've omitted much matter. If I devoted more time to writing instead of fancy work I might do better. I sometimes wonder why I write at all. But I get to recalling so much that really happened, and compare it with a lot of fiction. Then I think of what good it might do if others would read about my early struggles and whether it would not encourage others to do right and trust in God that I might be the means of doing some little good in the world while still living.

A Well-Remembered Walk.

"I went to this First Ward School in Allegheny until I was in my twelfth year. The second day of July, 1852, my father and I took a walk along the bank of the canal as far as the round house where they kept the locomotives for the new railroad. It was customary for us to take walks before breakfast. Sometimes my eldest sister went with us, but not the last time. My father talked all the way to this round house about machinery, remarking he wished I was a boy. We came back to find breakfast on the table and all ready to sit down. Father asked an unusually long blessing—really a prayer for all of us. He ate a very light breakfast and excused himself from the table, going around it and stooping to kiss everyone of us. Mother had the only son in her arms, just 1 year old. The next was a little 4-year-old girl, the other three were older, with my oldest sister 15, myself 12 and one more darling sister just 9. After kissing us, as was his custom, he walked to the front door, then turned back and walked through the parlors and into the dining room to kiss us all once more. It was a very hot day and mother remarked perhaps he'd better not go out, but he said he was all right, and it was important he should be at the office. So he started and got to his office only to tell the clerk that he would rest a minute and then start home again, as he had a queer feeling in his head. So he started back. At this time his shops were a square father away than they had been, but still on a corner of Sandusky street, but his way led along the bank of the canal, and as he was staggering along one of Uncle Hugh Wightman's employes, his brother-in-law, John McElroy, saw him and he knew my father was sick. Mr. McElroy called across the canal to a half grown boy to try to push that man up against the fence until he could run a square to get across the canal bridge. As McElroy ran through the works he called to Hugh Wightman that his brother, Alex, was sick, and when McElroy got to my father he was still conscious or he thought he was, as he gave him one look and sank down. The boy had been able to hold my father up against the fence. He was brought home in less than an hour after he left and never knew anything afterward, as he died at 9 o'clock that night. I was getting ready for school when he was brought in, but I ran all the way across the bridge and to my Uncle James' house. I told them somebody had stabbed father, but they knew better. I was going to go to all my uncles, but Ann Jane Wightman, my cousin, said she would go back home with me, and Andy, her brother, would take a horse and notify them all. This cousin, Ann Jane, was considered an old maid but she could not have been more than 25. She and I came home, and as I was going into father's room where he was making a noise struggling for breath someone stopped me and told me the doctor wanted ice. I ran as fast as I could go to Jenkens' confectionery. "Ned" Jenkens was just starting for school, but ran to his father and told him my father was sick and they wanted ice. He sent a man to get us a bucketfull [sic] of chopped ice and Ned and I carried it all the way to the sick room. They emptied it into a tub and sent us for more. The school bell rang and I wanted 'Ned' to go, but he went to his father and got leave to stay and carry ice. We carried ice until late in the afternoon. I never forgot that great kindness of the Jenkens family, but I did not see much of the boy, as I did not return to school for months afterwards.

Father Laid Away.

"The sudden death of a prominent business man created considerable of a stir in that part of the city. He had a large funeral. I heard many say that the carriages reached to the Federal Street Bridge as the last one left the house. On the Monday before his death father told us all at the dinner table, he was going to take us all out to Lawrenceville to see the plot of ground he had bought in the new Allegheny Cemetery, while mother cried and said she wished he had not done so, as she had often heard that when you got ready thus something was sure to happen. My father arose from his chair and came and leaned over her chair and tried to soothe her. If ever there was a happy married life led, it was by my parents. My poor mother was left a widow indeed, and as helpless a one as could be imagined."

So the little girl in Alleghenytown was brought to face her first great grief and her school life was suddenly interrupted. The roundhouse referred to was that of the Ohio and Pennsylvania Railroad, later the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago, which stood on the river bank around the bend below the present Manchester Bridge at Galveston avenue. The seminary on the hill now known as Monument Hill was the first building of the Western Theological Seminary, now located on Ridge avenue, near Irwin avenue. The seminary on the hill was destroyed by fire January 23, 1854, about a year and a half after Mr. Alexander Wightman's death.

John Kelly, at the time Mrs. Wilbur attended the school of which he was principal, was over 60 years old, having been born near Londonderry, Ireland, in 1784. His first experience in teaching was that of a private tutor in the family of Sir Rowland Hill. Kelly came to the United States in 1817, and first taught at Waterford, Erie county, Pa. He came to Allegheny in 1829 and taught there in the Allegheny Academy until the adoption of public school system in Pennsylvania in 1835. Kelly was a man who lived in advance of his years. Many of his theories which were then repudiated, have since been adopted. He was well versed in English literature and most familiar with the poets. He went from Pittsburgh to St. Louis, Mo., where he spent his remaining years. He died at the home of his daughter, Mrs. Drake, near New Bridgton, Mo., in 1867. So runs a brief biography in "The Educational Voice," a monthly once published in Pittsburgh and devoted to the teachers' profession. The sketch, and the picture of Kelly, shown today, appeared in the issue of this magazine for September, 1886.

(THE END)