Concord School in Rostraver was constructed in 1830 as a one-room subscription school house at a time when such buildings provided basic education to children living within walking distance.
“Subscription” refers to the fact that each family subscribed a sum of money
for the support of the school, including a teacher’s salary.
Concord School was the last of several which existed in the township’s early
days.
Building materials were gathered locally: Stone from fields and wood from nearby forests. Glass for the windows was hauled “over the mountains” by pack horses or wagon train. Plaster was made from locally-burned lime. Sand came from
nearby creek beds while hair used in the mix was obtained from a tannery
along Cedar Creek. Iron for nails was purchased from Alliance Furnace along Jacobs Creek.
The building had eight windows with panes of 9 in.-by-10-in. glass to allow light to enter. Oak boards for the floor and split logs for benches were sawed at a water-powered mill along Cedar Creek.
The benches were smoothed on one side for seating. They had no backs and were often so high that smaller students could not touch the floor with their feet. Planks attached to walls around three sides of the room served as desks.
Heat came from a fireplace in a corner. Drinking water was brought by the bucket from a hand-dug well behind the school. Students shared a “gourd dipper” in order to get a drink.
No means of taxation provided for education before Pennsylvania passed the Free Public School Law of 1834. Parents who sent children to school paid a share – usually 25 cents a month per child. Occasionally, parents traded goods or farm
products in lieu of the “school tax.”
Concord School had no blackboards or erasers. Children often wrote on slate
boards because paper was expensive and scarce. Books were few and far between and shared. Families who could afford books passed them on to younger children in
the family or sold them to a neighbor who needed books for the education of their own children.
The historic school is open to the public on Sunday during summer, plus special events days. It is located off Route 51, near the I-70 Interchange, on the road leading to the Rostraver Municipal Complex and Cedar Creek Park.
The Rostraver Historical Society is the source of most information for this article.
SWPA History 