Out on a Limb: Our ancestors were committed to public education

Our schools face a challenge as students and teachers return this month in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic.

But, as genealogists well know, the history of our area’s education is a long story of meeting challenges in new and creative ways. Here is what “back to school” meant to our Wyoming Valley ancestors over the years.

The earliest white settlers had no sooner laid claim to land throughout what would become Luzerne County than they began providing for public schools. By 1774, according to historian Henry C. Bradsby, the Susquehanna Company had set up a committee to build schools and employ teachers.

Those early schools were primitive. Students attended for just a few months of the year, and the lone teacher who staffed a given school had to board with families.

By the 1830s, the outlines of a more modern approach to public education had begun to appear. Under state law, the many townships could elect school boards and levy taxation. Organized free schooling had become a reality.

In the late 1800s, Luzerne County had become dotted with cities and boroughs (urban communities that had separated from the old townships), and the area’s population was growing like wildfire. The public schools were evolving to meet the industrial economy. Longer terms and more and larger buildings were becoming the rule.

Let’s take a look at one town – the municipality of Kingston – to see the general outline of development for modern public education over the past century and a half.

In 1857 the borough of Kingston separated from the township of Kingston, with the new borough inheriting several small public schools on which to build its own educational system.

The system grew, and by the early 1880s, it was possible to go through high school in Kingston. But, the “high school” was just a few rooms in a building on Railroad Street (modern West Market Street).

When state law decreed that high schools should be separate institutions, Kingston built its first true high school near the corners area, opening it in 1884. Municipal and student populations kept growing. A state report in 1891 showed that Kingston had just under 900 students in six buildings.

With the economy diversifying, public education continued to expand. In 1904 Kingston built a larger high school, near the old one. The 650-person capacity of the auditorium was likely the population of the high school itself, with the elementary school population certainly much greater.

The borough’s third high school, on Chester Street, opened in the late 1920s with a capacity of more than 1,000 students. Kingston would continue its own school system (having absorbed Dorranceton’s) until state-mandated consolidations of the 1960s. The borough’s schools then became part of the Wyoming Valley West School District. Countywide, nearly 70 districts merged into 11.

What does all this mean for our area’s genealogists? Several lessons can be drawn.

Our ancestors were deeply committed to public education. Early on, though, terms were short and classes apparently were not highly specialized. Until barely a century ago, relatively few of our ancestors received a full 12 years in the classroom. But over time, as community needs grew, the system that we know today developed.

For information on public education in the various towns, your best source is the Phillips notebooks at the Luzerne County Historical Society. Books such as William Brewster’s “History of the Certified Township of Kingston” focus on one or more towns in depth. For high schools, public libraries generally have collections of yearbooks, though they are not complete.