Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1914-07-10

building at Chestnut and Dewberry
streets were Mrs. Carrie Sees and Miss
Jennie f. Dase, both of whom, after
years of faithful educational service.
are still residents of our city.
The third small school building of
this vicinity (known as the German
building) was more fortunate than the
Front street and Chestnut street build
ings in becoming a permanent educa-
uonal site. It's location was 123I
Chestnut street, being the original
German homestead. Harrisburg. in it's
earlier days, was well supplied with
| the oldentime breweries, and one of
the best known of these was the Ger
man brewery located in the rear of
the dwelling and facing in Cherry
street. When the Harrisburg school
board acquired the German property,
| two schools were located in two rooms
of the dwelling house, the teachers
in 1874 being Misses Jenny E. Lenny
and Lizzie F. Jauss. Miss Jauss is
still teacher in the Stevens building
on the very spot where stood the Ger
man house, whilst there are hundreds
of men and women in Harrisburg
aye, and widely scattered too through
many other willing to
bear ready testimony to her devoted
services in their earlier days.
But the three small buildings which
have been mentioned were not the
only isolated schools in that section
of the city. Schools We're located in
rented rooms in the German Lutheran
church in South Second street, which
has been razed in recent years to make
way for Pennsylvania railroad i'm
provements, and also in odd Fellows
hall, 304 North Second street.
The school in the Lutheran church
was devoted to the instruction of pu-
pills desiring to receive their education
| in the German language, there being
also another German school in the
rented Knipe building in Verbeke
street The German schools then con-
| Quoted under the auspices of the
school board were in Difference to the
| desires of a strong and important Ger
man element in the population of
Harrisburg. The teachers in the school
| located in the Lutheran church weTS
| Frederick W. Liesmann, the we'll
| known proprietor and publisher of
THE Pennsylvania Staats-Zeitung
and Dauphin County Journal and
/ Miss Kate A. Troup.
| The school in odd Fellows hall was
| taught by Miss Kate Stambaugh. This
| accomplished teacher, now Mrs Piper,
is again connected with Harrisburg's
| educational work.
The Erection of the Stevens Building
| When the sentiment in Harrisburg
| in favor of better school buildings and
a greater concentration of educational
effort had reached flood tide, in the
seventies of the last century, the Har-
risburg board determined to erect an
edifice near the center of the city
which would accommodate the pupils
| of the numerous small schools and
rented rooms of that section. The
German property in Chestnut street
was deemed the most available site
at it's command, but the space being
| insufficient for the structure contem-
plated, the Jones Wister Residence ad-
joining on the west was also pur-
chased.
1t also entered into the plans of
the board to provide in this building
for better quarters for it's meetings
and a suitable office for the city SUI
perintendent of schools. His office
had been located at various places.
| In 1874 ii was in an inadequate room
in College block, as the building with
an entrance at 26 North Third street
was generally called at that time. The
following year 1t was in an equally
insufficient room in Market Square.
The school board held it's meetings
superintendent wherever that might
4 be.
The City Institutes
The new building in Chestnut street
was erected in 1875, the centennial
year of American independence, ante
dating the new building at Harris
Park by one year.
Back of the capacious offices for
the superintendent and secretary of
the board was a room for board meet
ings, whilst above all was a hall pri-
marily intended for the semimonthly
sessions of the institute held by the
city teachers, which had previously
, been held in the rooms of the boys
; high school located in the Dewitt
building Cor old Lancasterian) in
: Walnut street.
, But with a radical readjustment of
the arrangement of the schools in
1886 the boys high school itself was
transferred to this hall in the Ste
vens building with several adjacent
rooms in use for recitation purposes.
This transfer was effected after Bit
ter fight in the school board in what
/ one of the papers of the city termed
a "rich and racy meeting" There is
quite a bit of history back of this
fight. but this is not the place to
tell it.
The Lacasterian building had been
the location of the boys high school
for the North ward of Harrisburg
from the time that the common school
system became sufficiently developed
to have a high school. On the con-
solidation of the North and South
ward districts into one school organi-
zation, it became the site of the boys
high school for the entire city
The transfer to the Stevens build