Early Quaker education in PennsylvaniaWoody, Thomas
History
Early Quaker education in Pennsylvania
Woody, Thomas
Education -- Pennsylvania -- History; Society of Friends -- Education -- History; Thesis (Ph. D.)
I give and bequeath to Isaac Wiggins of the township of
Northampton, David Buckman and James Briggs of the township of
Newtown, and Joseph Hampton and Isaac Chapman of the township
of Wrightstown, all in the County of Bucks, and the survivors
of them, the sum of £50 in gold or silver currency in trust
... place the same at interest on real security or therewith
purchase an annuity or groundrent or such other method as they
may think proper for securing the same and apply the interest
thereof as the same shall thereafter be received, towards the
establishing and maintaining a free school in Wrightstown
aforesaid near the meeting house for the instruction of
Friends children belonging to the monthly meeting of Friends
in Wrightstown, in useful learning, and the said school
to be under the care and direction of the monthly meeting
aforesaid.[434]
[Sidenote: Digest of report on legacies at Wrightstown]
In 1791 a committee presented a report on the status of legacies, which
is given herewith in shortened form.
1. The will of David Twining.
I give to the monthly meeting of Friends at Wrightstown
the sum of five pounds to be applied towards a Free School
in Wrightstown, near the meeting house, that is under the
direction and care of Friends.
2. A committee of six suggested to take the said legacy and apply its
interest to the said school.
3. Report of a committee on Adam Harker’s will.
All trustees have died without having made any purchase of any
groundrent or annuity for the purpose aforementioned.
4. The trustees appointed by David Buckman, deceased, in his last will
and testament to have the care of a legacy of £50 given by the said David
to this meeting for establishing a Free School in Wrightstown, report
that they have received said legacy and put it out to interest on a
mortgage bearing date the seventeenth day of the third month last.[435]
[Sidenote: Funds in chaotic state]
In 1799 a legacy of £30 was left to Wrightstown Meeting “to be laid out
in the education of poor children in the school house on the meeting
house land.”[436] From later records running into the first two decades
of the next century, it appears that the state of the donations was
never gotten into very good shape. When they came into the hands of the
trustees in 1822 they were “indistinguishable one from another,” so far
as the purposes for which each was intended. At the time when some of
the bequests were made there was a large stone schoolhouse standing on
the meeting’s grounds to which they alluded in their wills.[437] This
building was torn down about 1815 and two schools set up, one two miles
above the meeting house, and the other about three-quarters of a mile
below it. The total amount of the legacies had increased by 1822 to about
$6,800.[438]
[Sidenote: Richland]
[Sidenote: date of school]
[Sidenote: Endowment for use of poor]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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