by Lynne Wohleber, Diocesan Archivist

 

Pittsburgh's first Bishop, the Rt. Rev. John Barrett Kerfoot, was passionate about education.

 

Coming to Pittsburgh from the position of President of Trinity College in Hartford, CT., having previously taught Latin and Greek at College Point, New York and served as head of St. James College in Maryland from its inception in 1842 until 1864, it is not surprising that education would be a top priority for him. In addition, at the 1865 General Convention held in Philadelphia, he was appointed chairman of the Committee on Christian Education. As first Bishop of Pittsburgh in 1865, it was his dream to have schools for boys, for girls and a college - completely owned and supported by the diocese - that would include in their curriculum the foundations of the faith in addition to normal studies.

 

 Was his dream ever realized?

 

It was not as if Anglicans in western Pennsylvania had no schools. As early as 1837, the Rev. Bryan Bernard Killikelly established Doanville Female Seminary - a school for girls - in the mansion erected by his father-in-law north of Kittanning in1836.  Incorporated for 10 years under the Act of April 17, 1838, the school was one of 22 chartered that year and qualified for Section 4 of the Act which required educational institutions to have at least two teachers and 40 pupils in order to receive quarterly payments from the annual state appropriation.  The school charter authorized teachers to enforce the rules and regulations adopted by the trustees and to grant such degrees in the arts, sciences or other branches, under the common seal, to proficient pupils. Trustees serving the school were B. B. Killikelly, Joseph Buffington, Alexander Colwell, Robert E. Brown, George W. Smith, William P. Rupp and William F. Johnston of Armstrong County, Charles C. Gaskill of Jefferson County and Daniel Stannard of Indiana County.  For the next year, it operated on the state funds with Killikelly as principal. But when he was called to do missionary duty in the West and relinquished his charge to Mrs. Eliza Warren and her daughters at the close of the summer sessions in 1839, it had 62 students but no longer qualified for state funding. The school's charter expired in 1849 and he returned to reopen it as the Minnesota Point Seminary in the same building.  He continued as principal until April 1855.  There were 160 boarding and day pupils by the time he left to serve various parishes.  Also during that time he became principal of the female seminary located in a former tavern called "The Sign of the Stage" in Lancaster County along the "first long turnpike in the U.S."  Minnesota Point Seminary continued for several years under the charge of Revds. George Hall and Abiel Carter. In 1863, Fr. Killikelly returned again, and at the request of several Kittanning residents he reopened the school in May of that year as Glenmary Seminary.   His last term ended November 28, 1865, but the school continued under the charge of his chief assistant, Miss Bechton, until her death.  It then came under the care of Miss Lena Hughes, followed by B. B. Killikelly, Jr., until it was transferred to the control of Lambeth College, Kittanning in 1868.

 

Kenwood School began in 1854 as a private school for boys in New Brighton under the direction of the Rev. Joseph P. Taylor, rector of Trinity, Rochester and Christ Church, New Brighton.  From its inception, the goal was to eventually elevate it to the rank of a college and make it an institution of the Diocese.  It was undertaken with a loan of less than $5,000, on a few acres of purchased ground with accommodations for 20 boys.   Henry Fetter, a carpenter/contractor, built the first structure in 1855. Several years later, when Taylor submitted his plans to Bishops Alonzo Potter and Samuel Bowman, they were approved, but the location of the school was thought to be too far west to enlist the sympathies and interest of churchmen in the eastern portion of the Pennsylvania diocese.  Following the division of the Diocese of Pennsylvania, Taylor pressed harder on influential persons in the new diocese "the importance of Christian education under the control of the Church."  Joseph William Hyde, who served as assistant at the school from 1860 to 1862, was later ordained deacon in 1865 by Bishop Alonzo Potter.

 

Having visited Kenwood School during his first few months as diocesan, Bishop Kerfoot's comments in his 1866 inaugural address illustrated his deep concern for the education of impressionable boys and girls and interest in establishing a system of diocesan-owned and regulated schools in the Diocese: "I see how much we need such a Church School among us; we ought to have more of thorough classical and scientific culture for our boys and young men, and we must combine this with sound religious teaching and training.  We must also, as a Diocese, provide all this at home among ourselves.  I beg parents among us to think of this, and I venture to commend most hopefully to their confidence Kenwood as such a school and home as godly Church parents would seek for their sons … My wish and hope to see this School soon become Diocesan, the property and care of a Board of Trustees taken from our clergy and laity, under the visitatorial (sic) oversight of the Bishop, have been the wish and hope, before my coming, of some among you who will not willingly leave so great a work, thus well established, to the probable, or rather inevitable, changes and alienations from which individual ownership and control cannot always protect it."  In 1870, Fr. Taylor reported that after 15 years of trying to secure the school as a parochial institution, the goal was still not achieved. The grounds had been increased to 40 acres, more than 300 boys had come under the school's instruction (some remaining for 4 or 5 years), six of his 12 teachers had become candidates for orders and were now ministers in the church, and he was working on plans to expand the school and to add laboratories for chemistry and natural philosophy.  From 1871 to 1872, George Winfield Scott Ingraham is listed as teacher of the Classics. In 1896, the Board of the Beaver County Hospital purchased the property and the hospital was moved on July 1 into the former school, and is currently the site of the New Brighton Unit of the Medical Center of Beaver County.

 

Bishop Bowman Institute - Named for Asst. Bishop of Pennsylvania, the Rt. Rev. Samuel Bowman, who served as diocesan to the western part of the state from 1858-61, BBI was begun in 1862 as a school of higher education for girls, with the aid and encouragement of the Rev. Dr. Edwin Van Deusen, assistant rector of St. Peter's, Pittsburgh.  Its first home was the Murray residence on Second Avenue near Smithfield, with the Rev. Anthony Ten Broeck, D.D., rector of St. Paul's, Laceyville, serving as first rector. When that residence was purchased for a hospital, the Fulton residence on Grant near Fourth Avenue was leased as the second home.  Four years after he became rector of the school, Ten Broeck took a position at Burlington College, New Jersey.  As bishop of the new diocese, John Barrett Kerfoot invited the Rev. Robert J. Coster to come from Maryland in 1866 to serve as its second rector, as well as rector of Grace, Mt. Washington.  He also organized a board of trustees consisting of John H. Schoenberger, Abram Garrison, Ormsby Phillips, William Metcalf, Thomas H. Howe, Hill Burgwin, Thomas J. Brereton and John H. Bailey.  The school's official charter was issued and recorded with the Allegheny County Recorder of Deeds on July 3, 1866.  By 1872 there were 87 pupils, with 11 young women, who had completed the course, graduating on June 26th of that year - the largest graduating class to have gone out from the Institute at that time. Further growth brought the need for new quarters, and in 1875 the school moved into "an elegant and commodious building" on the corner of Penn and Fourth. However, in his Convention report, Fr. Coster stated that nothing had been done to secure the necessary additional buildings for the school so that it could "make the institute permanent in its character and self-sustaining in its work."  Steiger's Educational Directory of 1878 describes the Institute as a collegiate School for Young Ladies with six instructors, efficient and experienced teachers, and thorough instruction in the Primary, Middle, and Senior Departments.  At that time, board and tuition were $400 per year.  Beginning in the early years of Bishop Cortlandt Whitehead's episcopate, graduation for the girls of Bishop Bowman Institute was held in Trinity Church, Pittsburgh, with a reception following in the evening at the school.

 

With the advent of noisy trolley lines running throughout the city, in 1894 BBI removed to what would become its permanent home on the corner of Fifth and Dithridge in Oakland.  By 1896, the Trustees were The Hon. John H. Bailey, secy., John B. Jackson, Reuben Miller, John Bindley, Hill Burgwin, Abram Garrison, Wm. Metcalf and John F. Rickettson.  Coster served as director of BBI and rector of Grace, Mt. Washington, until his death in 1906.  A note in the margin of Grace's April 30 Vestry minutes reads: "Note: This was the last Vestry Meeting attended by our Beloved Rector, Rev. Robert John Coster, DD."  Dr. Coster had served Grace Church since 1868, leading the little congregation out of its very difficult founding years, through the latter half of the 19th century and into the beginning of a new century.  Had he not continued on as director of the Bishop Bowman Institute, Grace Church would have struggled on, barely able to afford a rector.  His fatherly love had touched the hearts of many, and many would wholeheartedly agree with his heart-broken vestry that his was a "true Christianity" that his "loyalty to the Church, his kindness, his willingness to share the sorrows and griefs of others ... his whole life of Christian love and self-sacrifice has been spent in guiding and uplifting" and that he had "showed by his preaching and life the love of God...”

 

Brownsville Female Seminary – Brownsville Female Seminary was owned and controlled by churchmen as "an excellent Country Home for the daughters of churchmen during the earlier years of their education," as Bishop Kerfoot described it in his convention address of 1869. The school was managed by the widow of a clergyman and four assistants, and was the first school in the 1811 structure, located at 401 Front Street, Brownsville.   The Rev. Sheridan Baker, a Methodist minister who served in Washington County, was president of the school for one year in 1854 before becoming head of Beaver College.   By the end of the 1800s, the building had become a newspaper office, owned and operated by the Free Lance Publishing Company.

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One of Kerfoot's first acts of office in 1866 was to create a Committee on Education. In their report to the second convention of 1867, they stated that a diocesan school with university powers, similar to those of the University of St. Augustine, would be good guidelines for establishing a similar institution in the Diocese of Pittsburgh.  They went on to say that the real estate and buildings of Kenwood School in New Brighton, which had been offered for sale to the Diocese, was a desirable property, suitable for such a university. Unfortunately, the committee did not feel that it was practical at that time to "comply with the terms of said offer."   Their report to the 1868 convention mentions "church" schools of various types attached to parishes. The Sewickley school was free to all, being a parochial school; Lawrenceville's church school was taught by a clergyman with a female assistant; and Titusville had a "good school for instruction in the common and higher branches."   Schools in Oil City, Monongahela City and Rochester were taught by rectors and presumed to be church schools.  Schools under the charge of female communicants existed in Erie, Meadville, Kittanning and other towns.  None, in their opinion, "came up to the full idea of what a Church School should be," since none systematically taught the Church catechism or trained their pupils as members of Christ and embued (sic) them thoroughly with the Church's system of Faith and Worship."

  

Kerfoot's 1869 report to diocesan convention states: "I could not have anticipated, when I took charge of the Diocese, that I would meet you for the fourth time in Convention, and have no bright word to speak about our Diocesan School or College … We have indeed some excellent Church Schools, but they are private enterprises, or if incorporated, they are unendowed; and their Diocesan character exists only so far as the Bishop's connection as Visitor can give it.  The oldest, Kenwood School, is doing excellent work, as I know from personal examination of its teachings, but it is still a private enterprise.  Lambeth College, a new Church School in Kittanning has been efficiently and liberally begun, but owes its beginning and its means to local, not Diocesan, enterprise and generosity.  The Episcopal Classical Academy of this city under two competent and persevering men, is slowly, but I hope, surely, forcing its way among our people. The Bishop and one of our laymen … are its chief backers. … I can name with great satisfaction our two schools for girls – the Bishop Bowman Institute, in this city, which has no superior in its work anywhere, and the Brownsville Female Seminary, an excellent Country House for the daughters of churchmen during the earlier years of their education.  … The Diocese as such is not doing its part."

 
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During and after Kerfoot's episcopate, several educational institutions were begun in the hopes that they would develop into the types of schools which he envisioned:

 

Episcopal Classical Academy – 64 Grant Steet, Pittsburgh.  The academy, begun with the encouragement of Bishop Kerfoot  sometime before 1869, was designed to prepare boys for College or Business. The Rev. Thomas L. Bellum, first rector of St. Luke's in Bloomfield, was principal, reporting to the 1872 Convention that during the 1871-72 year there was an increase in the number of students, great improvement in the school's accommodations, and "we look forward to the future to build up a Classical School worthy of the Church in the See city of this Diocese."  The Rev. Charles H. Kellogg served as principal from 1874 to around 1875 while rector of St. Luke's in Bloomfield.  Steigers Educational Directory of 1878 describes it as "a Select School in the true sense of the word with liberal and thorough instruction" under Principal Francis Schmid.  By 1882, the Academy is no longer on the listing of diocesan institutions in The Diocesan Chronicle, and Francis Schmid is teaching Ancient and Modern Languages at Trinity Hall for Boys in Washington, PA.  The building is no longer in existence, but was located on Grant Street between First Avenue and what are now the exits for the Parkway.

 

Lambeth College, Kittanning, PA – First known as Kittanning Collegiate School, the college was granted a charter on September 7, 1868.  The corporation was organized with capital stock that was divided into shares of $50 each with voting privileges. It had as its objective the "promotion of Liberal Learning on a distinctive Church basis and … the religious instruction … shall be in accordance with the Christian Faith as held by the Branch of the Church Catholic now Known as 'The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States' … daily morning and evening prayer shall forever be an Essential part of the Exercises of the Institution."  The board of trustees consisted of nine Episcopalians – The Honorable Joseph Buffington, James Mosgrove, Edward S. Golden, John W. Rohrer, The Rev. John K. Karcher (Trinity, Beaver and Christ, New Brighton), John F. Schoenberger, Thomas J. Brereton, George W. Cass and Benjamin Grant  -- and the Bishop of Pittsburgh as ex officio chancellor of the corporation.  The corporation had the right to establish primary, preparatory and academic departments and to confer degrees of Bachelor of Arts, of Science and of Philosophy; Master of Arts; Doctor of Philosophy, and academic degrees honoris causa.  Provision also was made in the Constitution for the eventual addition of departments of Law and Medicine. The Board was to "award such honors, whether in the form of Certificate or Diploma, as shall appear most suitable and most conducive to the well being of said department of the Institution" for the department of the Girls' School, which was "under the general supervision of the head of the several male departments."  Among those cities represented by the 48 signatures of lay and clergy on the petition for the school were Allegheny City, Bradys Bend, Clearfield, Erie, Kittanning, Pittsburgh, Rochester, and Sewickley.     Deacon William Bollard, an assistant at St. Paul's, Kittanning, is listed in 1870 as principal.  He later served as rector of St. Luke's, Georgetown and Trinity, Beaver from 1873-75.  The August 1872 diocesan newspaper, "Our Diocese," reported that the beginning of the school year was set for September 4, under the supervision of the Rev. Oliver S. Taylor, rector of the school.  The school year would consist of 40 weeks, exclusive of vacations, divided into two terms of 20 weeks each with instruction given in "the common and higher English branches, and in Latin, Greek, French and Music."  Following Fr. Taylor's death on Easter day 1874, Miss P. A. Hodges served as principal for three years, then went on to be principal of Lambeth School for Young Ladies and Little Girls in Annapolis, Maryland.  A number of prominent men attended the college, including Thomas Mutter Allison, an 1869 graduate, who went on to Jefferson Medical School and practiced medicine in the Kittanning area for more than 40 years.  According to the Episcopal Church archives, the school closed around 1876.

 

St. Augustine's College – a reference in the 1870 Convention Journal by the Committee on Education states that "a beginning has already been made in the form of a charter of incorporation of St. Augustine's College, the object which incorporators have in view is ample provision for a liberal training of the sons of Churchmen in the Diocese, and of others who may wish to avail themselves of its benefits."  The committee was to continue and make a report to the next convention, but at that time they reported that nothing definite had been accomplished and they requested to be discharged.

 

Trinity Hall, Washington, PA – In 1867, banker William W. Smith purchased the 25-room building which had been constructed in 1857 as a private home for Joseph Knight "on an eminence overlooking the town of Washington, and about one-half mile from it".  He established the school on his property in1879 as a military boarding school for boys and had as a frequent visitor former president Ulysses S. Grant. It began with a student body of 34 boys with the rector of Trinity, Washington, the Rev. Samuel Earp, Ph.D., as principal. By 1881, it was necessary to expand, and additional dormitories were added for 35 students. It is advertised in 1883 as "A Boarding School for Boys preparing them for College or Business," with a 3-year course, a 400-volume library, and tuition of $400 a year.  The grounds and buildings were valued at $75,000, and the facilities could accommodate 60 students.

 

The Diocese suffered the loss of Bishop Kerfoot during 1881 and elected Cortlandt Whitehead as new diocesan. When Fr. Earp left for the Diocese of Michigan, the Rev. Thomas D. Pitts came from Florida and served as principal from 1885 to 1888, when he relinquished his duties.  The Journal of 1891 reported that he died in Pittsburgh May 1891 following several years when his mind was seriously affected.  From 1890 to 1892, Alfred C. Arnold is listed as rector but he is not listed among the clergy of the diocese.  Beginning in 1892,  J. B. Wheeler is listed as headmaster until 1894, when W. W. Smith is added as rector and Maj. C. H. Tibbetts as assistant rector and commandant. By 1895, Wheeler is no longer listed, and by 1896 W. W. Smith is listed alone as rector.  Three years after Smith's death in 1904, the school closed its doors for financial reasons and remained idle until 1913-16 when it was used as an armory.  The property, finally sold by Smith's sons in 1925, was expanded and renamed to establish a public high school. Today the core of the 150-year-old original structure remains, and Trinity is a modern public high school with approximately 1,279 students in grades 9-12. According to the Trinity High School website, four bricks from President Grant's first vault in New York support a marble plaque over the school's vestibule.

 

St. Edmund's Academy, Squirrel Hill – It would be 1947 before Bishop Kerfoot 's dream to establish a parochial school for diocesan youth would be realized, even remotely.  St. Edmund's was founded by 16 mothers who met with the Rev. Wilburn C. Campbell, then rector of Church of the Ascension, Oakland, with the idea of beginning a school that would have low tuition, and where there would be "an emphasis upon individual attention, intellectual stimulus, and  moral Christian idealism."  When the incorporated school received its charter in April of its first year, the Board of Directors consisted of The Rev. and Mrs. Wilburn Campbell, Mr. and Mrs. James G. Marks, Jr., Mr. and Mrs. Richard Tucker, Jr., Mr. and Mrs. A. Douglas Hannah, Mr. and Mrs. Spencer Hackett, Mrs. Walter A. Moor, Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Blair, The Rev. and Mrs. Lauriston Scaife, The Rev. Hugh S. Clark, Mr. Roy A. Hunt and Mr. Harlow Kirkpatrick.

 

As a church school for boys, it had as its three main objectives fine scholarship toward preparation for college, intelligent citizenship, and making students aware of their relationship and responsibility to God.  Initially the school only was able to accept children from age 3 to first grade, with plans to add one grade each year until eighth grade.  The school opened as Ascension Academy, with 60 children and six teachers meeting in Ascension's parish house. When it outgrew those church facilities, space was offered for the preschool by Calvary Church, East Liberty in their Carnahan House and Church of the Redeemer, Squirrel Hill provided room for Grades 1-5.   During the summer of 1951,  J. Robert Izod, organist and choirmaster at Redeemer, became headmaster and held that post until his retirement in the mid-1970's. 

 

By 1952, there were 117 students, 12 teachers and the headmaster. That year, just as the school was approved as an organization of the Diocese of Pittsburgh under Bishop Austin Pardue, Pauline Seeley Mudge, widow of Pittsburgh industrialist and civic leader Edmund W. Mudge, donated land adjacent to Redeemer on which to build the new facility. On November 24th, the school officially changed its name to St. Edmund's in honor of her husband and Edmund of East Anglia, Norwich, England.  Chosen king at age 15 on Christmas Day in 855 A.D., Edmund became known during the war with the Danish invaders as "the King who would not compromise."  Some time following the 1972 dedication of the Field House by Bishop Robert Appleyard and The Rt. Rev. Wilburn Campbell – Bishop of the Diocese of West Virginia since 1954 – the school became a separate institution from the Diocese. What began in 1947 as an essentially Episcopal school for boys open to all denominations "to make each boy a better member of the denomination of his allegiance," evolved by 1983 into a co-educational institution from pre-kindergarten through 8th grade. Today, under headmaster William L. Kindler, Ph.D., the Academy's student body enrollment (on average) is between 250 and 260 students, resulting in an average class size of fifteen.

 
 
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Researching parochial schools over more than a 170-year period would be a daunting and time-consuming task, so concentration for this piece was on evidence of schools which could be located in the years prior to 1865 through 1910, when our diocese divided.  In addition to these examples of these early schools with a connection to the Diocese, there were a number of others mentioned in the diocesan publications for which I could find no further information.  Several references were found to the school for girls in New Brighton which was opened in 1872 by Mrs. C. E. Smyth, widow of a clergyman.  The Rev. W. G. W. Lewis in 1873 is listed as the headmaster of the Meadville Female Seminary, which had an enrollment of 32.  By convention of 1889, a new school for girls called Longview had been opened in the fall of 1888 in Brookville, Jefferson County, with about 15 boarding pupils and an equal number of day students.  Plans were to use the building during July and August as a summer resort.  Bishop Whitehead sat on the Board, and in his 1889 convention address stated, "A certificate of proficiency from Longview admits to Wellesley College without conditions."  It is very probable that in a diocese of 23 counties, there may have been others which were not noted in either the convention journals or the diocesan publication.

 

Archivist's Note:  Information for this article came from the diocesan archives, diocesan publications, various web sites and Sandra Levis, former PTA archivist of St. Edmund's. If you have additional information, photos, etc. on any of these educational institutions that you would be willing to donate to the diocesan archives, we would be most appreciative for the opportunity to fill the holes in our data.

-posted April 4, 2008-