Courtesy Sylvester Everhart Jr.

Symbolic of a bygone era of American elementary education, the one-room Harbaugh School was in operation in rural Somerset County, PA for nearly five-and-a-half decades, from about 1876 to 1930. This image dates to 1911 and was published in a small booklet naming the pupils.

The schoolhouse was named for the Harbaugh branch of our cousins, and was located near the old homestead of half-brothers Joseph Harbaugh and David Harbaugh, the latter of whose parents, Leonard and Martha (Minerd) Harbaugh Sr., originally had settled there in 1837.

The school site is now owned by the Pennsylvania Game Commission and the farm by the Clairton Anglers Club.

A number of Harbaugh descendants attended the school over the decades. An early reference is found in an 1888 Meyersdale Commercial newspaper article. At that time, a building was being constructed "in Turkeyfoot township, just across the Somerset county line," reported the Connellsville Keystone Courier. Messrs. Gearhart are the contractors." The teacher in that new schoolhouse was Alice C. Eyer in the 1888-1889 year, with 34 pupils enrolled but with average attendance of only 15. Her monthly salary was $23.

More about the school>>>

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