In the old days, Sunday school was a big deal. Typical of the larger town churches was Pottstown’s Emmanuel Lutheran.
Their Sunday school had 1100 members on its role in 1915. To distribute the traditional box of candy to the primary classes at Christmas, the superintendent ordered 220 boxes at a penny apiece and 150 pounds of candy to fill them.
In examining that Sunday school’s records, I noticed lists of names which at first glance seemed to be class rosters until it became clear that these were lists of teachers!
Also, at that time Transfiguration Lutheran with an almost equal number on their role stood across the street; and on the same block was Zion Reformed, another large Protestant church.
Even little country congregations like Falkner Swamp Reformed in rural New Hanover had, in those days, about 70 on the Sunday school role with about 50 or 60 usually in attendance. Some readers may remember Herbert Wagner who was superintendent there from 1903 to 1953 – on post for 50 years.
At the turn of the 20th Century, Sunday schools were so popular that some communities that were little more than villages, such as Green Lane and Sanatoga, had erected separate nonsectarian Sunday school chapels. Today the Lower Pottsgrove Historical Society uses the old Sunday school chapel as its headquarters and museum.
Although today most Sunday schools are associated with a church, they did not spring from the church but rather were grafted on to it. Even today, in most cases, the Sunday school uses the church building and property and is made up almost exclusively of church members, yet it maintains a separate organizational structure.
Sunday schools originated in the 19th Century. Quoting Mike Snyder who wrote in a recent Pottstown Historical Society newsletter, “The beginning of the 19th century marked the start of the second Great Awakening, a powerful religious revival that swept through America emphasizing man’s ability to save his soul through good works. This new life view led to social activism that produced many movements such as Woman’s Suffrage, Temperance, and Abolitionism.” And we might add the Sunday school movement.
The earliest reference to local Sunday schools that I located was in “The Centennial History of Kutztown, Pennsylvania,” which records that: “About fifty years ago [1826] under the name of ‘Kutztown Sunday school Union’ was organized the first Sunday School. It occupied an independent position. Prior to that time religious instruction was imparted to the young by the preachers, and, during the summer, on the Lord’s Day, by the organists who also taught the daily parochial school. In the fatherland it was, and still is, the custom that, on every Sunday afternoon, to the children, assembled in the church, was explained the catechism by the preacher. But, as the pastors here were overburdened with work, it became necessary that what is now known as Sunday School, should be organized. The opposition to it, which at first was strong, soon gave way.”
Here in the New Hanover region, opposition to Sunday school didn’t give way very rapidly. It seems strange today, but church opposition to the Sunday school movement was bitter and protracted. The decade of the 1850s was the battleground with grudging acceptance of the movement usually seen by decade’s end.
What, we wonder, could possibly be the objection to Sunday schools? Perhaps it is because the locals were almost 100 percent Pennsylvania German. Many could barely speak English. Sunday schools originated in England and were exclusively an English enterprise. The Dutchmen had just lost a 15-year battle to keep the English-only public schools out of their townships. Now this! We have to have English education in church too! Also, it may have just been the Dutchmen’s opposition to anything “new.”
But there was a need for Sunday schools. With the replacement of the church schools and “pay schools,” which often had a strong religious component, with the secular public schools, there was no religious instruction of the young other than what was provided by confirmation classes. So the conflict brewed throughout the region.
In 1854, Rev. Agustus DeChant was the minister of the Reformed congregation that met in Keelor’s Union church in Obelisk. He favored Sunday schools and vigorously advocated their establishment throughout the area. Noted in the minute book of the consistory of Falkner Swamp was a resolution to prohibit Rev. DeChant from entering or preaching in their building as he would advocate Sunday schools. Meanwhile, a historical article found in “The Perkiomen Region,” June 1, 1925, notes: “The Sunday school was moved to Keelor’s Church [under Rev. DeChant] but here it had a short and stormy stay, as many of the church members, especially the Lutheran congregation, were opposed to it; and in 1854 the Sunday school was ‘thrown’ out of the church in that its property was carried out on the road. One young man rolled up his sleeves to fight back any of the members of the school who might oppose the removal of their property.”
The Sunday school members responded by building a Sunday school building on nearby Perkiomenville Road, which famously became known as “Kuttlefleck Hall” for the malodorous cow’s stomach or Kuttlefleck, in dialect, that those opposed to the school had nailed in the belfry before the dedication. Someone had been paid a quart of whiskey to put it up there. The cow’s stomach plan was adopted after the initial scheme of firing a cannon over the building was perhaps deemed going too far.
Continued next week.The Historian is produced by the New Hanover Historical Society. Call Robert Wood at 610-326-4165 with comments.
