MONROE COUNTY HISTORIC PHOTO ALBUM
Schools & Education
The earliest school anyone
could remember in Monroe County was on Keever’s Hill in
Stroud Township, County Superintendent of Schools B.F.
Morey reported in 1876. It was organized sometime before
1800 by Daniel Stroud, John Stroud, Mr. Hollinshead and
others, and was later moved to Stroudsburg adjacent to the
Friends' meeting house. The first teacher was a Mr. Curtis.
At Hamilton Square in Hamilton Township, a log structure,
like the one in Stroudsburg, operated at about the same
time. In Middle Smithfield, a school was organized by the
Coolbaughs and Overfields in an old log dwelling. The first
school house built in Chestnuthill Township was in a double
house, with the German-born teacher and his family living
on one half, and school in the other. In 1816, the first
school in Pocono Township was organized in a spring house
in Tannersville.
In the western part of the county, schools were taught
entirely in German or, at best, in German and English. They
were entirely supported by subscription.
The first schools essentially were one-room school houses
operated largely by teachers with little or no formal
training. That was changing by 1900.
The East Stroudsburg State Normal School opened on Sept. 4,
1893, with 320 pupils. Many of the first graduates were
employed in Monroe County Schools. Prior to then, only
seven “Normal” graduates were teaching in the county. By
1900, there were 46, nearly all from the East Stroudsburg
school.
The Normal School was the third institution of higher
learning in Monroe County. At the West End, the county had
two academies: Fairview, founded in 1881, and the
Polytechnic Institute in 1886 in Gilbert. They, too,
contributed to the teacher pool, with Fairview providing 47
and Polytechnic 19 of the 151 teachers in Monroe County in
1900.