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BRICK SCHOOL HOUSE

Township, Lancaster County, Pa

"Churches of Today and Yesterday in Southern Lancaster County" by Fellowship of Solanco Churches, Raymond Dunlap, George Herbert, & Richard Yates , Sr. printed 1968

The "Brick" School House, located about one mile south of the village of Nine Points in southern Bart Township, deserves a place in the story of the religious atmosphere of Southern Lancaster County because of the fact that it provided a place for the holding of a Sunday School through the summer months for many years during the latter part of the nineteenth century and the early part of the twentieth. Not only were sessions of Sunday School conducted in this building but it was frequently used as a preaching station by neighboring Ministers, Presbyterian, Methodist and Baptist. Sunday School was conducted on Sabbath afternoons and the preaching services were usually held in conjunction with and immediately following the Sunday School service. The Reverend William G. Cairnes, because of his long pastorate at Middle Octorara Presbyterian Church, preached here more often than other ministers.

The name "Brick" is derived from the fact that when Public Schools began to be built in Bart Township in the middle 1830's, other school buildings were of either frame or stone construction. But due to the fact that this one was located south of the Nine Points ridge in an area of abundant red clay suitable for making brick, it was therefore constructed of material close at hand, and presumably, burned in primitive kilns near the site, a common practice at that time in the red clay section of southern Bart, western Sadsbury and northern Colerain Townships.

The "Brick" had always been a recognized Community Center, a place for Public School, Sunday School, Preaching Services and also Lyceum and other local gatherings. The Sabbath School was for some years discontinued toward the latter part of the nineteenth century but about 1904 there moved into the community a Presbyterian Elder, Mr. Levi Day and family from Roxboro, Pennsylvania. Mr. Day immediately saw the need for a revival of the Sunday School and proceeded the following year to reorganize the same. His efforts were crowned with such Success that when the Sunday School closed in the Fall, Cottage Prayer Meetings were started. These were conducted as a mid-week service held in the various homes of the surrounding community and continued to study the regular International Sunday School Lessons, until the opening of the Sunday School the following Spring. All these meetings were wonderfully blessed as many still living can testify. The "Brick" School is also notable as the place where the great philanthropist, the late Milton Hershey, founder of the Hershey Company and the town which bears his name, began his public school education, walking nearly two miles from his home a short distance east of Nine Points. The building is presently used as an Amish Parochial School.

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