Revisiting Joseph Foulke's Boarding School...
- Yen Ho
- Aug 6
- 5 min read
In late May of this year, I received a message from a local resident who had a question about her home, whether it used to be a school house or something else. When I researched her home on Google Maps, it surprised me that her home was in the same location as Joseph Foulke's Boarding School for Boys. I previously did research on this school, but I did not confirm whether the building still exists or not. It's time for me to retrace my steps!
The History of Joseph Foulke's Boarding School
Joseph Foulke (1786-1863) was descended from the Foulke family, one of the earliest settlers of Gwynedd in 1698. The original land where his side of the family had was 579 acres owned by John Humphrey since 1699 above Spring House. It wasn't until 1705 he sold 129 acres to Hugh Griffith (another early Gwynedd settler) for 30 pounds. One of his daughters married Edward Foulke (1707-1770) and both were living on his property. After Edward died, his widow Margaret conveyed 180 acres on the homestead to her son Hugh. After him the land was split between his two sons: Joseph and Hugh, Jr. It ended with Joseph owning most of the property on the east side of Bethlehem Turnpike while the western portion (where the original homestead was) was owned by Hugh, Jr. with 78 acres. The original homestead was around since 1706, but had a date stone with the year 1817, possibly the date when the home was renovated.
1817 was the same year Joseph was a minister. He travelled far to Quaker meetings in New Jersey, New York, Canada, Maryland, Ohio, and Indiana. Before that, he learned the trade of a wheelwright to follow the footsteps of his father. But he decided to become a teacher, and worked at the Friends' School at Plymouth from 1811-1817. After one year teaching at Upper Dublin, he established a boarding school in the autumn of 1818 for young men and boys at his large, stone mansion.
"Westtown Boarding School has always been noted for the many excellent teachers there qualified for their work. Soon after its establishment young men and women began to go forth from it to open schools of their own, introducing into them improved textbooks, advanced studies, more system, and better methods of teaching. The institution trained teachers, and in numerous instances they in turn trained other students. Of those who had either been teachers or students at Westtown or who had inherited from sons of Westtown the Westtown spirit, may be named..."
- James Pyle Wickersham,
A History of Education in Pennsylvania, Private and Public, Elementary and Higher (1886)
Fun Fact # 1: In 1836, Joseph visited Washington as one of a committee members of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting to convince Congress to not allow Arkansas become a slave state.
The Gwynedd Boarding School continued to be a success after his sons Daniel (1814-1888) and Joseph, Jr. (1827-1906) and nephew Hugh (1831-1908) took over as principals. The school discontinued in 1860.
"I was so pleased with the place. There are about 40 boys there now. It is on the Bethlehem pike, on the right hand side of the road. After the children are in bed he [Joseph] reads the Bible to them. They pay $30.00 a quarter, which includes washing and mending and boarding. I am sure they have plenty to eat. While I was there a man brought in a lot of shad. I asked, 'Were they from the Delaware?' 'No,' he said, 'they were from the Wissahickon.' ... When I was in the kitchen, a man brought in 15 pounds of butter for which Joseph paid 15 cents a pound, and three bushes of dried apples for $1.50 a bushel. The boys wash their faces and hands before breakfast in a room in the house and do not have to go out doors in the cold and wash under the pump spout, as they do in a boarding school in Norristown."
- Letter written from Sam Slide to his Aunt Debbie, May 5, 1850
There was another time Joseph read Religious Society of Friends founder George Fox's journal to the boys before going to bed.
"I have read nearly through the second volume, having previous winters read the Scriptures through to them. That we now read First-day morning, before they go meeting... Several of the youth, with myself, seem enlisted in the travels and concerns of George Fox."
- Letter written from Joseph Foulke to a friend, January 25, 1851
Fun Fact # 2: There was a girls' school right across from the boarding school established in a wheelwright shop by Ann Miller. Unlike the boarding school, the girls did not board there.
After being principal at his father's boarding school, Joseph, Jr. attended medical school at the University of Pennsylvania, and then went abroad to Europe to continue his education. In 1859, he moved to Centreville in Bucks County, PA where he began his practice as a physician. Meanwhile, his brother Daniel took the occupation of surveyor and conveyancer, and the management of estates. Their cousin Hugh moved to New York and became an assistant teacher, and then principal teacher at the Friends' Seminary.
Answering The Big Question!
The biggest question asked by the resident is that whether her home was a school house at some point. By going up on Bethlehem Pike past Spring House heading towards PA-309, you would have to be careful looking at two important roads: Cedar Hill Road and Lower State Road. On the older maps, there was a school house marked at the corner of Cedar Hill Road and Bethlehem Pike, but that was not Joseph Foulke's boarding school. That would be the Cedar Hill School that was part of the Lower Gwynedd School District. That would be why the road was named after the school.
The boarding school would be further up on Lower State Road. I'll discuss more about the
Bibliography
"Dr. Joseph Foulke Dead." Ambler Gazette. February 22, 1906. Page 4. https://digitalarchives.powerlibrary.org/papd/islandora/object/papd%3Awivp-gazett_4143.
Franklin Survey Company. Montgomery County 1934 Vol A, Plate 14, 1934.
Friends' Intelligencer and Journal (July 6, 1895): 433, 464.
Janney, Samuel Mcpherson. History of the Religious Society of Friends: From Its Rise to the Year 1828, Volume 4. (Philadelphia: T. Ellwood Zell, 1867): 138-139.
Jenkins, Howard Malcolm. Historical Collections Relating to Gwynedd: A Township of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, Settled, 1696, by Immigrants from Wales, with Some Data Referring to the Adjoining Township, of Montgomery, Also Settled by Welsh, Second Edition. (Philadelphia: Howard Malcolm Jenkins, 1897): 233-235, 248-250, 257-258, 266-267, 439-440.
"LOCAL HISTORY. The Foulke Homestead, Bethlehem Turnpike--John Humphrey and Hugh Griffiths--Interesting Characters." Ambler Gazette. May 31, 1900. Page 7. https://digitalarchives.powerlibrary.org/papd/islandora/object/papd%3Awivp-gazett_3153.
Morris, William E, and Smith & Wistar. Map of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania: from original surveys. [Philadelphia: Smith & Wistar, 1849] Map. https://www.loc.gov/item/2012590207/.
"Quaker Mail: Based On Community History, Writings of Dr. Mary Hough." Ambler Gazette. January 5, 1939. Page 4. https://digitalarchives.powerlibrary.org/papd/islandora/object/papd%3Awivp-gazett_22722.
"Quaker Mail: Based On Community History, Writings of Dr. Mary Hough." Ambler Gazette. February 9, 1939. Page 4. https://digitalarchives.powerlibrary.org/papd/islandora/object/papd%3Awivp-gazett_21370.
Scott, J. D. Montgomery County 1877, Gwynedd, North Wales, Ambler, Royer's Ford, Limerick Station, 1877.
Wickersham, James Pyle. A History of Education in Pennsylvania, Private and Public, Elementary and Higher: From the Time the Swedes Settled on the Delaware to the Present Day. (Lancaster: Inquirer Publishing Company, 1886): 93.
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