Concord School House (Philadelphia)

Concord School House
U.S. National Historic Landmark District Contributing Property
Location	6309 Germantown Ave. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Built	1775
Architectural style	Colonial

The Concord School House is a historic one-room schoolhouse in the Germantown section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is operated today as a museum.

Built in 1775 by Jacob Knor, Concord was the first English-language school in Germantown (then an exurb of Philadelphia), built on the corner of the Upper Burial Ground at Washington Lane and Germantown Avenue. It opened to students in October 1775, and served as a school room until 1892.

At a meeting on March 24, 1775, the residents of the upper part of Germantown decided that the Union School (later known as Germantown Academy) was too far for their children to travel, and they needed a schoolhouse of their own. The site beside the Upper Burial Ground was chosen, construction began, and in October 1775, the Concord School was completed. In 1818 a second floor was added as a town meeting room.

View from northwest

The school was supported by subscription and neighbors contributed to the fund, allowing any family that could afford the fee to enroll its children (around $2 per quarter, plus .25 for spelling books), including families of African descent who rented the school house in the 1850s.

The origin of the school's name is uncertain. It was perhaps named after the ship Concord which brought the first Dutch and German immigrants to America. An alternate theory is that its foundations were built at the time of the first shot of the American Revolution fired in Concord, Massachusetts.

Concord School House is a contributing property of the Colonial Germantown Historic District, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The building retains its original bell and belfry, schoolmaster's desk, books, and even a stool and dunce cap.

Further reading

• Marion, John Francis. Bicentennial City: Walking Tours of Historic Philadelphia. Princeton: The Pyne Press, 1974.
• Jenkins, Charles F. The Guide Book to Historic Germantown. Germantown Historical Society, 1973.
• Tinkcom, Harry A and Margaret B. and Grant Miles Simon, Historic Germantown: From the Founding to the Early Part of the Nineteenth Century. Philadelphia: The American Philosophical Society, 1955., p. 97
• Teitelman, Edward, and Richard W. Longstreth. Architecture in Philadelphia: A Guide. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1974., p. 218
• Webster, Richard J., Philadelphia Preserved. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1976., p. 263

External links

• Official website
• Concord School at USHistory.org
• Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) No. PA-12, "Concord School", 1 photo, 7 measured drawings, 3 data pages, 1 photo caption page
• Germantown: Historic School and Gravesite in ‘Sweet Concord’, Philadelphia Neighborhoods, Temple University. Text and video, accessed January 24, 2012.