Heating facilities
An iron stove placed in the school
Some light is thrown upon the interior arrangement of the school. In 1712 Thomas Griffith was ordered to pay Christer Thomason 12 for “making” a stove in the schoolhouse,[265] presumably an old fashioned brick stove, such as a few years later was condemned by William Robbins as being “injurious to many of the scholars.”[266] Mr. Robbins proposed that a “chimney might be erected,” and Samuel Preston was appointed to have it done, if not inconvenient or expensive. He reported that it would be a greater charge than represented and would hardly answer the end proposed nearly so satisfactorily as an iron stove, which he had thought necessary and had accordingly had set up, to be removed however if the meeting did not approve of his action.[267] The charge for the iron stove was £7.[268] Such items as the foregoing were brought up in the monthly meeting which appointed some one to attend to this or that detail; as the schools grew these were left more in the hands of the school committee or overseers, who reported occasionally thereon.
Overseers assume greater responsibility
This tendency on the part of the meeting to turn over the details of management to the overseers came to a head about 1725,[269] when it was agreed by the meeting that all titles to the schoolhouses and other property be conveyed the overseers of the public schools and a minute be drawn up relating to such decision.[270] In the month following, the minutes of the committee’s report were made referring to the transfer:
Titles to property to be transferred to the overseers
Anthony Morris, Ebenezer Sorge, Samuel Powell and Jones being appointed by the Monthly Meeting of Philadelphia the 2-30-1725, to meet with the overseers of the public school, do acquaint them that the said meeting being concerned for the promotion of the public school have unanimously agreed that the title of the school house and ground with the lots, tenements ... now in the tenure of Evan Owen and Thomas Cannon with all the other titles of real estate and annuities appertaining to the public school, be vested in the overseers thereof and desire for the future distinct accounts may be kept of all legacies and donations made to the said schools in order that the same may be duly applied pursuant to the intentions of the donors respectively.
Then follows a minute of the overseers stating their appreciation of the meeting’s coöperation in the work of the school.
An account of funds to be made
The Monthly Meeting of Philadelphia expressing the same kind inclination to encourage that at first led them to erect the public school and to procure the same to be established by the proprietor’s charter, as it is now under the care of the present overseers, having thought it necessary that an exact account should be taken of all the benefactions intended by the several donors for the use of the said school, the moneys or effects whereof might have come under the direction of the said meeting. In order thereunto appointed some friends to adjust the said accounts with the overseers, which being carefully done, it appears the meeting has received of such benefactions as aforesaid for the use of the school the sum of £226 ... and that they expended in the building the school house which was begun, carried on and finished under their care and direction the sum of £264 and 3d, whereby the meeting is in disburse for the public schoolhouse, above what they received in the sum of £37/15/3, which last sum or balance they were pleased freely to ... grant and release to the said school, together with the lot belonging to it and all those (equipages) and tenements now in the occupation of Evan Owen and Thomas Cannon with their appurtenances and all the rents, profits and issues thereof, and have accordingly ordered the persons who are by legal deeds or instruments vested with the right to the said tenements in trust for the meeting to (grant) and absolutely convey the said schoolhouse and ... with the lots and grounds on which they stand and appurtenances to the overseers of the school, to be held by them and their successors for the use of the public school founded by charter in the town and county of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania, forever.[271]