Valley Girl Views: The Pepper-Box School In Selinsgrove

The "Pepper-Box" School House, Built in 1816. It was torn down in 1871.

It stood where the Masonic Temple is located today.

My great, great, great grandfather, Joseph Lumbard, was the editor of the Selinsgrove Tribune. He began, however, as an apprentice for the Selinsgrove Times, which was at that time printed in the first floor of the "Pepper Box".

In later years, there was an interesting feud between Weirck and Lumbard. Weirick at one time was nearly hung in Selingsgrove, for his utterances against the Union. Lumbard was a proud Civil War Veteran, who had fought for the Union. But before Lumbard went off to war, he began as an apprentice, at Weirick's paper.

Years later, Lumbard described the Pepper Box.

"We can clearly recall the appearance of the Times print shop. The office was in the lower back part of the old brick Pepper Box, which for so many years stood on the part of the ground now occupied by the Opera House. It has been built for a school house, and had for many years been used for that purpose.

On a platform in the west center of the room, which had been occupied by a desk of the teacher, stood the editorial table. Seated here with his face to the door in the opposite end, Frank Weirick penned his pungent articles in the exciting events of the day, or scissored articles from the New York Day book or Philadelphia Age.

To the right of the entrance, facing the partition, was a pick, said to have been carried by one of John Brown's Negroes at Harper's Ferry. In a little closet under the stairway, Frank general kept a demijohn of "ink".

The type stands were placed in the angle of the room. The Washington hand press stood in the north-center of the room, attached to which was a plant with two short legs at one end, to make it possible for us to run the press. The forms were placed on a table on the left side of the entrance. A large stove in the center of the room, with a chair and two stools, constituted the office as we now see it."

In the evenings, Lumbard would often have his friends over to the pepper box print shop to play cards. There are some interesting stories of antics that occurred at those games.

The History Of the Pepper Box School -

The brick building derived it's name from it's resemblance to an 8 cornered pepper box.

When it was built in 1815, there were no free schools in Pennsylvania, but there were many parochial schools run by churches. The First Lutheran and Reformed Churches in Selinsgrove built the pepper-box school.

Tuition was between fifty cents and a dollar a month. The school rooms were on the first floor, with the IOOF lodge No 197 using the second floor for their meetings.

Around 1853, when Pennsylvania required free schools, or which Selinsgrove erected several, the Lutheran and Reformed congregations decided to separate. In their amicable split of the property, the Pepper Box was sold to the I.O.O.F.

In 1858, Frank Weirick moved his printing press to the pepper box, and used the space as his office for the Selinsgrove times.

In 1871 the Pepper Box was torn down.

The Odd Fellows Hall was built in it's place in 1872. The building was sold, and was known as the Opera House. In 1909 the Opera House was sold, and the Masonic Temple was built in it's place.