The Little Red Schoolhouse on East Jefferson Street was the first school built as a result of the Common School Law of 1834 passed by legislators in Harrisburg. The law mandated that each county in Pennsylvania provide schools for its youth. The Little Red Schoolhouse is now a living history museum owned by the Butler County Historical Society.

While the majority of early residents of Butler County were farmers or simple merchants, they were interested in seeing their children provided with an education that would fulfill the age-old goal of American parents: a better future.

But gathering children in one schoolhouse from the far-flung farms of Butler County was difficult at the beginning of the 19th Century, as youngsters would have had to walk a great distance to attend school in precarious weather and without proper shoes or winter wear.

In addition to sharing their agricultural or business knowledge with their offspring, the county's settlers squeezed in what little reading and writing lessons they could to the light of a candle or fireplace.

But thanks to the penchant for education shared by the county's earliest parents, rough school buildings began to pop up here and there.

The first known school in the county was built in 1799 in Clearfield Township near Coylesville.It was known as a “subscription school” because parents paid a dollar or two per year for their children to attend.Fees for subscription schools varied depending on the depth of the curriculum, the area of the county, number of students and the teacher, according to the book “School's Over!” by Pat Collins of Butler.The Clearfield Township subscription school, Collins wrote, “goes to show just how important education was to parents in Butler County even before it was easy to establish, build, (or) maintain a school with a reliable teacher, and have enough money to sustain it.”In 1802, the state Legislature passed a law on subscription schools, which allowed them to begin appearing throughout the county.In 1834, the Common School Law passed in Harrisburg, which charged counties with providing schools for their resident youngsters.<b> A portion of this story is shared with you as a digital media exclusive. To read the <a href="http://www.butlereagle.com/article/20210705/NEWS01/210709737" >full story</a> and support our local, independent newsroom, please <a href="https://home.butlereagle.com/clickshare/myhome.do">subscribe online</a> </b>