Three R’s of the old one-room schoolhouses that dotted the area: Readin’, Ritin’ and Rithmetic’, seem quite simplified when compared to this sophisticated, hand-constructed teaching guide of the mid-19th Century.

The contents of this black binder were found in the Simon/Anna Kuhn Collection. There are thirty double-sided pages of information. These pages were once bound in a ledger/day book style. The contents are varied. The covers and binding are long gone except for bits of binding thread at the edges of a few pages.

The oldest ephemera in the Kuhn Collection is from the Bevenour Family, and dates as far back as the 1848. Both Michael Bievenouer and Noah Bevenour’s names are found on different pages. One page notes: “Noah Bevenours teaching in North Codorous Township, York County, Pa. 1860”. Another: “South Codorous Townshp, York County. Pa. By Noah Bevenouer, Teacher of Paradise Township, York County, Pa. November 14th, 1859.”

This book is an overlay of historical times. It is in 1848’s that these pages were first dated. At some later date the book was taken over not for its content of knowledge but as the sketching palette for an imaginative youngster. On one penciled art page is the note: “East Berlin, Adams County, 1886.”

Artistic talent was certainly an attribute of he who initially penned the books text. In addition to beautifully scripted pages of text and lessons, are masterful and creative page and lesson headings. Some are constructed in a three-line manner that is quite artistic though somewhat difficult to read. Page headings for this hand-made teaching guide include: Land Measure, Long Measure, Reduction, The Single Rule, and Rule of Three. Also: English Money, Time, and Amorphous Weight.

Contents include several pages filled with student names and attendance records. There are also a few pages election records dated 1860.