The Fire House, Forts, and Cemetery

Construction of the Linglestown High School building began in 1876, and it taught primary, intermediate, and secondary levels; the secondary school was established in 1910 as a two-year course, and its first graduating class in 1912 had six students. The brick building remained a school until 1931, when it became the home of the Linglestown Fire Company, which moved into the former school on February 10, 1937, after purchasing it with a mortgage of $775.00. In 1921, Lillie Pitman taught there, and students carried in a daily pail of water from a pump outside for watering plants and washing slate chalkboards. A hand pumper purchased in 1850 from the Hummelstown Fire Company No. 1 by the Paxton Fire Company of Linglestown reportedly bore the date 1805 and was said to have been pulled by hand from Hummelstown to Linglestown by about one hundred men; boys later took it from the firehouse on the Fourth of July and Halloween, until Dr. W.C. Smith and several men returned it, and by about 1898 it had been cut down for use as a hotel supply rig. The town of St. Thomas, later Linglestown, was founded shortly after the French and Indian War, 1754 to 1763, and early settlers of Paxton Township sought refuge from hostile Indian attacks in frontier forts. Fort Patton stood more than a mile from the village on the route toward the Susquehanna River and Fort Hunter, where as many as sixteen Paxton Rangers were stationed, before the stone structure was torn down around 1896. Fort Gilchrist, on Linglestown Road, remained on its original site and was partially restored in 1946; it was first built as a one-and-and-half-storey log fort with twenty-four "Heavenly Lord Hinges," shaped like the letters "HL" and believed to keep witches out. In 1827, Simon Lingle, executor of the estate of Thomas Lingle, contracted with those forming the Church of God for land between Market Street and Blackberry Alley, known as lot number 5 in the new addition to St. Thomas, where the congregation built its first house of worship that year. Nearby burial plots held the earliest graves from 1801. In 1844, the Church Council bought lots 6 and 7 from Jonas Schoenar for $120.00, using one to enlarge the cemetery and the other for a second church built in 1870. That second Bethel Church was struck by lightning during a funeral service in September 1893, then replaced by a third building in 1905 farther east in the village, while the fourth Church of God was built in 1972 to the northwest.

Linglestown, Pennsylvania · United States