BCPL History and Genealogy - Perry Hall - Perry Hall's Schools: The Heart of the Community.
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Perry Hall's Schools: The Heart of the Community
by David Marks
Historian, Perry Hall Improvement Association

Every December, hundreds of families gather in front of Perry Hall Elementary School for a special occasion. With the flick of a switch, that cold December evening is suddenly transformed by a spectacular burst of color and light. The Perry Hall Christmas tree is lit for another season, proclaiming holiday cheer to all friends and visitors along Belair Road.

That simple event symbolizes the central quality of Perry Hall's schools. "I always hoped that the tree lighting would bring us together, and the school's the perfect place," former Perry Hall Improvement Association President Dorothy McMann has said. More than anything else, the school is the center of our community--the place where students learn, ambitious PTA's meet, award-winning teams practice, and little league baseball teams play. Perry Hall is fortunate to have some of the best schools in

Baltimore County. It's a tradition that began in 1723, the first time that the state funded public education.

That year, the Maryland General Assembly authorized funds for each county to buy 100 acres of land, construct a school, and hire a teacher. The headmaster received only twenty pounds a year--about $50 annual salary by today's standards. Baltimore County's school was built in Loreley, near the forges on the Great Gunpowder River. This location is now known as Allender Road.

Scholars Plains Free School, as it was known, taught students from Perry Hall until about 1784. English, arithmetic, and surveying were standard courses. With limited state funding, the school was unable to afford the costs of teaching a growing, yet very poor, group of children. The school closed in 1784, and for over sixty years, children were either taught by their parents or by local churches like Camp Chapel or St. Joseph's.

In 1857, the Scholars Plains land was sold. The money received was used to build two new schools, one for whites and another for black children. Although the original buildings were replaced, both schools operated separately until 1960.

The first school within Perry Hall's boundaries was built at Belair Road and Horn Avenue, near the present-day Friendly's restaurant. It was a small log cabin built in 1874 to serve the children of those European immigrants settling the community. After this burned down, Harry Dorsey Gough Carroll, one of the last of his family to occupy Perry Hall Mansion, donated an acre of land for a new school. Here, at the intersection of Forge and Belair Roads, the community built a three-room brick school. This site was used for almost sixty years. It is now the location of Schimunek's funeral home.

In 1925, the Baltimore County School Board decided to construct a new community school on David Dannenfelser's property near the intersection of Belair and Joppa Roads. Perry Hall School opened three years later, and more than any other structure, it served as the nucleus of the community for most of the Twentieth Century.

Buddy Butt, president of the Perry Hall Improvement Association in the years after the Second World War, remembers community Christmas shows where the association sold homemade fruitcakes. The entire town, then made up of only a few hundred families, gathered to sing Christmas carols and welcome Santa Claus to Perry Hall. Dances, receptions, and other special events were held here, even as the building largely became vacant when the county built new schools in the 1950's and 1960's.

In 1956, classes mostly shifted to the new Perry Hall Elementary School, but the building served as an annex due to overcrowding from 1956 through the late 1970s. The building was sold in the mid-1980s to Associated Catholic Charities, which established a center for children and young adults with disabilities. Today, this is the Gribbin Center, located next to the fire station on Belair Road.

The 24-room Perry Hall Elementary School opened in 1956. At that time, older students attended classes in Kenwood. Seven years later, Perry Hall Senior High School opened, although it was then located in the current middle school. Perry Hall Senior High School opened at its current site in 1967, and the old building became Perry Hall Junior High School. For many years, Perry Hall was one of the few communities where its three public schools were located on the same street, as children became older, they simply moved down Ebenezer Road.

The three original public schools have a lot of history and lore. Perry Hall High School, for example, was built on property donated by Jacob Seddon in 1850. The Seddon family lived in the East Joppa Road house which now includes the Honeygo Child Development Center. They maintained a burial plot at the high school site. Today, the Seddon cemetery rests in the field immediately behind the tennis courts and main parking lot.

In 1963, the Perry Hall Improvement Association held a community carnival at the high school to raise funds for books at the newly-built Perry Hall library. The show was postponed, however, when President Kennedy was shot that very day.

In 1987, Perry Hall got its first taste of Hollywood. The John Waters movie "Hairspray" was filmed at Perry Hall High School, and the library and coat-of-arms appear in several scenes.

Perry Hall now has five elementary schools, a middle school, and a high school within its boundaries. Chapel Hill Elementary School was built in 1962, Gunpowder Elementary School opened in 1970, and Seven Oaks and Joppa View Elementary Schools were first used in the 1990 school year. There are also several private institutions, the largest of which is Perry Hall Christian School. At all of these places, strong PTA's are the bedrock of a successful learning environment.

The "community school" is making a comeback throughout the country. Leaders recognize that teachers, students, parents, businesses, and civic groups should be integrated within the learning process. Perry Hall, of course, has had that all along.

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The text version of this page was last revised on 26 August 2008.
The graphics version of this page was last revised on 26 August 2008.
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