Throwback Thursday by Matson Insurance: Brookville Youth Waiting for College in 19th Century

Matson Insurance has partnered with Jefferson County History Center to offer exploreJeffersonpa.com readers a look into Jefferson County’s past. Today, an anecdote about a Brookville youth waiting for college in the 19th century is highlighted.

After college, Cyrus Blood read law, then practiced in Brookville.

Submitted by Carole Briggs:

WAITING FOR COLLEGE

Helen Darr Briggs hated her middle name—Blood—a name she acquired because her parents were friends with the Blood family. Brookville folks are familiar with the three-story brick Parker P. Blood Building (est 1875-76) that now houses the Area Agency of Aging and Penn State Cooperative Extension offices.

Blood roots go back to 1833 when Parker’s father, Colonel Cyrus Blood, a mathematics professor at Hagerstown Academy, purchased 6000 acres where Marienville stands today, naming the town after his daughter. His sons, Kennedy L. and Parker P., became active businessmen and politicos in Brookville, Kennedy representing Jefferson, Elk, Clarion, and Forest counties in the Pennsylvania State Senate about the time the Civil War began.

Kennedy’s son, Cyrus H., turned seventeen in 1877. He kept a diary earlier and his entries tell us a good bit about daily life for a young man of his time. We can imagine him on Main Street, clerking in his father’s store, perhaps doing the same in his uncle’s drugstore in the new Parker P. Blood Building, and making daily visits to a local newsstand so he could follow the burgeoning baseball league, the war in Europe, and politics in the United States.

In one entry he refers to the death of Wm. Erdice on September 3, 1877. “Mr. Wm. Erdice, an old & prominent citizen of this place, died today at 11 o’clock A.M. Age 68 years. He had been sick for the first time. Although I do not wish to bear any malice towards the dead, I cannot but remember that this is the man who first handed over to the hands of the Sheriff our property for sale. He having seized the store & had it sold. He might have permitted Father to have continued the store & he would have gotten his money in time. But then it is done and cannot be undone & so let it be.”

Cyrus aspired to go to college. He’d graduated from grade eight and may have taken classes at local academies. (Brookville’s first high school class did not graduate until 1886.) But, by reading between the lines of his diary and referring to several other sources, hints reveal that the family finances may not have been in good shape and that his fall plans were “iffy.”

Nevertheless, someone recognized that Cyrus had potential – for in September he writes, “After all I expect to go off to school on next Monday. Mr. H. R. Fullerton of Parker City has kindly offered to advance the money & I am to pay it back In time. I think I shall go to either Lexington, Va. Or Meadville, Pa. Hipla―Hoopla― Good bye Brookville for 6 or 8 months.”

Cyrus H. Blood did indeed go on to higher education attending Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia. He then read law with Jenks and Clark in Brookville and was admitted to the bar in 1883. On June 3, 1885, he married Maude Darr, sister of William T. Darr, a lawyer, and father of my mother-in-law, hence her name—Helen Blood Darr.

Copyright@Jefferson County Historical Society, Inc.

Throwback Thursday is brought to you by Matson Insurance in Brookville.

Submitted by the Jefferson County History Center.