Tiny schools covered Franklin County. The county had created a superintendent of schools in 1854 to oversee this dispersed domain. His successor visited all the schools of the county and found them fighting inertia. In his first year, Philip Shoemaker, a 31 year-old native with family connections and a 2 year-old child of his own, traveled over a thousand miles along the winding roads of Franklin, visiting over two hundred schools and a thousand students. Most of the school buildings were brick or stone, but 24 were of log. Shoemaker deemed 35 of the schools he visited "unfit," 1 "good," and the other 154, diplomatically, "improvable." While some of the schools had adopted the innovation of separating students into grades, about half made no effort to classify their students at all. A law mandating standard textbooks "has not been fully complied with," Shoemaker wryly noted. "In some of the schools I found copies of nearly all the school books published since the days of Pythagoras."

Most of Franklin's two hundred teachers were quite young--in their early twenties--and about a fifth were women. They received low pay and many soon left teaching for more lucrative jobs or marriage. Shoemaker reported that "My predecessors granted one hundred and thirteen professional certificates during the first three years of the superintendency, but most of the holders of them have either abandoned the profession or left the county." Shoemaker offered an assessment of the state of public opinion, revealing in its half-heartedness: "No considerable portion of the citizens of this county are opposed to the present school system; on the contrary, I believe that a majority are favorable to it, especially of the thinking and more intelligent part of the community. It is true there are still many objections urged against certain features of it, but I think a few years more will remove most of them." The superintendent did not list those objections, but certainly not everyone liked the idea of using public funds to educate other people's children. Public education appeared as a rather unsteady innovation in Franklin County.

The ninety two churches that stood in every part of Franklin, by contrast, claimed roots older than the county itself. The churches required no raw materials other than people, no motive power other than a minister and the Bible. Three Roman Catholic churches served the entire county, especially the two hundred Irish immigrants and their children. Chambersburg contained one Episcopal church, but no synagogues appeared anywhere in Franklin. Franklin possessed its share of the Presbyterian and Methodist churches that accounted for such a large proportion of the American church-going population. There were more Methodist churches than any other denomination; thirty one of their churches flourished. Presbyterians worshipped in thirteen towns, villages, and crossroads in Franklin, and they counted among their number some of the most prominent families in the county. Falling Springs Presbyterian in Chambersburg claimed George Chambers of the city's founding family and one of the ministers in another Presbyterian church in the county, Thomas D. Creigh, had attended Princeton Theological Seminary.

Other churches set the county apart from places outside the Valley. Franklin contained eleven Lutheran churches, nineteen German Reformed churches and a renowned seminary in Mercersburg, seven United Brethren congregations, and six Mennonite churches. Most unusual were the River Brethren, two Tunker (or Dunker), and one Seventh Day Baptist churches. This spectrum of doctrines mystified outsiders. Generally, these churches grew out of a desire for intense piety and grace through faith; they had developed from diverse origins in Germany, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. Others grew up in the New World in the eighteenth century. The River Brethren, for example, began in the 1750s in Pennsylvania and took their name from early adherents baptized in the Susquehanna River. The Seventh Day German Baptists had established strict ascetic communities in Pennsylvania before the Revolution, including one in Franklin County.

The members of these churches were known as hardworking, prosperous, community-minded, and quiet. They had settled in Pennsylvania because of the religious freedom it offered and the hope it held out for reconstructing the rural life they had known in Europe. They had prospered there and done much to shape the life of the southeastern part of the state.

By the late 1850s, the members of these Protestant churches fit easily into Franklin County society. German names appeared in every list of those who participated in the public life of the county, whether establishing the county fair or running for public office. The stream of immigrants to Franklin had slowed, but about eleven hundred residents of Franklin had been born in various areas of what became Germany. Since their average age was 36, most of them had been in the United States a while by the late 1850s. True to stereotype, many of the immigrants worked as farmers and others as merchants, but the largest proportion, nearly a quarter, labored as unskilled workers. The German-born were not wealthy, either in land or in personal property, but they were respectable and respected.

The local newspapers doled out praise for the German churches' devotion, message, and energy. The Lutherans of Chambersburg won warm words for supplying their pastor with food, wood, and other supplies. They surprised the "Rev. Mr. Eyster, by taking possession of his house on a pleasant afternoon, and when they left he and his family were some two hundred dollars better off than when the fair donors took charge of the domicile. Cannot other churches imitate this praise-worthy example? We will see who comes next." The pastor of the German Reformed Church, the Reverend Samuel Philips, preached a sermon for the benefit of the poor of Chambersburg and took up a collection for their behalf. He had help from an influential congregant: William Heyser, Sr., Esq., the President of the Bank of Chambersburg and an Elder in Mr. Philip's church. "Would it not be well enough," the newspaper asked rhetorically, "for other ministers to continue this good work which Mr. Philips has started--giving the proceeds of a collection taken up every such an occasion to the poor of the town?"

Despite their doctrinal and historical differences, the churches of Franklin often worked together in common purpose. Ministers spoke at one another's churches and attended joint meetings. Moreover, they sponsored groups such as the Franklin County Bible Society. That society, led by the Reverends Schneck, Hoke, and Dyson, pledged itself to "make a thorough exploration of the County, and place a copy of God's Word in every family." Although Franklin seemed quite heavily churched, the members of the society could not accomplish their efforts even after two years of work, "owing to the mountainous character of a considerable part of our County, the frequent rains and consequent badness of the roads." Their labors were nevertheless impressive: the ministers visited 2,415 families and found 177 "destitute of a Bible." The clergymen donated 133 Bibles and 29 Testaments to those families while selling 405 Bibles and 489 Testaments to those with the means to pay. Despite the long-settled and highly churched life of Franklin County, the godly still found work to perform.

Anyone in 1859 reading the two papers of Franklin side by side would have been struck at how different community life appeared in the Transcript and the Valley Spirit. The papers differed in their tone, their coverage, their concerns, and their loyalties. Reflecting the deep differences in outlook between the Republicans and the Democrats, the two papers waged a simmering war over most of the issues facing the residents of Franklin County. Not infrequently, the simmer rose to a boil.

The Transcript had followed a path not unlike many other American papers. It had changed hands every few years, remaining generally consistent in its political orientation even as the names of owners and parties came and went. In various incarnations, the Chambersburg paper had been around since 1793. It had represented the Whig Party for almost as long as that party had existed, from the party's early days as a loose coalition opposed to Andrew Jackson to its latter days as the party of property, evangelical faith, and faith in carefully nurtured progress.

The Transcript had been owned for several years by A. K. McClure, a 32 year-old attorney who had represented Franklin County in the state legislature since 1857. After McClure left for the state capital in Harrisburg, he sold the paper to Henry Merklein, a Pennsylvania native, 42 years old, who listed no property and was identified only as "printer" in the census. He bore no prominent background and appeared in the newspaper only for his work with the Hook and Ladder Company and for serving as a juror.

The newspaper that Henry Merklein edited bore the marks of its heritage. The Transcript supported the Republican Party early on and with unwavering devotion. It spoke with contempt of its competitor in Franklin, charging that "even Democratic families in Chambersburg, who are regular subscribers to the Valley Spirit, do not permit it to come into their houses; and throughout the party generally there is a wide-spread and deep seated disgust at its habitual recklessness and low scurrility." In the eyes of the Transcript, its competitor stood for everything wrong with Democrats and the country generally. The Transcript referred to its competitor as "the Spirit, which hereabouts is rarely named without the prefix evil."

The Valley Spirit reciprocated in spades. When the Transcript supported a wife in a politically charged divorce case pending before the legislature, the Valley Spirit could hardly contain its disgust with the paper which in "its zeal in her cause would render the marriage rites a rope of sand to be broken by every wanton caprice or lascivious desire; and thus sap the very foundation of civilized society--weaken the force of the Christian religion-- annihilate every principle of morality, and substitute in their place the most shameless licentiousness, and the most frightful corruption and degeneracy of morals." When the Republican paper happened to agree with the Valley Spirit, it elicited equally great abuse: "One would have thought the Transcript's ambition would be satisfied with the organship of the Know Nothing and Republican parties, but it indicates a disposition to become a Democratic organ too."

The Valley Spirit was a relative newcomer to Chambersburg, only having moved down from Shippensburg, on Franklin's northern border, in 1852. It was edited by Dr. William H. Boyle, a local physician, forty years old. Boyle was not wealthy--he had about three thousand dollars of property--and had been born in Ireland. He was active in the Odd Fellows, the Hook and Ladder Company, contributed a premium to the county fair, and ministered to several people injured in serious accidents, but was not of old family or high social standing.

Boyle was assisted by two other immigrants, George Mengel and George Ripper, both born in Germany. While the latter man was in his early 40s and with a large family, Mengel was only 24. Upon his marriage, one of his senior compatriots had fun at Mengel's expense. An article entitled "Mortally Wounded" reported that Cupid had shot "one of his barbed arrows at the bosom of our young friend . . . and mercilessly pierced him through the heart. Singular to relate, although he is wounded for life, altogether disabled as a bachelor, he is or was yesterday morning, when last we saw him, as brisk as a bee and as sprightly as a lark." The young man led "one of Chambersburg's fairest, best young ladies up to the alter of old Hymen; where two willing hearts became one. They are off now upon their bridal tour. Success to them. They have the prayers and good wishes of this entire community for their future prosperity and happy realization of all their fond anticipations."

Such a tender tone did not always mark either the Valley Spirit or the Transcript. Indeed, the two papers engaged in bitter fights in 1859 that revealed the stakes for which they were playing and the extremes to which they would go. When the Valley Spirit praised native son President James P. Buchanan in June, the Transcript sneered that "a cooler piece of impudence, in several respects, could no where else be found, than in the Valley Spirit, where an abundance is always on hand, to meet every emergency."

As it turned out, the Transcript could barely imagine the limits of the Valley Spirit's "impudence." In July the Democratic paper let loose an attack on the man behind the Transcript, the Republican state legislator from Franklin, Alexander K. McClure. McClure, an ambitious young attorney angling for the state senate, reportedly wrote several articles under pseudonyms praising himself as the embodiment of all that was good in Republican manhood. McClure, McClure said, stood "head and shoulders" above any competitor and stood "above suspicion" of any charge that could be made against him.

The Valley Spirit, in apparently genuine disgust, let fly an assault that assailed every aspect of McClure's character. The article listed twenty seven charges of McClure's supposed malfeasances. The paper said that McClure did not "stand above suspicion" for the following offenses, among many others:

--when loafing about Harrisburg, . . . of having sold to any and every person, who would pay for the same, the seeming influence he had with the Governor.
--having been well paid for supporting the bill under which the Public Works were sold to that corrupt and dangerous monopoly, the Penn. Railroad Company.
--having ordered and paid for the $500 set of Silver Ware, presented to his lady, in behalf of the Sunbury and Erie Railroad Company, or its friends, for his peculiar and disinterested efforts in the passage of the bill to give them the State Canals.
--having received from a certain wealthy Philadelphian last winter, $25,000 to be used to secure the passage of a bill through the Legislature to divorce his daughter--which bill never passed--and of which trust fund the small sum of $12,500 remains unaccounted for.
--having written all the communications, and editorials which appeared in the Harrisburg Daily and Weekly Telegraph, the Independent and the Repository and Transcript, cracking up his activity, honesty and fidelity as a public servant, his integrity and morality as a man and a citizen, and his peculiar fitness and availability as a candidate.

The Valley Spirit ended with all guns firing: McClure was simply "one of the most corrupt and venal men who ever had a seat in [the Legislature], ready at all times for any scheme which would advance his private interests." Damning facts about McClure, the paper charged, were well known in the state capital that could not be "dreamed of in the pure regions of Franklin County."

The stunned Transcript at first spluttered that "the annals of decent journalism cannot furnish a parallel for the mingled imbecility and malice with which the Spirit of last week assails Col. McClure." They assured their readers that McClure "has now in his possession the most conclusive evidence of the utter falsity of the cowardly libels heaped upon him by the Spirit, and that he will promptly and unequivocally vindicate himself in a manner that will fully justify the confidence of his friends and command the respect of even his defamers."

McClure had the editors of the Valley Spirit arrested for libel and printed a defense of himself, offering to supply evidence from "Gov. Pollock; from the President of the Farmers and Mechanics Bank; from the Vice President and former Commissioner of the Union Bank; from the President of the Sunbury and Erie Rail Road Company," and the like, "all declaring in the most positive and unequivocal terms that the allegations made by the Valley Spirit are utterly untrue. They state that I never received anything in any shape, either in person or through any one else, for either legislative or personnel services, or for any other purpose." McClure's attorneys presented these materials to the Valley Spirit and demanded a retraction. The editors refused and a week later the grand jury indicted them. McClure raised no objection when the men posted bail for one another. His paper greatly enjoyed the scene before the judge. "One of the defendants asked us: What would become of the case if they were all to run off? To which we replied: The best thing which could possibly happen to this community."

The Spirit did not back down, publishing sarcastic lyrics to a song about McClure and devoting seven columns to attacking him a few weeks later. The Transcript claimed to be amused: the Valley Spirit "evidently is afflicted with convulsions resembling hydrophobia, whenever it sees or hears the name of McClure." For its part, the Valley Spirit claimed that it looked forward to the trial, for its editors "would rather meet such a wily character as McClure in a Court of Justice than any where else." As with so many cases in the courts of those days, however, the case was continued until a later term of court and eventually disappeared without an announced conclusion. It had already served its purpose in any case, providing fuel for the raging fires of political conflict in 1859.