Old Log Building
Waynesboro, Franklin County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
The one-and-a-half story structure that stands about 100 yards north of here is one of the oldest buildings in Waynesboro. Built for a schoolhouse and church between 1770 and 1780 by John Bourns. Later used as a dwelling.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
Built by John Bourns sometime between 1770 and 1780, this modest one-and-a-half story log structure served the young community as both schoolhouse and church — the twin pillars of frontier civic life. In an age when a single sturdy building often had to do double duty, learning and worship shared the same walls. It later became a private dwelling and endures as one of the oldest buildings in Waynesboro.
Why it matters
It preserves the pattern of colonial-era settlement, where education and religion took root together in the humblest of log buildings before towns and formal institutions arose.
Plan your visit
NearbyMake a day of it — museums, food, and places to stay near this marker.
Museums & culture
- Monterey Pass Battlefield Museum5.0 mi away
- Frederick County Fire Museum13.3 mi away · 300 South Seton Avenue, Emmitsburg, MD
- Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton Visitor Center13.5 mi away
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Related people
- · John Bourns
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Dr. Henry Harbaugh
Washington Township, PA · est. 1947
Dr. Henry Harbaugh (1817–1867), born a mile and a half from here, became a leading voice of Pennsylvania-German culture as an author, theologian, and educator. He wrote hymns and poetry in the Pennsylvania Dutch dialect, helping preserve a folk tradition that might otherwise have faded, and taught in the German Reformed church. A monument marks the house where his life began.
George H. Wirt (1880 - 1961)
Mont Alto, PA · est. 2005
George H. Wirt became Pennsylvania's first professionally trained forester and, in 1903, co-founded and led the State Forest Academy that opened at Mont Alto. A protege of conservation pioneer Dr. Joseph T. Rothrock, Wirt taught forestry by joining theory to hands-on practice and set trends that shaped the young profession. He drafted the forest-protection laws enacted in 1915 and, as Chief Forest Fire Warden from 1915 to 1946, built a wildfire-protection plan that safeguarded the state's woodlands.
Ralph Elwood Brock (1883-1959)
Mont Alto, PA · est. 2003
A member of the State Forest Academy's original class of 1906, Ralph Elwood Brock became the school's first African American graduate and a protégé of the pioneering forester J.T. Rothrock. He ran the Mont Alto State Forest Nursery until 1911, then built a career as a consulting forester shaping gardens and landscapes in New York City and Philadelphia. His work opened a professional field that few Black Americans had yet entered.
Pennsylvania State Forest Academy
Mont Alto, PA · est. 2003
When conservation was still a new idea in America, Pennsylvania opened its first forestry school here at Mont Alto in 1903, formally named the State Forest Academy two years later. Its founders included Joseph Rothrock, the state's first Forestry Commissioner, and the activist Mira Lloyd Dock, both leaders in the movement to reclaim lands stripped bare by logging. In 1929 the academy merged into what became Pennsylvania State University.