The Martin Brothers helped Create Millersville University

Above: A marble tablet inscribed with the founders’ names, including the Martin brothers. “The Pennsylvania School Journal”, Lancaster, 1875.

 Above and below: The 1883 History of Lancaster County describes the Martin brothers as co-founders of Millersville Academy. (title page, and page 957.) The Martin brothers then helped lead the drive to change the academy into a school to train teachers, the Millersville Normal School. Today it is Millersville University.

Above: The Old Main building. (Image: Millersville Digital Archive)

The Brothers’ Obituaries Describe their Impact on the School:

Barton B. Martin:
“…no one contributed more liberally both of time and means than did B. B. Martin.”
 Jonas B. Martin:
“He personally purchased the ground for the Millersville Academy
which later became the State Normal School [today’s Millersville University].”

Newspaper images source: LNP archives.

Above: Brothers Barton Martin and Jonas Martin were storekeepers in Millersville during the 1850s when they were helping to lead the drive to create the Millersville school. By 1860 they opened a store in Lancaster. Barton Martin then left the department store business and became a dealer of lumber and coal. The above map is from 1894, after the school had seen several decades of growth.

 Millersville University:
Pennsylvania’s First Teacher-Training School

Name Changes:
1854: Millersville Academy
1855: Lancaster County Normal School
1859: Millersville State Normal School
1927: Millersville State Teachers’ College
1959: Millersville State College
1983: Millersville University

 Millersville School Buildings Constructed
While Jonas B. Martin was on the School’s Board of Directors

He was a director from 1856 to 1857 and 1877 to 1920.

Images source: OldPostcards.com

The Martin Brothers Lead Efforts to Create the School,
as Described in a 1955 History of the College:

Publication Source: Internet Archive

 Above: The Old Main building. The building was demolished in 1965.

 Jonas B. Martin Advertises his Lancaster Store in the Millersville School Yearbooks:

1899 Millersville’s first yearbook (Image: Keystone Library Network)

1901 Millersvillian Yearbook (Image: Keystone Library Network)

  The school’s first yearbook was published in 1899. It was titled The Wickersham. The yearbook was named for the school’s principal, Dr. James P. Wickersham, who created the school’s curriculum which became the model for other Pennsylvania teacher-training schools. In 1901 the yearbook’s name was changed to The Millersvillian.
Jonas Martin advertised his Lancaster department store in some of the first school yearbooks. His brother Barton had passed away before the first yearbook was published.

 Jonas B. Martin’s Lancaster Department Store
in the 1912 Sanborn Map:

Image: Insurance Maps of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Sanborn, 1912.
The corner of Prince St. and King St. was home to Jonas Martin’s dry goods store. Today it is home to Champ’s Barber School at 54 West King Street.