The Shadow
Only Archie McCullough survived the mass killings that took place on July 26, 1764, inside the log schoolhouse where Enoch Brown, his teacher, and ten of his classmates were bludgeoned to death and scalped.
Despite being scalped, McCullough recovered from his injuries and revealed what happened after four Delaware (Lenape) Native American warriors forced their way into the classroom and used a maul to commit murder by bashing their victims in the head.
The mass murders took place in the Pennsylvania Province just north of Greencastle where there is a marker that memorializes the victims in Enoch Brown Park where the dedication ceremony was held on Aug. 4, 1885.
After being scalped and left for dead, McCullough hid inside the fireplace. The warriors left the school, and he managed to reach a nearby spring and tend to his wounds. His injuries and the trauma that he suffered caused him to have mental problems for the rest of his life.
The first mass shooting inside a school dates back to April 9, 1891. James Foster, 70, entered St. Mary’s Parochial School in New York and opened fire with his double-barrel shotgun, injuring several students. All survived their wounds.
On May 18, 1927, Andrew Kehoe, killed his wife, blew up his home, drove to Bath Consolidated School in Michigan where he was the school treasurer, and fired one shot that killed 38 in the school.
The single-shot struck dynamite he had planted in the basement, and the blast that blew up the school also blew up his Ford car, killing him and four others.
Mass murders in America’s schools have taken place all too frequently, and the causes vary.
Another mass shooting took place at Lehigh University on June 4, 1936, and the Pasadena Public School shooting took place on May 9, 1940.
Other school shootings took place at the William Reed Elementary School in Indiana on Feb. 2, 1960, and the Texas Tower shooting in Austin took place on Aug. 1, 1966, when the shooter, an ex-Marine, shot to death 14 and wounded 31 others.
Mistakenly, many people attribute the shooting that took place at the University of Texas as the beginning of mass school shootings in America.
Other mass shootings in schools followed, and the Grand Rapids High School shooting took place on Oct. 5, 1966, followed by an elementary school shooting that took place in Stockton, Calif. on Jan. 17, 1987.
In 1998, a school shooting occurred at the Jonesboro Middle School in Jonesboro, Arkansas, and in Colorado the Columbine High School shooting took place on April 20, 1999, killing 12 students and one teacher while injuring 21 students.
The Rocort High School shooting followed on Sept. 24, 2003, and Virginia Tech lost 27 students and five professors via the mass shooting that took place there on April 16, 2007. Also, 17 students were wounded.
The Sandy Hook School massacre (28 dead and two wounded) followed on Dec. 14, 2012, and a mass shooting took place at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon on Oct. 1, 2015.
In 2018, 17 students were killed and another 17 wounded by a gunman in Parkland, Florida.
In Uvalde, Texas, the most recent mass school shooting claimed the lives of 19 children and two teachers at the Robb Elementary School.
The U.S. has the highest average of school shootings in the world each year, far more than its neighbors to the north and south.
According to the “World Population Report,” the research organization, “Everytown Research,” found that from 2013 to 2021, the average school shootings per year in the U.S. was just over 87.
