Elmira Free Academy - Torch / Sagoyawatha Yearbook (Elmira, NY)

Page 17 text:

J History of Elmira Free Academy CHAPTER I. THE OLD ELMIRA ACADEMY. As the golden anniversary of the Elmira Free Academy, nineteen hundred nine is a very fitting time to recall the origin and history of that deservedly famous institution. May 24, 1859 was the date of its establishment as a free school, but the Elmira Academy as a private school had a previous history of nearly a quarter of a century. The First Presbyterian Church, on the corner of Church and Baldwin Streets, was the pioneer church in the Chemung Valley. In 1836, to make way for a larger edifice, the building then in use was removed to the opposite side of Baldwin Street, on the site of the Partridge brick blocks, just south of the present First M. E. Church. Here it became the shelter of the Elmira Academy, a private school. It was a white wooden building, from which the steeple had been removed when it was transformed from a religious to an educational institution. The cut of it that accompanies this history is made from a drawing kindly lent to us by Mrs. George Archibald Palmer. She had it made from a painting of the building, the work of a young girl student of the old Academy. The late Ausburn Towner, himself once a student of the Baldwin Street Academy, pronounced it a very faithful picture of the building, but not of the trees. These appear to have been placed in accordance with the girl's own idea of land- scape gardening, a decidedly original one. , Readers of the Vindex will be interested to know that in 1839-'40 the Academy pub- lished a school paper of several two-columned sheets, called The Pierian Spring. From the title it is not surprising to find that some of its contributors cultivated the lyric muse. On March 31, 1840, the Elmira Academy was incorporated by the Regents. After that, it had a varied history for nineteen years before it became a free institution. Some men of note received their secondary education there, among whom may be mentioned the Hon. Chas. B. Farwell, U. S. Senator from Illinois at one time, Rear-Admiral Francis Roe, Maj.-Gen. Wm. W. Averell, I-Iull Fanton, Esq., Maj. R. M. McDowell, George M. Diven, Francis Colling- wood, Dr. N. R. Seeley, Harry Covell, Chas. E. Rapelyea, T. W. Elmore, Richard Guion, and Ausburn Towner, Among the teachers, older Elmirans still remember Moses S. Converse, H. M. Aller, S. R. Schofield, Elijah N. Barbour and Miss Adaline Tubbs, who later became his wife and the mother of Mrs. George Spring of this city. It was largely due to the efforts of Dr. Erastus L. Hart that the system of free schools became a possibility in Elmira. The rate-bill school system proving unsatisfactory, an amend- ment to the Village Charter, providing for the free system, became a law, April 4th, 1859, through the aid of Senator A. S. Diven. A Board of Education was organized April 19, 1859, with Dr. Erastus Hart as President, an office he retained until 1867. District schools were opened under the free system, April 26, 1859, and the Academy was re-established and made free May 24, 1859. This closed the old private Academy on Baldwin Street, but the Free Academy did not convene until the following September. The' last principal of the Elmira Academy, Mr. S. R. Schofield, became the first Superintendent of Schools. Tradition says that the old Baldwin Street Academy building was later removed farther up the street, where its purchaser, Mr. S. H. Laney, used it as a paper-rag factory, until it perished by fire, possibly burning with shame at such indignity to a building of its history.

Page 16 text:

,- JXKJT.. M... ..fv-,.- - Q ,L J. ,' 1-' . -.1 ..1 o.,..f.,,,., . ...U-,- .,. .. . ff ff w . ' -'S--1 x'r ':n. Af., 5, 'gw.lv I 4 F . 1 - . - M, .. Mfr, 1.ml..x- ,.. ns., r-H.. pf.. 5 , ' 2- ' wg, ..4'.f...-... rg X55 Al kgj4,'7.....l, 1-..'1'r., ,Q Y 'M .. I... 1. ,.f,,,,:1y.Y, A .. 'Q 'yrtf N - .,L..',,,af,.f4.1..T Uh! Iinlrlwin Slrwl Arauluxlly, INZHS. V R X, v , ,X - -Jr' -1.24 , w '-'Mm ,N .1 9 ---r. ,P N ' . - . -Q-wry.,-hw N. -s , I Present Acaulunny

Page 18 text:

1859 1860 1860 CHAPTER II. Q PRIN. CONVERSE'S ADMINISTRATION, 1359-'so. , September 13th, 1859, the Board fixed the re- quirements for admission to the Academy at the standard of the Regents' preliminary certificate. The 15th of September, 1859, was the real begin- ning of the Free Academy as an organized school. Its first principal was Mr. Moses Sumner Converse, a man of marked ability and a well-known figure in Elmira until the latter part of the nineteenth century. He had been a teacher in the old Academy and later conducted a private school in the rear of his home at 311 William Street. Miss Helen M. Phillips, the last Preceptress of the old Academy, became the first Preceptress of the new. These two constituted the entire faculty. . Previous to the closing of the old Academy, its trustees had bought the land on Clinton Street that is the site of the present Academy. Two houses were standing there ronting on ClintoI1 Street. As the Board of Education had not yet purchased a site for an Academy building, one of these houses was secured for temporary use and remodelled to meet immediate needs. What had probably been the parlor and sitting-room were thrown into one good-sized room. This was presided over by Prin. Converse, and used for his recita- tion room and the boys' study room. A room at the east side became the boys' cloak-room. Directly north of Prin. Converse's room was the girls' cloak-room. . Beyond that, to the north, an annex was built for Miss Phillips's recitation mom, where the girls studied. The entrance was at the east side leading west to the girls' cloak-room and south to-the boys! . For some classes, the boys wouild pass into Miss Phillips's roomy for others, the girls, into Prin. Converse's room: but for ' 'd ation study purposes there was rigi separ - In the Board of Education meeting of March 30, 1860, Commissioners Hart,Arnot,and Thurston were appointed a committee to confer with the trustees of the old Academy, Simeon Benjamin, President in regard to transferring the Clinton Street property to the Board. Before this was settled, the Academy was removed, April 9, 1860, to the basement of the old Congregational Church, the predecessor of the present Park Church. Mr. Converse and Miss Phillips remained the faculty. This might be termed the .Udark age of.Academy history in a very literal sense. The Board considered two sites, and It was not until june 12, 1860, that the decision was made in favor of the Clinton Street property, and the deed was not signed until Nov. 23, 1860. At this June meeting, the estimated cost of building was increased from 10,000 to 12,000 dollars. . Au ust 1 1860 the Board offered a premium of .50 dollars for the best plan for an Academy Euildiiig. On August 21st, the plan of Mr. E. Kingsbury was adopted and the build- ing seemed like a thing of the near future. CHAPTER III. K PRIN. WELLINGTON'S ADMINISTRATION, 1860-1865. The fall term of 1860 opened September 30th, - in a third location, the factory of j. M. Robinson, at the south-east corner of Church and William Streets. The dilapidated old building still stands, a blot on the land- scape. Prin. Converse had retired at the close of the first year and was succeeded by Prof. Isaac Mortimer Wellington of Fryeburg, Me., who had been appointed the 19th of the previous June. The lower floor of the factory was utilized for the school. The girls' entrance was on Church Street and the boys' on William. The seats faced east. With the design, noted before, of separating the sexes, the main room was divided by a partition extending as far as the students' seats went. A sliding door at the east end of the partition connected the two rooms and was open at recitation time. Prin. Wellington's desk was in front of the boys and Miss Phillips's in front of the girls. The classes occupied benches extending in front of the students' desks, boys and girls remaining on their respective sides. One of the students, recalling those days,writes:- During the summer and fall of 1860 was the presidential campaign of Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Douglass. The latter came to Elmira on his lecturing tour, and was taken around the town to see tne sights, one of which must have been our school building. When his carriage