Washington College Academy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Washington College Academy | |
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| Motto: | The Light in the Wilderness |
| Established: | 1780 |
| Type: | Private |
| President: | Keith D. Jeffers |
| Students: | n/a |
| Location: | Limestone, Tennessee, TN, USA |
| Campus: | Rural 120 wooded acres |
| Affiliations: | Presbyterian Church USA |
| Website: | www.wca-pvt.com |
Washington College Academy is a private Presbyterian-affiliated educational institution located in Limestone, Tennessee.
[edit] History
Rev. Samuel Doak, DD, Presbyterian minister and Princeton graduate, founded the school in 1780. It was chartered under the Old State of North Carolina as Martin Academy in honor of Josiah Martin, the Governor of North Carolina. The Academy was the first institution of higher learning west of the Allegheny (or Appalachian Mountains.
In 1795, the Academy became Washington College by permission of our first president, George Washington, and is the first institution, in the nation, to bear his name. The Territory of the United States South of the River Ohio granted the new charter. It served as one of the very few colleges in the western wilderness. Pioneer, General, Statesman, Governor of the Lost State of Franklin, Governor of Tennessee, and United States Congressman John Sevier was a Charter Board Member of Washington College.
For many years, the college remained the only institution of classical learning in the "West." Students came from pioneer families to be educated for the professions of the day. It is said that Dr. Doak could listen to two students reciting Ancient Greek and Latin at the same time and still was able to stop them and make corrections in their recitations. The Academy has graduated 22 college presidents, 28 congressional members, 1 congressional chaplain, 3 governors, 16 missionaries, 168 ministers, several career military officers and enlisted men, and countless teachers, judges, lawyers, and legislators.
One 1837 graduate, Samuel P. Carter of Elizabethton, was the only man in the history of the United States to rise to the rank of Major General in the Army and Rear Admiral in the Navy. Landon Carter Haynes, an 1838 graduate, was a state representative and during the Civil War a Confederate Senator from the state of Tennessee. Noted Statesman, Politician, and Unionist from the Civil War era, Oliver Perry Temple, graduated in 1844. Temple’s daughter, Mary Boyce Temple, donated the money, in her father’s name, to build the "Temple" wings on the Carnegie/Temple Building in 1927. Yet another graduate James Baxter Bean, a Civil War dentist, invented the "Bean Splint" which prevented disfigurement after gunshot wounds to the jaw. After the Civil War, he patented the metal denture plate.
From its early founding, the school made available a classical education to talented and motivated students. Dr. Doak traveled 500 miles on his "flea bitten gray," with books which friends at Princeton gave him to establish his Academy library for the frontier students. A student’s color, creed, nationality, race, or sex has never been a factor in obtaining an education at Washington College Academy. Records still exist that document female attendance as early as 1823. In 1866, after the Civil War, Misses Eva A. and A. Adaline Telford conducted a school, Washington Female College, for young ladies. In 1868 the college reorganized and legally returned under the name Washington College. Native American and African American students have graduated from the Academy and the International student was a part of the campus life during most of the twentieth century.
Although the preparatory curriculum was and has always been an important part of the college’s study program, in 1911 the school merged with Tusculum College and only offered a junior college curriculum. Finally, in 1923, Washington College dropped its college curriculum altogether and concentrated on the preparatory curriculum. Dr. Hubert S. Lyle was the President at that time and was the first Academy leader that did not hold the duel position of pastor at Salem Presbyterian Church and President of Washington College. In 1953 the name was officially changed to Washington College Academy and the school entered into an agreement with the Washington County School System. From 1952 until 1972, Dr. T. Henry Jablonski assembled the finest faculty ever and Washington College Academy educated a vast number of students which has built a very strong and active Alumni Association. Finally, in 1971, all Washington County high schools consolidated into David Crockett High School, at Jonesborough, and Daniel Boone High School, at Gray, which caused the Academy to revert to a private status.
[edit] Current Program
The academy has ceased to operate as an institution of higher learning. It currently operates as a base for continuing education and GED preparation courses. The school is currently raising funds to open as a classical Christian school.
