Early Schools, Academies and Religious Institutions

Early Schools, Academies and Religious Institutions. Perry County Bicentennial.

1804: First academy established at Duncannon. , 1834: Free School Act of Pennsylvania passed. , 1838: New Bloomfield Academy chartered. , 1840: Willow Grove Female Seminary established.

, Prior to the common or "Free School Act" of 1834, the county's children could attend subscription schools or schools associated with a religious denomination. Both Presbyterian and Lutheran preachers conducted schools which sometimes later became academies. An academy was a subscription school of higher education, with subjects above the common school level., Numerous academies dotted the county, but the two longest lived were the New Bloomfield Academy and the Loysville Academy. The New Bloomfield Academy opened in 1838 and its brick academy building was completed in 1840. In 1914 Theodore K. Long purchased the academy and converted it to Carson Long Institute in 1916. The Loysville Academy began classes in 1853, and in 1855, Col. John Tressler erected a three-story brick academy building. In 1865 the academy became the Soldiers' Orphan School and later the Tressler Orphans' Home., [Captions:] , The weatherboarded log Bethel Church of God was built by Elder Henry Wingert east of his residence on Main Street, Landisburg in 1836. Elder Wingert is seated at front to right of the door. It was later used as a school., The Federal style Stroop-Junkin House, Spring Township, was the home of County Sheriff George Stroop and then Associate Judge John Junkin. It housed the Willow Grove Female Seminary from 1840 to ca. 1854., New Bloomfield Academy campus with the academy building to the left, ca. 1908., Bealor's Union Church, Juniata Township, dedicated in 1841, was the last in the county to be built in the meetinghouse style. The meetinghouse style is domestically inspired. Many of the earliest Reformation churches met in the houses and barns of their members, both in Europe and early America. A disdain for high church or cathedral-like architecture persisted into the mid-19th century.