The Greersburg Academy was an institution established by Reverend Thomas Hughes in Darlington

Darlington, Pennsylvania

Darlington is a borough in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 299 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Darlington is located at ....

, Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...

, United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 in 1802. The academy was created as a "prep

University-preparatory school

A university-preparatory school or college-preparatory school is a secondary school, usually private, designed to prepare students for a college or university education...

" school for college. Classes included languages, philosophy

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

, and astronomy

Astronomy

Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...

. The stone structure was built around 1806 making it one of the oldest buildings still standing in Beaver County

Beaver County, Pennsylvania

-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 181,412 people, 72,576 households, and 50,512 families residing in the county. The population density was 418 people per square mile . There were 77,765 housing units at an average density of 179 per square mile...

. Though it was originally built as a school, the structure functioned as a railway station for a time, serving several railroads between 1883 and 1972. The structure is one of the oldest structures to have ever been used as a station. Notable alumni of the school were abolitionist John Brown

John Brown (abolitionist)

John Brown was an American revolutionary abolitionist, who in the 1850s advocated and practiced armed insurrection as a means to abolish slavery in the United States. He led the Pottawatomie Massacre during which five men were killed, in 1856 in Bleeding Kansas, and made his name in the...

, Walter Forward

Walter Forward

Walter Forward was an American lawyer and politician. He was the brother of Chauncey Forward.-Biography:...

, John White Geary, Daniel Leasure

Daniel Leasure

Daniel Leasure was an American soldier and physician who served as a colonel and brigade commander in the Union Army during the American Civil War.-Early life:...

, William Holmes McGuffey

William Holmes McGuffey

William Holmes McGuffey was an American professor and college president who is best known for writing the McGuffey Readers, one of the nation's first and most widely used series of textbooks...

. The Little Beaver Historical Society currently maintains the structure.

Sources

• Cole, Wayne A., The Greersburg Academy and the Station House, Wayne A. Cole, 2003, ISBN 0-9727397-1-8.

External links

• Greersburg Academy - Little Beaver Historical Society