Gettysburg Academy

The Gettysburg Academy (1827 Classical Preparatory School, 1829 Gettysburg Gymnasium)^[2] was an antebellum boys' boarding school for which the vernacular architecture schoolhouse (now "Reuning Hall")^[3] was the "first home" of the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg^[4] and Gettysburg College. The March 19, 1810, incorporation^[5] by the commonwealth appropriated $2,000,^[6] and the academy opened in 1814 for the school year with Samuel Ramsay as the first teacher.^[7] By 1822 the boarding school had 3 dormitories, libraries, and a gymnasium^[8] and beginning in 1926, the academy trustees allowed the Lutheran seminary to use the facility^[4]—D. Jacobs established a preparatory school in June 1827 (his brother was a mathematics professor).^[9]

The facility was purchased at Sheriff's sale in 1829^[6] by Samuel Simon Schmucker and designated the "Gettysburg Gymnasium".^[10] The 1829 headmaster was Dr. Charles H. Huber, and 2 sons of Mexico's president-elect attended^[11] (1831 coaches were Wolf & Urlich.)^[12] The last graduation was in 1835^[13] and when the 1863 Battle of Gettysburg began, the Reuning House was being used by Rebecca Eyster's Young Ladies Seminary,^[14] which conducted an American Civil War hospital for casualties. Eyster's "School Halls" were advertised for rent in 1877,^[15] the house was used as World War I officers' quarters, and Reuning House is a now a private residence protected by a 1972 borough ordinance.^[16]

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