The Mifflinburg Academy

 

The Mifflinburg Academy 

 Located on the corner of 6th and Green Streets, no longer stands.  Today the Mifflinburg Buggy Museum Visitors Center stands at this location.  The cupola from the top of the school is preserved in front of the visitors center.

The cupola from the Mifflinburg Academy, in front of the Mifflinburg Buggy Museum Visitors Center

According to a 1963 article, the Mifflinburg Academy began "in the Franklin School on the North Side of Market Street between Third & Fourth Streets" - Note that that location was the Franklin School, not the building shown here.  The building shown here, the Academy building, was located  on the northeast side of Green Street between 5th and 6th, where the Buggy Museum is today.

Rivaly between Mifflinburg and Lewisburg began in an 1827 debate.

1837

The Mifflinburg Academy "ceased to exist" in 1868.  On September 3 1894 it became the Grammar School.  The first floor of the school was used for "common school purposes" and the second story contained the hall of the Grand Army Of the Republic post. [according in a 1963 newspaper article]

A sign inside the Cupola reads:

"The architectural structure is the cupola from the Mifflinburg Academy.  The two-story brick building was demolished in the 1970s.  the first school in Mifflinburg was the German School, located at Fifth and Green Streets.  Classes were taught in German.  The Franklin School for English speaking children was located on Market street.  These two schools were subscription schools, which meant parents paid the teacher directly.  In response to the Public School Act of 1838, the Mifflinburg Academy was built.  As a public school, the Academy was supported by taxes.  It's aim was to teach the classics and encourage students to achieve higher learning.  The Mifflinburg Academy was closed as a school when the Mifflinburg High School was built in 1876.  The building was used to provide temporary housing for men looking for work during the Great Depression (1929-1941).  When the high school was overcrowded in the 1940s, the building was re-opened as an elementary school"

This page from the 1928 Mifflinburg Yearbook, The Nautilus, appears to contradict the above information - it lists some of the students who attended the Old Academy in 1916-1920.

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1924

1925

1925

High School Auditorium, 1927

Mifflinburg High school, 1928

"It is to the credit of Mifflinburg that she has never been behind her sister villages in the promotion of education The same day, April 14, 1827, the village was incorporated a Borough, an act was passed establishing an Academy here. Among the trustees named, of Mifflinburg, were Henry Yearick, Jacob Maize, John Foster and Michael Roush. Rev. Nathaniel Todd, a Presbyterian minister, was the first teacher. He was succeeded in 1839 by James M'Clune whose fame as a teacher spread over the State. Then came Prof. Henry. G. M'Guire, who was followed by the much lamented Aaron C. Fisher. These great teachers have all taken their departure to the other world, but their memory is still cherished by their students many in prominent positions, far and wide over this and other States.

The influence of the Mifflinburg Academy will never be fully reckoned until the judgment book shall be opened on the last day of final reckoning." - 1892 article about Mifflinburg's Centennial

Some early history of the Academies in Lewisburg and Mifflinburg