History of Florida State University - Foundation - Leon Academy For Males and Females

Leon Academy For Males and Females

The Leon Academy stopped operating in 1840 and was replaced by schools for males and females in a system established by Reverend Joshua Phelps and Elder David C. Wilson, both of the First Presbyterian Church. Princeton University-educated Reverend William Neil and his wife Eliza Neil operated the academies for males and females, which were merged in 1846 into a new version of the Leon Academy for Males and Females. The Leon Academy later split into the Tallahassee Female Academy, also known as the Leon Female Academy for females. While organized public education for males faltered between 1840 and 1850, education for females was intact and unusually complete. By January 1850 municipal elections in Tallahassee called for a city-supported school for males. The Tallahassee City Council, acting on the vote, assumed financial responsibility for the Florida Institute the same year.

Then on January 24, 1851 the Florida Legislature voted to establish the two seminaries: West Florida Seminary (which became Florida State University) and East Florida Seminary (which became the University of Florida). The 1851 law specified the organization and governing boards of the schools, including terms of office for those boards, and specified the nature and scope of instruction at each institution. This law effectively established the joint charter for the two seminaries, providing for their complete operation. It did not decide locations for the schools, however, leaving this to be awarded to the jurisdictions with the best offer of support.

The Legislature concluded in Resolution No. 25 of that year that each seminary would be awarded to the county or town that would provide the best combination of land, buildings and money. Three towns presented offers for the West Florida Seminary - Tallahassee, Marianna and Quincy. The competition between the three soon became a bitter struggle between Marianna and Tallahassee for the West Florida Seminary. By January 1853 the Legislature accepted Ocala's offer for the East Seminary and in the same law directed Governor James E. Broome to appoint a special commission of six members from Middle and West Florida to decide upon the location of the West Seminary. The matter had grown so contentious that neither Governor Broome nor the Commission members looked forward to the task and did little to resolve the contest. The issue was then handed back to the Legislature where it was finally confronted. In the meantime, as an inducement to the Legislature, the City Council of Tallahassee had built and funded an all-male academy, called the Florida Institute, in Tallahassee.

The Florida Institute was in reality a resurrected version of an earlier public school for males and females called the Leon Academy established in 1827 by Presbyterian Reverend Henry White.

The subsequent law of 1851 establishing the Seminaries seemed an answer to the existing educational needs of Tallahassee when it passed the Legislature. Francis W. Eppes, the grandson of Thomas Jefferson and who grew up on Monticello, was the Intendant or Mayor of Tallahassee at the time of this competition. Eppes was well aware of the benefits an institution of higher learning could bring to a city and was determined to win the west seminary for Tallahassee. The building of the Florida Institute was regarded at the time as the "handsomest edifice in Tallahassee" and cost $6,172.00 at its completion in April 1855. Enrollment in the school year 1855-1856 totaled around 100 students. A group of citizens calling themselves the "friends of the Institution" planned to petition the Legislature to create the University of Florida from the Florida Institute. By 1856 Eppes and the Tallahassee City Council had won the competition and transferred the Florida Institute to the state. The rise of land slightly west of the center of Tallahassee, formerly known as Gallows Hill, which was the site and building of the ongoing Florida Institute, was offered and accepted as the western state seminary for male students. The seminary officially held classes as a state institution in 1857. In 1858 it absorbed the Tallahassee Female Academy begun in 1843 as the Misses Bates School, thereby becoming co-educational. The West Florida Seminary stood near the front of the Westcott Building on the existing FSU campus. This site is the oldest continually used location of higher learning in Florida. The eastern seminary was located in Ocala in 1853 and closed during the American Civil War. It reopened in 1866 in Gainesville and would eventually be combined with other schools to form what would be called the University of the State of Florida in 1906.