Mount de Sales Academy (Georgia) - History

History

In 1871, a group of five Sisters of Mercy from Columbus, Georgia began a small school known as the Academy of the Sacred Heart Jesus on the corner of Fourth and Walnut streets in Macon, Georgia. The school taught students of a variety of faiths, and along with a free school that was operated out of the basement of Saint Joseph Church, predated the Bibb County public school system by nearly a year. The free school became one of the area's first public schools in 1872.

When the mother house of the Sisters relocated from Columbus to Macon in 1876, the Sisters, area Catholics and other donors provided funds to purchase the former governor's mansion on Beall's Hill on the corner of Orange and Columbus streets as the new home for the sisters and novices as well as the boarding students at the Academy. The name of the school was changed to Mount de Sales, in honor of Saint Francis de Sales, and the new school was chartered as a women's junior college with the right to confer degrees by the state of Georgia in 1876. The school grew quickly, and a second building was completed by 1877. When the school's first graduation exercises were held in 1882, Mount de Sales had expanded to comprise three divisions: primary, preparatory and senior, and was a boarding school for girls in grades one through twelve, housing girls from around the southeastern United States and Cuba.