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Meson Academy State Historical Marker
- Meson Academy State Historical
Marker
- Located on Meson St. off Academy St. in Lexington,
Ga.
- [33°52'11N, 83°06'30W]
(Text)
- MESON ACADEMY
Francis Meson (1761-1806), an Irishman
and "wandering schoolteacher," became a rich merchant
in Lexington. He bequeathed $8,000.00 for an academy building
and valuable property for an endowment, "the income to be
used forever for the benefit of the teachers." His executors
erected a building, excelled among Georgia educational structures
only by Franklin College, the sole building at the University
of Georgia at that time.
In 1825 a Female Department was
added under the direction of the Rev. Thomas Goulding. The income
from the endowment was liquidated when a new building was constructed
in 1896. In 1917, Lexington voted a school tax and Meson Academy
became a free school. In 1920 it became the Oglethorpe County
High School
The first rector or principal of
the academy was the Rev. Francis Cummins. Of the outstanding
educators who followed him, Thomas Britton Moss served from 1849
through the difficult War and Reconstruction periods until 1889.
Some of Georgia's most eminent men were on the Meson Academy
Board of Trustees: William H. Crawford, George R. Gilmer, Joseph
Henry Lumpkin, Thomas W. Cobb.
- 109-7 GEORGIA HISTORICAL
COMMISSION 1959
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- Click here
to see Meson Academy memorial
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