Free School Traditional Cache
YetAnotherReviewer: No response from CO, so I'm archiving this.
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The red brick building in the middle of the block, addressed 604 Wolfe Street, is the Alexandria Academy. The building and geocache may also be approached between 400 and 418 South Washington Street, where the historic marker is located. Stairs may be avoided by approaching the cache through the driveway of the Campagna Center on South Washington (please use street parking).
Construction of the Alexandria Academy began in September, 1785. The Academy, which opened the following year, was composed a number of smaller schools. The English School taught writing, grammar, math, and science. The Learned Language School taught classical Greek and Latin. In December, 1785, George Washington also endowed a “Free School” at the Alexandria Academy to educate children living in poverty or orphaned by the Revolutionary War. Girls as well as boys were admitted, albeit on the understanding that girls “give place whenever there... be applicants for admittance on behalf of Boys.” The tuition of twenty students was covered by Washington’s annual contributions of 50 pounds. In his will, he left four thousand dollars in stock to run the school. Some historians regard the Alexandria Academy’s Free School as a precursor to American public education.
Perhaps the most famous student of Alexandria Academy was Robert E. Lee, best known for commanding the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia in the American Civil War, who attended the school from 1818-1824.
In 1812, an association of free Black people founded its own “free colored school” in some Alexandria Academy space vacated by white students. This school, taught by Rev. James Hanson, a white minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, lasted until 1847, when Alexandria—previously part of the District of Columbia—became part of the Commonwealth of Virginia, which forbade the education of African Americans.
During the Civil War the Academy served as housing, hospital, and school to “contrabands,” slaves who had escaped the Confederacy, later known as freedmen. It returned to the Alexandria School Board in 1884 and served as a school and administrative facility until 1982. The Historic Alexandria Foundation restored it in 1999, and it is again being used again for educational purposes.
While you are here, take a short stroll to the corner of Wolfe Street and South St. Asaph Street. On the northwest corner you will find a wood frame Greek-revival style house. This house was built in 1852 by a free Black master carpenter, George L. Seaton, who in the 1870s became the first African-American legislator from Alexandria elected to the Virginia General Assembly. Seaton also built the Seaton School for Boys, the Hallowell School for Girls, and the Odd Fellows Hall, as well as helping to found the Free School Society of Alexandria, the Colored YMCA, and the Colored Building Association.
As best I can tell, the Handicaching.com rating of this geocache might be H21311; steps are no longer unavoidable. You can provide fellow cachers more information about accessibility by rating this cache (and others!) at Handicaching.com.
Congratulations to TeamAlexAbby of Illinois for FTF!
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Zntargvp anab.
Treasures
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