|Cecil County History|
West Nottingham Academy: Training ground for a republic By Gene Pisasale Contributing Writer
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ot many schools can boast to having taught two signers of the Declaration of Independence or having a teacher who later became president and trustee of one of the nation’s most elite universities. West Nottingham Academy can rightly claim credit for all those and much more. Situated in Cecil County, the Academy has a rich history that dates back to when news traveled slowly, the fastest mode of transportation was a horse and the nation’s roads were not much more than muddy pathways through the woods. West Nottingham Academy was founded in 1744 by Presbyterian Reverend Samuel Finley. Finley originally spent time in Bucks County, Pennsylvania and is believed to be a graduate of William Tennent’s Log College in Warminster. The college was known as a training ground for evangelical Presbyterian ministers during the period now called The Great Awakening. Finley was asked to lead a new congregation which had formed along the lower branch of Octoraro Creek as settlers developed the Nottingham Lots, around what would later be defined as the Mason-Dixon Line. The church needed him there to serve the local citizens in all matters religious, including baptizing infants, preaching
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Cecil County Life | Spring/Summer 2022 | www.cecilcountylife.com
the Gospel and consecrating marriages. Finley felt strongly that to live a good and effective life as Christians, people needed training in all the teachings and concepts of the day, in order to allow them to function effectively in a rapidly changing world. Religious practice was important to the Finley family; his brothers James and Andrew also became ministers. The Academy first operated in a small log cabin structure at the rear of Finley’s home, near the site of the present Rising Sun Middle School. A few years after its founding, the school was moved to a two-story building. Two tragedies—a fire and a storm—destroyed buildings constructed to house students, but in 1865 the red brick building known as the J. Paul Slaybaugh Old Academy was built and it stands to the present day. The Academy is believed to be the first of some 1,600 Presbyterian preparatory boarding schools built across the country. The school website states that West Nottingham is “the longest-standing boarding and day school in the United States.” Finley’s teaching methods must have worked. They produced two students who would later shape the history of our young republic. Benjamin Rush, known today as one of the most respected physicians in the Philadelphia area during the American Revolution, was one of Finley’s students. Continued on Page 20
