Oak Ridge Seminary

Oak Ridge Seminary
school
"Oakridge Select Academy" in 1858, which was "Miss Carrie Sheads' School during the 1863 Battle of Gettysburg. The differing "Sheads House" at 331 Buford Av was claimed in 1988 to have been the 19th century school building.
Country	United States
State	Pennsylvania
Nearest town	Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
Coordinates	Template:Coordinates needed

External image

1843 sketch

The Oak Ridge Seminary (Oak Ridge Female Seminary, Oak-Ridge Academy) was an antebellum school for "young ladies" west of the borough of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. One of 2 girls schools used as an American Civil War hospital for Battle of Gettysburg casualties, the female seminary had also been used as a prison, and General Lee's "Headquarters and tents [were] pitched in the space adjoining Oak Ridge Seminary" (a field was "on the east side of Miss Carrie Sheads' School".)

The 1st school in the area that would become Gettysburg was at the Mummasburg Road and Carlisle Street intersection on the south side of Stevens Run and by 1835, Gettysburg had 5 common schools. Earlier girls' schools in the Gettysburg borough included one for which Deacon James H. Marsden "took charge" after teacher applications were requested on June 23, 1829. Marsden held classes "from Sept. 25th, 1829, to April 1st, 1830, in the room, later occupied by the late Judge Wills' law office" (the school was moved to a 1 story frame building on the Eagle Hotel lot.)

By the 1863 Battle of Gettysburg, Rebecca Eyster's Young Ladies Seminary was on the "corner of Washington and High streets" at the "Old Academy Building" built 1813-5 for boys.

The Oakridge Seminary was erected by Herman Haupt, later Professor of Mathematics and Engineering at Pennsylvania College (who had built an earlier structure for his residence** on Seminary Ridge.) Located near the 1815 Baltimore and Carlisle turnpike, and the 1838 Tapeworm Railroad bed, Haupt's Oakridge Select Academy was advertised in 1843 for "about 16 pupils", and Rev. William Henry Harrison, D.D., taught there prior to licensure in 1845. The school principal was Miss Carrie Sheads when Early's raids in Pennsylvania arrived at Gettysburg on June 26, 1863, and Oak Ridge Academy was at the July 1 battle area which received Confederate cannon fire. (a captured colonel returned to the school for his sword after escaping from Confederates during their retreat.)