Wyoming Seminary
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Wyoming Seminary
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Fleck Hall
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| Location | Sprague Ave., Kingston, Pennsylvania |
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| Coordinates | 41°15′48″N 75°53′54″W / 41.26333°N 75.89833°WCoordinates: 41°15′48″N 75°53′54″W / 41.26333°N 75.89833°W |
| Area | 1.2 acres (0.49 ha) |
| Built | 1853 |
| Architect | Emily Lehman |
| Architectural style | Mid 19th Century Revival, Classical revival |
| NRHP Reference # | 79002291 |
| Added to NRHP | August 06, 1979 |
Wyoming Seminary, founded in 1844, is a Methodist college preparatory school located in the Wyoming Valley of Northeastern Pennsylvania. The "Lower School," which consists of preschool - 8th grade students, is located in Forty Fort. The "Upper School," comprising 9th-grade to postgraduate students, is located in Kingston. It is near the Susquehanna River and the city of Wilkes-Barre. Locally and in some publications, it is sometimes referred to as "Sem." As a boarding school, only Upper School students are given the opportunity to live (board) on campus. Slightly more than one-third of the Upper School student body reside on campus.
Wyoming Seminary was founded by Methodist Church leaders in 1844 at the instigation of George Peck. At the time, it was common practice to call any academy or school a "seminary." While the school remains affiliated with the United Methodist Church, it welcomes students from all religious backgrounds. The first class of Wyoming Seminary contained 31 students — 17 boys and 14 girls from Pennsylvania and New York. The school's first president was Rueben Nelson. At the time, Kingston was a rural village, and the school raised livestock, grew its own produce, and built a smoke house to preserve meat for the winter. After the industrial age began, the school grew. In the wake of the region's new mining and manufacturing concerns, a dedicated business school was created and a college preparatory program was established.
As extensively documented by historian Leroy Bugbee in his account of Wyoming Seminary's first 100 years of existence, much of Sem's rise as a prominent college prep school took place during the tenure of Levi Sprague. Sprague was a Sem alumnus who served as the school's president for five decades from the 1880s to the 1930s and was associated with the school for nearly his entire life, ultimately dying while in office. The street that most of the Upper School campus is located on is named Sprague Avenue, the central building that hosts most classes and administrative offices there is called Sprague Hall, a bust of Sprague is featured in this building, and since 1993, a yearly prestigious scholarship for seniors that offers free boarding for eight selected student leaders is called the Levi Sprague Fellowship.
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