History

Harrisburg Academy, the 17th oldest non-public school in the country, was founded in 1784 by John Harris, Jr. in a room of his mansion (now the Historical Society of Dauphin County on South Front Street in Harrisburg). Harris brought in a schoolmaster from Lancaster to teach his and his neighbors' children. Soon after, he granted “the rent, issues and profits of his ferry for the endowment of an Academy where German and English should be taught.” Two years later, with donations and materials from Harris and more than 80 of his neighbors, a log cabin school was built on a knoll 300 yards east of the Susquehanna River, probably behind the Harris mansion near Walnut and Third streets.

On April 4, 1809, the State Legislature officially chartered the Academy under the Law of the Commonwealth as “an academy or public school for the education of youth in useful arts, sciences and literature." In 1947, under the leadership of Headmaster Raymond Kennedy, Harrisburg Academy merged with The Seiler School for Girls to become a coeducational institution. The Academy opened for classes at its current location in Wormleysburg, Pennsylvania on Sept. 28, 1959. Today, the Academy is an independent, nonsectarian, coeducational day school with a diverse population of students from age 3 to 12th grade. Fully accredited by the Middle States Association of Schools and Colleges and the Pennsylvania Association of Independent Schools, the Academy belongs and ascribes to the policies and best practices of the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS).