Rock Hill Academy

Front: Rock Hill Academy, the first school in the village of Rock Hill, opened in 1855 in a log building near this site. A private school for white boys, it was built in a pine grove owned by Ann Hutchison White. The school’s first teacher was Rev. Archibald Whyte. The building was also used as a Christian meeting house. It was expanded in 1857. Around that time about sixty students attended. The school is believed to have closed during the Civil War but reopened by 1870. Reverse: By 1874 the building at this site became a girls school named Pine Grove Academy, an informal name long used for Rock Hill Academy. Pine Grove’s first principal was M.B. Reid. In 1876 the school had forty-eight students. The school closed with the 1888 opening of Rock Hill Graded School, the first public school for local white children. The old school building at this site was later renovated and used as a residence. It was destroyed by the tornado of 1926.