Last Updated: February 27, 2025

The Wethersfield Academy was finished in 1804 at a final cost of $3489.52 including land. Public funds and donations paid for the new school. The academy opened later that year as a high school, teaching primarily higher mathematics and navigation. In the 1820s, Reverand Joseph Emerson rented the building from the First School Society for use as a female seminary. As many as one hundred female students from New England and the surrounding areas boarded in local homes and took classes at the school. The academy operated in this manner for approximately 20 years.

On New Year’s Eve 1839, a fire gutted the building. It was rebuilt a year later and opened once again as a high school, with a large upstairs hall that was used for various town and church functions such as meetings and dances. In 1894, the building ceased to be used as a school and became the first town library. Eventually, the town clerk and other local government offices moved into the building as well, and it became the town hall. Wethersfield built a new town hall in 1959 and the Academy building became home to the Wethersfield Historical Society. Today, the Old Academy houses the Wethersfield Historical Society’s offices and research library.

This article was partly adapted using content from the Imagining Connecticut exhibit that formerly hung in the Connecticut State Capitol and Legislative Office Building starting in 2000.

This article has been updated, learn more about content updating on ConnecticutHistory.org here.