Wilson College
Chambersburg, Franklin County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Founded in 1869, and named for Sarah Wilson, its benefactor. One of the oldest colleges for women in the U.S. Opened, 1870, in "Norland," former home of Col. A.K. McClure, close friend of Abraham Lincoln.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
Founded in 1869 and named for its benefactor Sarah Wilson, Wilson College opened its doors to women in 1870, making it one of the oldest women's colleges in the United States. Its first home was "Norland," the former residence of Colonel Alexander K. McClure, a prominent Pennsylvania newspaperman and politician who was a close friend and ally of Abraham Lincoln. The college took root in the optimistic decades after the Civil War, when higher education for women was still a novel and contested idea.
Why it matters
Wilson College stands among the pioneering women's colleges that expanded American higher education to women in the nineteenth century, part of a broader movement that reshaped who could learn.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Sarah Wilson
- · Alexander K. McClure
- · Abraham Lincoln
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Margaret Cochran Corbin
Greene Township, PA · est. 1961
Born on the Pennsylvania frontier in 1751, Margaret Cochran Corbin followed her husband into the Continental Army and was beside him at the defense of Fort Washington in November 1776. When he was killed at his cannon, she took his place and kept firing until she too was gravely wounded. Congress later granted her a soldier's pension and a place in the Invalid Regiment, and she was buried with honor at West Point.
Scotland School for Veterans' Children
Greene Township, PA · est. 2013
Opened in 1895 as the Pennsylvania Soldiers' Orphans Industrial School, this state-run residential institution educated the children of veterans, giving roughly 10,000 boys and girls both schooling and a strong sense of patriotism that led many into military careers. Students earned distinction in the classroom and on the playing field, where the Cadets and Red Devils claimed many championships. The school served its mission until closing in 2009.
Brown's Mill School
Antrim Township, PA · est. 1966
Built in 1836, this one-room schoolhouse taught generations of rural Franklin County children the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic. A single teacher would have managed pupils of every age in one room, heated by a stove, until the building finally closed in 1921. Its long life spans nearly a century of American common schooling before consolidation swept such schools away.
Pennsylvania State Forest Academy
Mont Alto, PA · est. 2003
When conservation was still a new idea in America, Pennsylvania opened its first forestry school here at Mont Alto in 1903, formally named the State Forest Academy two years later. Its founders included Joseph Rothrock, the state's first Forestry Commissioner, and the activist Mira Lloyd Dock, both leaders in the movement to reclaim lands stripped bare by logging. In 1929 the academy merged into what became Pennsylvania State University.