The Seminary

The Seminary was a large educational building in town that existed from late 1858 until 1881. The current address of the location is 200 South High Street. In retrospect, the Seminary was not a success, and putting together its history is somewhat difficult as the available information is sparse and somewhat inconsistent.

The Seminary was constructed in 1857/1858. Interestingly, Washington had made a bid to become the home of what later became Illinois State University in 1857, and the construction of the large Seminary building, or at least the concept of it, was part of the appeal of their bid.

Construction pressed on despite losing the university bid, and by April 1858 the building was almost completed and Washingtonians marveled at the three-story brick structure and were excited at the prospect of a quality school for their community. The city hosted a professor from the Illinois State Teacher’s Institute as the first event in the new building, April 23, 1858. After songs performed by the Washington Glee Club, the standing room only crowd heard the professor speak about the educational practices of other countries as well as our own. He ended his lecture with strong endorsements of public education, noting his view of “the utter impossibility of meeting the general wants of society by institutions under the supervision of any religion sect or stock company.”

Strangely, as the 1858 school year began, there was no real plan for use of the building. Washington already had small schools being used in different parts of the city.

By the end of 1858 the stock company owning the Seminary wanted to sell the building to the city to make it a public education building. On February 12, 1859, a vote came before the voters whether to institute a tax that would fund the purchase of the Seminary for the city, which was soundly defeated.

The funding for the Seminary project came from a group of stockholders, namely John Marsh, A.H. Danforth, James Smith, B.E. Miles, and Lawson Holland among others. After the election defeat, the group was incorporated February 24, 1859, by the State of Illinois as the Washington Academy Joint Stock Company.

Academies in 1859 were going out of style. In the 1840s and early 1850s they were extremely popular in the Midwest as a way to inject some culture and refinement into the frontier, which Illinois still was at that point. By the end of the 1850s, however, the push for free public education for all had taken hold and academies were thought to be exclusionary.

In April 1859 William D. Palmer from Chicago leased the Seminary building and began a term with forty students attending. The Peoria Transcript had rave reviews of the building upon its opening:

The internal arrangements of the building seemed to us well adapted to an academy for general education. A fine, airy hall extends through the lower story, and on each side is a pleasant school room; also attached to them are the usual recitation rooms. From this floor, two flights of winding stairs conduct to the second story, where is the large school room, nearly fifty feet long by about forty broad, and fourteen feet in height, with the necessary recitation rooms in addition. The third story is also finished and with a view to future changes as the demands of the institution should require. The furniture of the same was manufactured in Buffalo, and contains all the modern improvements that have been suggested by the friends of education. From the observatory, a beautiful view is obtained of a magnificent expanse of prairie country, dotted with fine farms and pleasant residences, which well repays the visitor for his journey upwards. The citizens of Washington have just cause for pride in the result of their noble effort in the educational cause, and we trust the institution under the guidance of Mr. Palmer, will soon be placed in the list with those considered the most useful as well as prosperous. (Peoria Transcript, April 29,1859)

Palmer also served as a preacher for Washington Christian Church during his time here, but by the fall of 1860 he had moved back in Chicago and started Palmer’s Academy, which he ran until 1871. Palmer, whose brother was Potter Palmer, millionaire Chicago land developer, died in 1909.

The private school seminary could never get enough students to justify its existence. There are stories of a man named Kellogg coming from the east coast to try to make it work after Palmer, but no hard evidence could be found for this.

At some point the school started to be used for public school classes. Students from the “east school” (what is now 500 Maple St.), and the “west school” (the present location of Washington Dentistry, 118 Peoria St.) would utilize the building, and it was used as the high school. In the mid-1870s a new school for the community was erected on Spruce Street and the Seminary, which was starting to fall apart, closed its doors.

The building remained, and became a target for vandalism. It was said that by the time of its demolition in 1881, only two of the sixty windows were still intact. A residence was soon built in its place and the Seminary became just a memory.