History of the Academy

April 6th, 1848:
“Agreeable to notice, publicly given, the citizens of Blairstown and vicinity convened in the Presbyterian church, in Blairstown, this day, for the purpose of selecting a site for an Academy, and appointing a committee whose business it shall be to superintend its erection. The meeting was called to order by John I. Blair, Esq. and organized by appointing John Messler, Chairman, and Isaiah W. Condict, Secretary. The hilltop west of the Methodist Church and south of the burying ground in Blairstown was selected for the site of the building, and was offered gratuitously for the purpose by the possessor John I. Blair, Esq.”

— from Blair Academy, A Sesquicentennial History by Arthur T. Hamlin

Blair Academy is situated on 435 hilltop acres adjacent to the village of Blairstown, New Jersey. In 1848 John Insley Blair, wealthy merchant and railroad tycoon, turned to the Presbyterian Church and the town fathers of Blairstown to proposed the founding of a small school. Mr. Blair, The Reverend John A. Reiley, minister of the First Presbyterian Church, and Mr. John Bunnell, a local carriage maker, met on April 6, 1848 and agreed on the site for the school. Mr. Blair gave a small building (known to us now as Old Academy) to be called Blair Presbyterial Academy. The universal public education act was ten years away, so Blair Academy assumed the task of educating the sons and daughters of local farmers and merchants, soon reaching beyond the surrounding community.

John I. Blair was the school’s principal benefactor for a half-century, and his gifts of land and money made the growth of the school possible, such as Locke, East and Insley Halls. Mr. Blair’s son, DeWitt Clinton Blair, more than duplicated his father’s generosity by providing the funds for the construction of Clinton Hall, the gymnasium, and general improvements and expansion of the campus.

The original gifts of John I. Blair were made by deeds of trust, which provided for the control and management of the school. From its founding and through the deeds of trust, Blair has always been closely associated with the Presbyterian Church, specifically, the Presbytery of Newton.

Blair was coeducational until 1915, when it became an exclusively boys’ school. Coeducation was reinstated in 1970 with great success. The school welcomes student and faculty members from a variety of cultural, economic, ethnic and educational backgrounds. Students in grades nine through twelve and a select number of postgraduates, almost without exception, are college-bound.

In 1992, Blair Academy was entered on to the National Register of Historic Places in recognition of its historic and architectural significance.

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