Newport Academy: Northern Kentucky's first school, Chartered 1798

This from the Enquirer:

Newport has had a

public school

since 1800

The first public school in Northern Kentucky was Newport Academy, chartered in 1798 and opened in 1800 in Newport.

It was the first academy in the area. The state of Kentucky gave the city of Newport 6,000 acres south of the Green River in western Kentucky, and empowered the town's government to sell the land to help finance the construction and operation of the school.

Newport Academy was erected on a 2-acre site along the north side of Fourth Street, between Monmouth and Saratoga streets, which had been donated by James Taylor Jr.

The state charter required that a 12-member board of trustees be appointed to run the school. The first trustees included Washington Berry, Thomas D. Carneal, John Grant, Thomas Kennedy, Thomas Sanford, Richard Southgate, the Rev. Robert Stubbs and James Taylor.

Stubbs, an Episcopal minister, was hired as principal and given a house, 15 acres of cleared land, and a salary of 75 British pounds sterling per year. Many of the school's first teachers held other jobs, such as surveying or serving as clergymen.

Stubbs resigned after just one year and opened a private boarding school for boys in Campbell County, near the Two Mile House on Alexandria Pike.

A subscription drive was conducted in 1800 for construction of a one-room stone schoolhouse for Newport Academy. The school building measured 20 feet by 32 feet.

Newport Academy's early curriculum consisted primarily of reading, writing and arithmetic, coursework for which students were charged tuition of $8 per year.

However, some advanced instruction was also given, at a cost of $20 per year, in English grammar, the Latin and Greek languages, geometry, astronomy, logic and rhetoric.

Newport Academy was technically a public school, even though it charged tuition.

It operated until 1850, when it was merged with Newport Independent Schools.

The original schoolhouse was used until 1873, and then it was demolished and replaced by a new building to house Newport High School.

Fourth Street Elementary School now occupies the site of the original Newport Academy.