JACKSONVILLE FEMALE ACADEMY
An institution for the education of young ladies, at Jacksonville, the oldest of its class in the State.
The initial steps for its organization were taken in 1830, the year after the establishment of Illinois College. It may be said to have been an offshoot of the latter, these two constituting the originals of that remarkable group of educational and State Institutions which now exist in that city.
Instruction began to be given in the Academy in May, 1833 under the principal ship of Miss Sarah C. Crocker, and in 1835 it was formally incorporated by act of the Legislature, being the first educational institution to receive a charter from that body. Though Illinois, McKendree and Shurtleff Colleges were incorporated at a later period of the same session.
Among its founders appear the names of :
Gov. Joseph Duncan, Judge Samuel D. Lockwood, Rev. Julian M. Sturtevant, (for fifty year the President of a Professor of Illinois College), John P. Wilkinson, Rev. John M. Ellis, David B. Ayers and Dr. Ero Chandler, all of whom except the last were prominently identified with the early history of Illinois College.
The list of the alumni embraces over five hundred names. The Illinois Conservatory of Music (founded in 1871) and a school of Fine Arts are attached to the Academy, all being under the management of Prof. E. F. Bullard, A. M.