The village of Clear Spring (formerly spelled Clearspring) Maryland lies about 11 miles west of Hagerstown and 5 miles south of the Mason-Dixon line in the narrowest part of western Maryland. It was first laid out in 1821 by Martin Myers on land inherited from his father. Writing toward the end of the nineteenth century, J. Martin Lohr⁽¹⁾ describes the founding of the town:

About 1820 the old national pike was built [from Baltimore to the western country] and this gave a great impetus to the value of all lands through which it passed. Hamlets started up everywhere along its line, and Martin Myers, seeing the possibility of locating a more flourishing town between Hagerstown and Hancock than any of the others, located and laid out what was then called Myersville, the name having been subsequently changed to Clearspring on account of the large and beautiful spring of excellent water situated near the center of the town and from which many of the inhabitants obtain their supply. . . . The town was originally laid out in 75 lots on both sides of the turnpike, which was named Cumberland street. These lots were 66 feet wide and extended back a distance of 198 feet to alleys, and at their sale, which was publicly made, an annual ground rent of $1.00 was reserved as a proprietary interest in each lot. It is said that bidding on these lots was spirited, and in a few years buildings were erected on nearly all of them, so that as early as 1826 the town consisted of upwards of 80 dwellings, most of them being commodious and well built. Some years later the Steinmetz addition, including what is now the west side of Martin street, and in 1836 Gehr's addition, including both sides of Mill street, were laid out. Both of these additions were soon occupied with dwellings, until the year 1836 the town had about 700 inhabitants, and seven hotels were doing a lucrative business.

The town of Clear Spring lies in the political subdivision of Washington County, Maryland, called the Clear Spring District. The district is about ten miles square with the town situated midway between the Pennsylvania border (Mason Dixon Line) to the north and the Potomac River to the south. The graph on the next page shows the distribution of the white population by age at the time of the founding of the Academy.⁽²⁾ In 1840 the white population of the town of Clear Spring was 728 persons comprising 380 males and 348 females. The total white population of the district was 3,454 persons (1,944 males and 1,510 females). This was a thirty-one percent increase over the District population of 2,636 from the previous census year, 1830. From the graph it is apparent that the increase is due almost entirely to the birth rate fueling the school-age population under the age of twenty. Indeed, by comparing the line for 1830 with that of 1840, it can be seen that the adult population from age twenty to forty-nine in 1830 remained constant during the decade. That is, apparently no one died until after age fifty since the numbers in corresponding age groups are the same from one census to the next. In truth, the mortality rate was probably low and offset by the number of new adults moving in. By contrast, there is a noticeable loss of children over the decade as seen by the fact that of the 877 who are under ten years of age in 1830, only 808 are seen in the 10-to-19 range in 1840 (and similarly for the next higher age group). Nevertheless, overall the birth rate provided a 19.5 percent increase in the number of school-age children. In the middle of this period, the Clear Spring Academy was founded, probably because of the desire for a quality education for this continued baby boom.

The concept of the academy traces its history back to seventeenth century England. In 1662 Oxford and Cambridge universities were closed to persons who were not members of the Anglican Church. So-called "dissenting academies" began to appear as alternative sources of education. By abandoning the established classical Latin curriculum, conducting classes in English, and introducing new subjects such as science and politics, these new academies encouraged freedom of inquiry and challenged the educational establishment. They became havens for non-conformist free-thinkers and permanently changed the course of education in England and later in America.

Source: U.S. Census, District 2, Washington County, Maryland, 1830 and 1840

In colonial America the revolutionary nature of the academies was somewhat moderated. William Penn encouraged the teaching of practical subjects required in trades and agriculture. In 1749, Benjamin Franklin published his Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pensilvania, followed in 1751 by his Idea of the English School. The Franklin model included an English-based curriculum that was practical and vocational. It proposed the teaching of artwork in drawing and perspective to aid creative expression, as well as applied mathematics including arithmetic, accounting, geometry and astronomy. It emphasized the social studies, including history, political science, geography and religious history. Franklin encouraged the teaching of Latin and Greek to only those scholars whose professions (such as ministers and doctors) would require them. Although well-received by middle-class merchants as well as traditional classical academics, Franklin's dual academy as implemented in Philadelphia was a failure. The classical "Latinist" faculty were more politically adept at competing for funding and manipulating the administration and soon overpowered the English school. Franklin demanded that the two schools be separated and the corporation dissolved.⁽³⁾ In time Franklin's model would be rediscovered and would form the basis for most of the later academies, including the Clearspring Academy. For a time the two components of Franklin's model went their separate ways. The English schools emphasized practical subjects such as reading, writing, arithmetic, geography and history. They enrolled boys and girls from as young as age two to fourteen. The Latin grammar schools, intended for college-bound boys between the ages of nine and fourteen, were found primarily in larger cities. These emphasized the classical Latin and Greek studies as well as more advanced mathematics.

Following the American Revolution, the academy movement began with the founding of the two Phillips academies at Andover Massachusetts (1778) and at Exeter, New Hampshire (1781). Both were chartered by their respective states and governed by boards of trustees. The period from 1810 to 1840 has been called the "age of the academy". In Maryland, Chapter 55 of the Acts of the Assembly for 1810 founded the Hagerstown Academy Company. A total of 160 academies were incorporated by the State of Maryland from the time of the Revolution until after the Civil War:

By 1830 there were about a thousand state-chartered academies in the United States. At first most of these academies were designed as country boarding schools and many were founded by or affiliated with particular religious groups. As early as 1785, the Methodists established a college at Abington in Harford County, Marlyand. This school was twice destroyed by fire before the end of the century. A convention of the Episcopal Church in Maryland (1836-7) urged the formation of academies, and in 1841 Rev. Lyman of Hagerstown purchased a suitable building at Fountain Rock, Washington County. There, under the superintendance of Rev. Kerfoot, the College of St. James was chartered by the legisature in 1844. In Frederick, St. John's Literary Institution was founded by Rev. John McElroy and incorporated in 1842. In 1850 it was raised by the legislature to the rank of college with the power to confer degrees.⁽⁵⁾ Often, however, a particular local sect or congregation could not exclusively supply enough scholars to keep the school in operation. This increasingly lead to a more ecumenical (though usually Protestant Christian) orientation.

The purposes of the private academies were to prepare middle class children for trades, to educate teachers for the common or grammar schools, and to prepare the brighter students for the growing number of colleges. In most areas the importance of the academy and its usefulness to the state entitled it to receive substantial public funding, even though it was essentially a private institution. The State of Maryland provided some funding to private academies and common schools from the state treasury. For example, as early as 1821 over twenty-five thousand dollars per year was expended by the state for the purposes of education. Of this amount, nearly half ($12,200) was for seventeen private academies, including $800 for Hagerstown Academy. In addition to these grants, the Banks of Maryland were required to pay twenty cents per one hundred dollars of their capital for the support of common schools. This money was paid to the commissioners of the School Fund in each county and the city of Baltimore.⁽⁶⁾ With the estimated contribution from banks the total funding for education in Maryland was estimated to be $27,200.

By 1834, when the Clearspring Academy was founded, the movement was spreading rapidly throughout the United States. Twenty years later there would be over six thousand academies with over a quarter of a million scholars. Each one of these institutions took on its own local characteristics to suit the community. But it must be remembered that this was a period of transition in American education. The academy was the bridge between the elitist classical schools and the emerging public school systems of the middle nineteenth century. Many of these private academies, including Clear Spring, would die out following the Civil War. Some would grow into colleges or seminaries. Ironically, the few survivors would revert to being private, elitist, college-preparatory boarding schools --- the sort of school from which the academies had originally evolved.

Prior to the founding of the Academy, it was a common practice for middle class parents in Clear Spring to provide their children with individual tutors, usually imported from nearby Hagerstown. Obviously the quality of education varied significantly with the level of education of the tutor and with the parents' ability to pay. J. Martin Lohr describes the early state of education in Clear Spring and founding of the Academy:⁽⁷⁾

The youth of the time received but meagre instruction. A little log structure on Martin street, where the old engine house now stands, was the first school house within the corporate limits of the town. But some years afterward the more enterprising citizens had the Academy chartered by the General Assembly and for many years it received State aid and Clearspring was then in the front rank in point of educational advantages, receiving students from other parts of the county. From an old catalogue now before us we learn that a full set of geographical and scientific apparatus was purchased for the use of this institution and among the other branches taught were ancient geography, Latin and Greek grammar, Greek reader, Cicero, Virgil and Livy, with geometry and all the other higher branches, with John McArthy, LL.D., as principal and professor of ancient languages. A full board of seven trustees was annually elected by the charter members. The annual vacation consisted only of the month of July and one week at Christmas. . . This Academy has long since given away to the public school system and we believe to the detriment of education in this community.

The Clearspring Academy was located on the western side of North Martin Street on lot number seventy-one of the town plot. The property was purchased on May 6, 1834 from Martin and Catherine Myers by the founding five⁽8) trustees of the Academy: Nicholas Lowe, David Ridenour, John D. Ridenour, Peter K. Zacharias, and Isaac Nesbitt. The deed⁽⁹⁾ stipulates that these trustees "and their successors in office forever in trust . . . shall erect and build thereon a house to be used and employed as a school house, and no other purpose according to such rules and regulations as from time to time may be agreed upon and adopted by the trustees." Martin Lohr, in his history cited above, states that the materials used for the Academy building were taken from a Methodist church or chapel that stood "about one mile southwest of town on the old Furnace road near where Daniel Boyd now lives. . . After the Methodists secured a building in Clearspring they sold it to the Charter members of the Academy who removed it to its present location in town and vastly improved it."

The deed further stipulates that the trustees of the Academy will hold a public meeting at the school house every first Monday in May beginning in 1835 for the purpose of electing trustees for the ensuing year, and that every freehold citizen of Clear Spring is entitled to a vote. If any of the trustees dies, removes, or refuses to serve, the remaining trustees are empowered to supply a successor.

By an act of the General Assembly of the State of Maryland the Clearspring Academy was incorporated on April 2, 1836.⁽¹⁰⁾ This act provided for seven trustees, naming James I. Beatty and James R. Ward inaddition to the five original trustees listed above in the deed. The act also provided for the annual election of trustees by stockholders in the Academy and by parents or guardians of the Academy scholars. One thousand shares of capital stock valued at a dollar each were issued and all transfers of stock had to be recorded with the trustees. Only stock that was held more than two months prior to the election would entitle a vote. The number of votes per share varied according to a sliding scale: from one to five shares entitled one vote each; shares six to ten entitled one vote per two shares; more than ten shares entitled one vote per five shares. Annual elections were held under the supervision of two justices of the peace starting on the first Monday of May beginning in 1836. The requirement for two magistrates was removed in 1850 by an act of the General Assembly of Maryland when the trustees petitioned on the grounds that it was too difficult to secure the services of two justices.⁽¹¹⁾ Thereafter, any two citizens selected by the trustees could supervise the election.

The fundamental principle upon which the Academy was founded was that it be "maintained forever upon the most liberal plan, for the benefit of youth of every religious denomination, who shall be freely admitted to equal privileges and advantages of education, without requiring or enforcing any religious or civil test, or urging their attendance upon any particular plan of religious worship or service, other than that they may have been educated in." This ecumenical principle is reinforced by the stipulations that no preference will be given in the selection of faculty or staff based upon religious profession and that not more than two of the trustees may belong to the same denomination of Christians.