Albion Academy

Albion Academy (1878-1933), a school for black elementary and high school students, founded by the Presbyterian Board o'f Missions for Freedmen, and State Colored Normal School at Franklinton, Franklin County, N.C. was once known to be one of the best black high schools.
“The Albion Academy was designed to prepare young men and women to be teachers in schools intended for the instruction of colored people in the Southern States.
“It was organized by the late Rev. Moses A. Hopkins, its first principal, and aided by his Presbyterian friends North and South."
“Like all schools, at its commencement, it had many obstacles to fight. But by prayer, and the indefatigable energy and push of its founder, it grew gradually until it attracted the public in such a way, that the State of North Carolina, feeling the need of having intelligent, warmhearted citizens who will exercise their right of suffrage intelligently, and for the good of their country, the elevation of the race, and the glory of God, established six Normals, and located one at Franklinton, in connection with the Albion Academy.”
Founded in 1878, this school was established by the State Board of Education by an act of Legislature in 1881.

Dr. Moses Aaron Hopkins, a black Virginian, educated at the College and Theological Seminary of Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, came to Franklinton in 1878 as an educator and minister. His school, the Albion Academy~ was funded by the Presbyterian Board of Missions for Freedmen and opened in that same year. - The Academy was one of several such schools funded by the Board of Missions throughout Virginia and North Carolina as part of their humanitarian effort to provide necessary training to freed slaves.
The headquarter of the Board of Missions was Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Dr. Hopkins served as the principal of the Albion Academy until 1885 when he was appointed the United States Minister and Consul to Liberia in Africa where he died of a contracted fever in 1886.
Dr. John A. Savage was the next appointed principal of the Albion Academy, arriving in Franklinton around 1895..
Savage was born in Louisiana,. but grew up in Africa with his missionary parents. He returned to America to be educated and as did Hopkins, received his college degree from Lincoln University.
Dr. Savage served as a highly capable and dynamic leader of the Academy until his death in 1933, shortly after which the school closed its doors to students.

The Albion Academy first opened on the corner of College and Main Streets, but soon relocated east of the railroad tracks on College Street. From a small tract of land and only a few frame classroom and dormitory buildings, the school grew rapidly to accommodate some 500 students at its peak. By 1924 the Academy one some 60 acres on which stood a large frame classroom with a central tower; a brick dormitory for boys and a frame dormitory for' girls; teachers cottages; a brick dining hall and laundry; an infirmary; the principal' home and several barns. Of this extensive facility, only the dining hall and the principal home remain today.

Students at the Academy came from all over North Carolina and some neighboring states. They attended classes from elementary through high school grades that prepared the students to be teachers, farmers, nurses, and mechanics as well as other vocational skills.

The Albion Academy was the first "community" to generate its own running water in the county before 1900. The students developed a ram system from a natural spring on the Academy grounds, drawing water into the various buildings. Electricity was provided through underground wires. Following Dr. Hopkins death in 1886, the Albion Academy was operated by some of his associates until Dr. Savage Was appointed principal circa 1895.

The State of North Carolina began to assist the Board of Missions in funding the school when the Academy was chartered as a Normal School .in 1881 along with four other schools in the state. The Albion Academy in Franklinton, and the other Normal Schools in New Bern, Plymouth and Salisbury were given $500 annually from 1881 to 1887 when the amount Has increased to $1500.00 annually.

Dr. John Savage was the main promoter and force of the Albion Academy. It was through his efforts that the school grew to be such a large and well-equipped facility. Dr. Savage's motto to his students Has "Make money, save money, and behave yourselves."

When the State Department of Education began to accredit schools in the 1920's, the Albion Academy High school received an 'A' rating. Upon Dr. Savages death in 1933, Reverend John Percy Mangrum became the principal of the Albion Academy. The school was assimilated into the Franklinton Public School system in 1933-1934, but when water pipes burst in the winter of 1934, the school board refused to repair the damage. The city voted to construct a new school - the B.F. Person Albion School - which is today the Franklinton Elementary School, leaving the Albion Academy to deteriorate and be ravaged by fire and vandalism until there are only two buildings remaining.

Dr. Savage;s house is still owned by his daughter, Carrie Savage Hawkins, and is rented as a duplex while the former dining hall/laundry is owned and used by the Holiness Trinity Church.

The struggle to provide education for the freed blacks in North Carolina after the Civil War was hindered by lack of support for new legislation to provide such education, lack of money and lack of qualified black teachers. Long-held beliefs among the white population maintained that blacks should not and could not be educated. This basic racist premise, combined with the total, war-time depletion of monies from the state coffers, created serious stumbling blocks against the movement to write the needed legislation to provide equal public education for blacks and whites.

The lack of qualified black teachers was a major problem not only because there were not enough to staff schoolrooms, but also because black leaders believed that white teachers with black pupils would try to continue the doctrine that blacks were inferior to whites. This need for more black teachers was an issue supported by Governor Zebulon Baird Vance in 1877-1879 and again by Governor Thomas J. Jarvis 1881-1885, resulting in the increased expenditures for State Normal Schools in 1881, one of which was the Albion Academy.

The Albion Academy provided excellent training and education for black students in North Carolina and the surrounding states. It is unfortunate that in the process of trying to transfer the responsibility for such schools from the private organizations that founded them to the states, many of the schools were lost.

Source: https://files.nc.gov/ncdcr/nr/FK0025.pdf