First Presbyterian Church, High Victorian Gothic, 1839
On the site where the church annex now stands
was a log school. Circa 1796 the Geneva Academy was organized and a framed
school was built. The administrators of the school were so divided over sect
(Episcopalian or Presbyterian) and level of instruction (academical or
elementary) that they had to suspend operations in 1817. The building was used
as a private school until 1825. The charter of the Geneva Academy was revived by
the Episcopalians in 1821 in a frame building behind the Episcopal Church. Their
school was the forerunner of Hobart College.
In 1878 a Gothic façade replaced the original
Greek Revival temple front. The old Greek details can still be seen along the
side walls under the cornice, but the polychromed building is distinguishably
the later High Victorian Gothic. |