Mt. Pleasant Military Academy is a former military school established in 1814 to provide in Ossining, New York a school of the first order, where young men might be prepared for college, or for active business life, and where the influences thrown around the students should be such as to develop courteous and manly men. The academy closed sometime in the 1920s.
Founding
Money for the establishment of the school was raised through voluntary contributions from the people of Westchester County, New York and elsewhere. The first contribution was made on November 13, 1813, and up to August, 1831, the sum of $1,083.81 had been contributed. It would seem, therefore, that almost from the start the school had been self-sustaining. The first name on the list of contributors is that of Daniel D. Tompkins, Governor of the State of New York from 1807 to 1817 and Vice President of the United States from 1817 to 1825.
It was characteristic of the man that in the midst of his herculean tasks as defender of the State during the second war with England, he could find time to devote some attention to the little school at Mount Pleasant. It is said of Tompkins that he "did more than the Federal Government for the success of the operations on the Canada–US border, pledging his personal and official credit when the New York banks refused to lend money on the security of the U.S. Treasury notes without his endorsement. He advanced the means to maintain the military school at West Point, to continue the recruiting service in Connecticut, and to pay the workmen that were employed in the manufacture of arms at Springfield". But he did not overlook the movement for better education in his native county.
19th-Century
There is scant record of the conduct of the school from 1814 to 1820, but on March 24 of that year an act was passed in the Legislature of New York, incorporating Mount Pleasant Academy and from that time on have been preserved full and complete records of the school. The worthy aims of the school are quaintly set forth in an advertisement printed in the "New York Commercial Advertiser" for April 28, 1823, over the signature of General Aaron Ward, Secretary of the Board of Trustees and one of the original incorporators of the academy. General Ward says in part: "In this Seminary the academic year will commence the 1st of May next. The Trustees, therefore, respectfully beg leave to recommend it to the public, as an institution where youth are taught, by easy graduation, from the first rudiments of knowledge to the higher classics, sufficient to qualify them for admission into any of the American colleges, and more particularly for Columbia College, in the City of New York; or prepare them for the various stages of life. The Academy is pleasantly situated on the banks of the Hudson, within 33 miles of the City of New York, in a healthy village, possessing many local advantages, among others a daily communication with the city, either by land or water; good medical advice, and the use of several churches." Even today we need add little to these quaint words except possibly to say that daily communication with the city has been replaced by an hourly train service. But the village boat still leaves its dock in the early morning, returning from the city with the lengthening shadows of evening.
In 1824 application was made to the Legislature for financing aid for the academy and an act was passed on the 17th of November of that year providing a fund which ultimately netted the school about $1,200.
On the 3rd day of April, 1827, a new charter was granted to the Academy by the Regents of the University of the State of New York and under that charter the school is directly responsible to the Department of Education of the State and is subject to the supervision of that department. The Principal is responsible to a board of trustees.
By 1830 the school had outgrown its accommodations and the trustees began to plan for greater things. The old school property was sold and the land on which the school is now located was purchased. Again subscriptions were called for and this time the sum of $3,356.10 was pledged by friends of the school. In all, then, there was raised for the school, by voluntary contributions, $4,439.91, during the ninety-six years of its existence, and there was approved by the Legislature $1,200. All other funds for improvement and development have been derived from the legitimate revenues resulting from the careful and businesslike management of the school throughout its existence of almost a century. This record is unique and is one of which any school might be proud.