Woodfin – “Bingham Academy: A boys’ military school, operated by Robert Bingham, 1891–1928, moved from Mebane. “Campus was 1 mile SW.” That’s what the sign reads as you drive by, but what’s the importance of the school to deserve a historical sign? Maybe it was because it was the first school to feature a gymnasium and swimming pool built in the South expressly for school use.
Well, according to several articles about the school and its three generations of founders, the school began with William James Bingham, born in 1802 in Chapel Hill. His father, Reverend William Bingham, was a Presbyterian minister born in Ireland and educated in Scotland. The Reverend William emigrated to Wilmington in 1793 and set up a school. He also instructed briefly at UNC Chapel Hill, the country’s first public university.
Reverend William “went on to serve as principal at Hillsborough Academy and later at his own school, Mount Repose.” “When Reverend Bingham died in 1826, William James finished out the year as principal at Mount Repose and then closed the school in order to take the helm of Hillsborough Academy,” says a lostcolleges.com article. William James “remained there until 1844, when, like his father before him, he left to open what he called a select classical and mathematical school” at the Oaks, northeast of Chapel Hill.
An illness in 1855 caused William James to close the school, but in 1857, Bingham’s sons William and Robert entered into a partnership with William James, and the school reopened with double the enrollment under the name W. J. Bingham and Sons. “Although his school may have been known informally as the Bingham School, that name was not adopted until 1864,” explained the article.
According to the ncpedia.com article, “In 1863, the elder Bingham’s illness and Robert Bingham’s absence in the army obliged William Bingham the younger to take over operations.” In 1864, all three Binghams and their families moved with the school to a new location on the North Carolina Railroad east of the town of Mebane, where it became officially known as the “Bingham School.” When William incorporated his Bingham School in 1864, it became a “military and classical academy.”
William James Bingham died in 1866, leaving his sons to continue the school. Then William Bingham died in 1873 at the age of 36, leaving Robert Bingham to guide the school for the next 54 years. Those years included three fires, administration strife (most likely a power struggle over control of the school), and a long-distance move to Asheville.
Robert moved the Bingham School campus to Asheville in 1891, leaving William’s widow to operate an academy that she named the William Bingham School.
The lostcollege.com article states, “Robert made several improvements to the school, both in its buildings and curriculum.” His efforts, however, were undermined by serious family complications regarding financial interests in the school, and in 1891 he established his own Bingham School on 250 acres overlooking the French Broad River in Asheville. This incarnation of the Bingham School featured the first gymnasium and swimming pool built in the South specifically for school use. The Bingham School operated successfully until its closure in 1928, one year after Robert Bingham’s death.
There is also a historical marker about the school near Mebane, North Carolina, in Orange County. The marker is on U.S. 70, 0.3 miles west of Ashbury Boulevard, on the right when traveling west.
Reporter’s note: The websites www.lostcolleges.com/bingham-military-school and www.ncpedia.org/bingham-school were the two main sources used for this article.