Salem Academy, the boarding and day school for high school girls, shares its campus with Salem College near historic Old Salem in Winston-Salem. Feel the long view here: this is the oldest private school in North Carolina and the fourth-oldest boarding school in the United States. In 1772 early Moravian settlers founded the school because they believed girls deserved an education comparable to boys.
Imagine sixteen girls and women who, mostly on foot, traveled roughly 500 miles from Bethlehem in the Province of Pennsylvania to join this new community. Among them was 17-year-old Elisabeth Oesterlein, who founded and became the first teacher of what is now Salem Academy and College. There were very few girls’ schools then, especially in the South, so word spread and the school began accepting boarding students in 1802.
The institution grew through the 19th century, adding college-level courses by the 1860s, and in 1907 it became officially known as Salem Academy and College. Stand here and you can feel the layering of those centuries of education. Picture the layers of those centuries of education still shaping this Old Salem campus.