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Founded in the mid 1840’s, the Ewing Institute was a girl’s school founded by Professor Thomas S. Ewing. After holding classes in several different buildings, in 1856, Thomas Ewing decided to build his own building to house the school. Ewing died before the building was completed. Samuel Ewing finished the school building. The newly completed school had five rooms and two main hallways, which was furnished with poplar wood. Two thirty by thirty school rooms were furnished with oak school desks for the students and tables on platforms for the teachers. The yard, which was surrounded by a rail fence, provided 210 square feet for outdoor activities.
When Ewing died, Sarah Fulton became the principal. Professors M. H. Thompson, L. F. Bristol, and Sarah Fulton created an academic program that attracted female students from the surrounding central Kentucky area. When the doors to the school opened in 1856, the school had seventy-five girls. Tuition cost $14 to $32 per session, unless a student elected to take lessons in needlework, piano, pastel drawing, or ornamental leatherwork, which cost extra.
In 1858, the school’s board of trustees decided to change their board to reflect a religious backing and replaced trustees with members of the local churches. Originally the trustees were local residents, including doctors, farmers, and businessmen, but in early 1858, many of the original trustees were replaced with religious leaders such as Samuel Crawford, M. A. Camp, and William Armstrong from the Presbyterian Church; James Tucker, John Todlock, and James Mitchell from the Methodist Church; Daniel Buckner from the Baptist Church and John Bailey and William T. Latimer from the Reform Church. By the early 1860’s, fifteen trustees ran the school.
By September of 1862, two Confederate armies under Confederate General Braxton Bragg, commander of the Army of Mississippi, and Confederate General Edmund Kirby Smith, commander of the Army of East Tennessee, had invaded the state of Kentucky. Smith took Lexington and Frankfort. Bragg headed for Louisville, but stopped short of his goal at Bardstown, Kentucky. On September 28, Bragg headed for Danville, where future Confederate Governor Richard Hawes awaited his arrival. Once Hawes and Bragg joined together, they both would ride to Frankfort, where Bragg would install Hawes as governor. But Bragg would stop in Lexington to meet with Smith and persuade him to join forces. On his way to Lexington, Bragg passed through Perryville. While in Perryville, he stopped by the Ewing Institute and the girls serenaded Bragg and his staff and later he and his staff dined with “a widow lady in moderate but comfortable circumstances.” The conversation turned to the Civil War. The hostess asked “Do you think, General I can dig up my silver mugs and spoons now?” Bragg replied yes and that he assured her that she could do so, since the danger of Federal occupation had passed. After eating Bragg and his entourage rode onto Danville. Of course, Bragg could not have been more wrong in his assessment. Ten days later, on October 8, 1862, the largest battle in the state of Kentucky would occur. In just five hours, 1,422 men were killed on both sides, with over 2,600 Confederates being wounded and over 2,800 Union soldiers wounded. The death toll would increase days later, weeks later and months later as infections and sickness took their toll on the wounded, which eventually led to 2,400 deaths. Two days after the battle, the Ewing Institute was full of Union wounded soldiers. When the school was used as a Union field hospital, the wounded and dying physically took a toll on the building. Local housekeeper Harriett Sandifer wrote that “the soldiers used it as a hospital and they tore it up very much.” The posts and rails that made up the schools fence that surrounded the property was torn out and used as firewood. Sandifer stated that the Union troops “never left a rail or plank.” Soldiers tore out the plaster from the walls, and partitions, destroyed stoves, smashed windows and shutters, removed doors from their hinges, soiled paint, and piled the desks in the yard and used them for firewood or for other purposes. Perryville farmer and businessman C. T. Armstrong observed that the desks were pushed together to construct makeshift bunks for the wounded. He also stated that the school “was more or less abused.” Local residents Harriett Sandifer, C. T. Armstrong, and town merchant William Huston Parks all stated that the Ewing Institute served as a field hospital until April of 1863. That’s a shocking six months after the battle.
After the Civil War, the Ewing Institute suffered economically and had to sell off part of their property to make repairs and make ends meet since enrollment had declined during the war. Fortunately the school did survive and by the 1880’s and 1890’s the enrollment numbers rose when they opened their doors to male students. About 120 students attended the school led by Mr. and Mrs. H. V. Bell and a faculty of five teachers. By this time, the Institute even offered a family discount. Any family that sent three children to the school could send their fourth child for free.
In 1907, the school applied for reparations for losses incurred during the Civil War. The trustees petitioned the Federal government for money stating that the school had been taken over by Union troops and filled the school with wounded soldiers until March or April of 1863 and the Union soldiers damaged $1,000 worth of property. In February of 1908, the United States Court of Claims investigated the charges and held a hearing on the claim. The school had to claim they were loyal to the Union government during the Civil War and that the Union army alone caused the damage. The Federal courts deemed that the Ewing Institute was loyal to the government and found that the rental value of the property was $270. Attorneys representing the Ewing Institute asked the Federal government to reimburse the trustees for the occupation and other damages. They wanted $600 in rent, $189.60 for 948 feet of destroyed fencing, $100 for repainting and for replacing the faux oak graining and $200 for damage done to windows, shutters, stove, doors, and desks. The claims court did agree that the Union troops did damage the building, but asked the government only to reimburse the school for $100 in rent and $100 for the “insignificant character of the damages.”
On December 5, 1906 the U. S. Senate Bill 6831 authorized the payment of $1,000 for claim, but on August 20, 1907, the U. S Treasury Department claimed that the War Department did not have any paper work on the school. They also claimed they had no paperwork stating the school was loyal during the Civil War. So, the school was told that the petition was denied and sent back.
Even though the school may have not gotten a single dime from the Federal government for the damages incurred by the Union government, the school still flourished. One newspaper wrote that the Ewing Institute “occupies position as an institution of learning that compares favorably with the best in the State.” By 1907, the Kentucky Gazette called the school the “leading school in Kentucky.” Unfortunately the school did not last much longer into the 20th Century and closed due to public schools becoming more popular. By 1915-1916, the school was turned into the Perryville High School and by the 1920’s the building became a warehouse for coffins for a local casket maker. In 1973, the building was put on the National Register of Historic places and currently is a private residence belonging to John and Sylvia who own Chaplin River antiques, which occupies the Latimer store on Merchants Row.
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