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Historical Highway MarkersSyms Free SchoolW-176
Benjamin Syms, who had settled in Virginia by 1625, endowed the first free school in the colony by his will of 1635. Syms, himself illiterate, left 200 acres of land and eight milk cows to generate income for a teacher's salary, construction and maintenance of a school, and the support of poor children and disabled persons in the community. The school had opened by 1649 about a mile north of here on property that later became part of Joint Base Langley-Eustis. In 1805 the Syms Free School was combined with the nearby Eaton Charity School, which Thomas Eaton had endowed in 1659; proceeds from the sale of their land were used to establish Hampton Academy.
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References/Bibliographic Citation: Will of Benjamin Syms, courtesy of the Hampton History Museum. 1624/5 Virginia Muster A Perfect Description of Virginia (London, 1649). Helen Jones Campbell, “The Syms and Eaton Schools and Their Successor,” William and Mary Quarterly, vol. 20, no. 1 (Jan. 1940): 1-61. Thomas Wheaton, et al., Archaeological Site Survey and Testing: Langley Air Force Base, Virginia (Stone Mountain, GA, 1992). “Education in Colonial Virginia, Part III: Free Schools,” William and Mary Quarterly, vol. 6, no. 2 (Oct. 1897): 71-85. Mary Frances Armstrong, The Syms-Eaton Free School (1950). Ethel Garber, “The First Free School,” MA Thesis, University of Virginia, 1950. |