ROUND TOP ACADEMY. Round Top Academy was located on the Ledbetter Plantation, two miles east of Round Top in Fayette County. It was organized in June 1854 and attended by children of such prosperous planter families as the Flacks, McGuires, Townsends, and Robisons, all of whom worshipped at the Presbyterian Florida Chapel. The tuition for a five-month session varied from ten to twenty dollars, and board and laundry was said to cost twelve to fifteen dollars. The basic curriculum consisted of the elementary branches, art, and advanced classes in philosophy, chemistry, algebra, and Latin; German, Spanish, and French cost an extra five dollars. Public examination day was observed with dialogues, music, speeches, and an evening celebration for the students and their parents. T. V. Erwin and Levi Tenney founded the school and ran it until 1861, when Joseph Boone became the principal and Miss M. H. Conoley the lady assistant. The school ceased to exist in 1867, and when it closed students attended Reverend Neuthard School nearby. The reasons for the closing of Round Top Academy are unknown, but may have been connected to the change in government personnel and the difficulties that Fayette County was experiencing during Reconstruction. The school land was later used as a cemetery.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Sue Watkins Grasty, ed., Our God is Marching On: A Centennial History of Bethlehem Lutheran Church, Round Top, Texas (Austin: Von Boeckmann-Jones, 1966). Frank Lotto, Fayette County: Her History and Her People (Schulenburg, Texas: Sticker Steam Press, 1902; rpt., Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981).
