Location: NC 73 (Franklin Street) at Main Street in Mount Pleasant
County: Cabarrus
Original Date Cast: 1962
In 1858, Susan E. Biglow Bittle founded the Mount Pleasant Female Seminary. A private liberal arts academy for young women, the school consisted of a two-room schoolhouse. Acquired by the North Carolina Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church the following year, the school educated students in fields such as mathematics, music, English and Latin. The majority of the headmasters were Lutheran ministers, and the school became a contemporary of the Mount Pleasant Collegiate Institute.
The school survived the Civil War, unlike many male academies in the South. According to one alumnus, it became “an island of culture in the difficult years” after the war. In 1892, the school’s name was changed to Mont Amoena, the Latin equivalent of Mount Pleasant. The school’s original building burned in November 1911, and a new three-story brick building with white columns was constructed on seven acres of land near the old site for $30,000.
In 1927, Mont Amoena closed, having provided educations for young women for over sixty-five years. Financial difficulties, combined with the improvements in public education in North Carolina, led to the closure of numerous academies across the state. Five years later, Mount Pleasant Collegiate Institute also closed its doors.
References:
Raymond Bost and Jeff L. Norris, All One Body: The Story of the North Carolina Lutheran Synod, 1803-1993 (1994)
William S. Powell, ed., Encyclopedia of North Carolina History (2006)
William S. Powell, Higher Education in North Carolina (1964)
Concord Tribune, June 10, 1962