Board members discussed their options of repairing the existing one-room brick schoolhouse or enlarging the school capacity and building a new structure. At the August 1842 board meeting, the executive committee was required to report “in writing as soon as they can, the plan of a suitable academy, on the most convenient & economical scale, sufficient to recommend [64?] boys.” The executive committee was also “authorized to contract for the ‘making’ and burning of a kiln of brick from 80,000 to 120,000 deliverable in the spring of 1843. A building committee was formed in July 1843 to “erect a new building for the use of the Leesburg Academy…not to exceed five thousand dollars.” The following September, the building committee was authorized to change the location of the academy and purchase a lot not to exceed the sum of one thousand dollars.[4] In 1844, Jane Wildman sold her interest in a lot to the academy board.[5] It can be deduced that building construction was underway in 1844 from the minutes of two 1844 board meetings. Twenty-five thousand additional bricks were to be ordered in March 1844, and the building committee was given the right in October 1844 to borrow fifteen hundred dollars to pay for furnishing the academy.[6]

The four-room Greek Revival-style schoolhouse was built to the east of the Leesburg courthouse on Market Street. Four ionic columns supporting the front-gabled roof over a full-width porch complemented the front facade of the neighboring courthouse.[7] The two-story building’s footprint measured approximately 46’x46’ with a 9/5’x45’ portico. A cellar, which in c.1856 stored radiators, was built partially below grade.[8] A second-level room, known as the hall, was used for lectures and, at least once, was the site of a party attended by Mrs. Edwards and her pupils.[9]

Over the years, improvements were made which enhanced the comfort and security of the scholars. An iron rail was erected in front of the academy and an iron fence was installed in front of the academy lot. To heat the schoolrooms, stoves were authorized for purchase in 1850, the choice of wood or coal left to the purchaser’s discretion. In 1855, the Board of Trustees authorized “a furnace for heating the Academy building through flues with registers opening in the different rooms.” Flues were historically constructed of brick and heated air was distributed to the rooms of buildings through metal pipes.[10] Seats were erected in the hall of the academy and iron seats and desks were authorized for purchase for the “west room of the academy.”[11]

When Charles H. Nourse was principal, the school was divided into a Preparatory Department and the academy proper, or high school. For eight dollars per term, preparatory students studied reading and spelling, geography, arithmetic, English grammar, history, writing, drawing (both map drawing and composition) and attended lectures on “the elements of Natural and Moral Science and Biblical Antiquities.” High school students studied English grammar, geography, ancient geography, history of the United States, universal history, arithmetic, algebra, geometry, mensuation [study of measurements], trigonometry (plain and spherical), surveying, natural philosophy and political economy, composition and declamation, Latin, and Greek. The fee was ten dollars per term for high school as far as algebra and sixteen and two-thirds dollars for mathematics, classics, or both.

The scholastic year was divided into two terms, five months each, beginning September 1^st and February 1^st. Students were released during the summer months of July and August for vacation, for one week at Christmas, and for one day at Easter and Whitsuntide [Christian holiday of Pentecost]. A few boys were able to board at the principal’s home for $75 per term.[12]

Loudoun County Clerk’s Office Building

At the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors meeting of July 15, 1873, the supervisors bought the school building and lot from the Leesburg Academy Trustees for $7,500 to be used as the county clerk’s office.[13] It was reported in the Loudoun Times-Mirror that the immediate possession was granted and that the building “was imperatively demanded by the accumulation of valuable records that now encumber the present inadequate building.”[14] The old clerk’s office building was in such disrepair that the following September the Loudoun County Board ordered the building materials to be sold, “reserving from said sale so many of the brick as may be necessary to make proper walks in the Court green and such of the stones as may be needed for stone steps in the new Clerks Office.”[15]

At some time prior to March 1886,[16] possibly after Gray’s 1878 map of Leesburg[17] was drawn, a one-story addition was built onto the back, or north face, of the building. The addition measured approximately 24’x34’. The addition may have been built as a vault for the County Clerk’s records.[18] Access to the addition in 1912 was via an iron door through the north wall of the western room of the clerk’s office. Fire insurance maps show that the east and west walls of the addition each had a window with iron shutters.[19]

Depression-Era Addition – 1934

A two-story addition was built onto the rear of the clerk’s office (encapsulating the vault) in 1934 as a depression-era public works project. The Federal Emergency Relief Act of 1933 (FERA) allocated grants to state and local agencies for work relief.[20] The Civil Works Administration (CWA) managed the program from 1933-34 by providing jobs to unemployed workers on public projects. The clerk’s office addition project was authorized by the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors on January 9, 1034.[21] Work began immediately. It was agreed that the supervising bricklayer would be paid $1.10 per hour by the county, as long as the CWA paid him the same amount.[22] Despite the quick start by the CWA, it can only be presumed that the Board was dissatisfied with the progress. In April, the Board ordered the building committee to draw up plans and specifications for the completion of the addition, and a request for bids was posted in the newspaper.[23] One month later, they “ordered that the work in Clerk’s Office and the vault annex be completed as started by the CWA using such labor as is available from those on the relief roll to be paid for by the FERA and all necessary material and other labor needed to complete the work to be paid for by the County…”[24] County employees began moving into their office space in September 1934.[25]

The footprint of the rear addition was designed to equal the width of the clerk’s office building. The new east and west addition walls contained 12/12 double-hung windows on the second level and 16/12 double-hung windows on the first level to match the existing clerk’s office building windows. The addition was considered to be of fireproof construction and had concrete floors on the first level.[26] Stone was specified for the lower floor.[27] Fireproof doors were ordered for the entrance to the fireproof rooms on the second floor.[28]

West Wing and Hyphen Addition – 1959

To meet the increased needs of the clerk’s office, a matching west wing and hyphen were added to the structure in 1959.[29] In January of that year, workmen demolished the Chamblin building on the courthouse lawn to make way for the new wing, while bids from 14 contractors were being reviewed by the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors and the architect, Albert D. Lueders, for construction the addition.[30] The Board had specified that the wing should match the original structure as closely as possible. “Residents and visitors were delighted with the symmetrical beauty of the courthouse lawn since the new matching Clerk’s Office was completed.” Only some ornamental wooden scrollwork set in the pediment of the original building was missing from its twin. Construction cost totaled $109,000, which was $11,000 less than appropriated.[31]