Germantown Academy

Germantown Academy, informally known as GA and originally known as the Union School, is the oldest nonsectarian day school in the United States. The school was founded on December 6, 1759, by a group of prominent Germantown citizens in the Green Tree Tavern on the Germantown Road. Germantown Academy enrolls students from pre-kindergarten to 12th grade and is located in the Philadelphia suburb of Fort Washington, having moved from its original Germantown campus in 1965. The original campus is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The school shares the oldest continuous high school football rivalry with the William Penn Charter School. The academy recently completed the first two phases of a campus rebuilding plan. Germantown Academy had an historic run of national and international level swimmers under the tutelage of Richard W. Shoulberg from the early 1970’s until his retirement in 2015. Coach Shoulberg’s swimmers still hold the majority of team and pool records at GA, many of which are more than 30 years old.

The Union School was founded on the evening of December 6, 1759, at the Green Tree Tavern on Germantown Avenue. The school was founded by prominent members of the Germantown community who wished to provide a country school for their children. As some of the founders and residents of Germantown were of German descent, it was decided that the school be opened with both English and German speaking departments. The founders chose David James Dove to head the English department and Hilarius Becker of Bernheim, Germany, to head the German school. In 1761, land was given to the school by trustee Charles Bensell, and a schoolhouse with its iconic belfry was constructed.

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