Buffalo Seminary - Table of Contents

History - Buffalo Seminary
205 Bidwell Parkway, Buffalo, NY

History Highlights:

1851 The Buffalo Female Academy is founded, located in Evergreen Cottage (1814) on Johnson Park, the former property of Mayor Dr. Ebenezer Johnson
1889 The name of the school is changed to The Buffalo Seminary
1894 The graduates sell the clubhouse of Johnson Park in order to build a new clubhouse on Delaware Avenue. (This becomes the Twentieth Century Club.)
1899 The Seminary is merged with the Elmwood School; The Seminary becomes an upper school only.
1909 The new facility at 205 Bidwell Parkway opens.
See also: Highlights of Buffalo History, 1909
1953 Larkin House acquired
1929 West-Chester Hall opens















Evergreen Cottage (1814) was the house built by Mayor Dr. Ebenezer Johnson. It served as the 1851 school.

In 1852, Goodell Hall, named for Jabez Goodell, and built behind Evergreen Cottage, was dedicated and became the school's home for the next 50 years.










Source: "Buffalo" (Illustrated, Published in Twelve Parts)," H. R. Page & Co., 1890.




Former location of the Buffalo Female Academy at S. Elmwood and Johnson Park






L. Gertrude Angell
Headmistress 1903-1952
Portrait hangs in Buffalo Seminary Library




2016 photo ...  Former chapter house of the Graduates Association of the Buffalo Seminary at 95 Johnson Park, the group that founded the Twentieth Century Club  ... Two details below:



2016 photo




2016 photo





Heads of The Buffalo Seminary


Buffalo Seminary and City of Light

Nearly every Buffalonian who read Lauren Belfer's City of Light knows that the Macauley School for girls is based on Buffalo Seminary on Lincoln Parkway. Buffalo Sem is the first high school for girls in Western NY and is now celebrating its 150th anniversary. It began its life in Mayor Ebenezer Johnson's mansion on what is now Johnson Park. When it was completed in 1832, Johnson's estate was the most extravagant in Western NY. It was the centerpiece of 30 acres on what was then the rural outskirts of the small city. Johnson had an artificial lake with a flock of swans, a deer park, and an orchard. Around 1850, a few years after Johnson left Buffalo, the grounds were divided into Johnson Park and Johnson Place, and the cottage became the first home of Buffalo Seminary. - Cynthia Van Ness


Special thanks to the administration for their cooperation, and especially to Nancy Miller and Gary Sutton for their assistance in 2004

and to Explore Buffalo Docent Ann Palmer in 2016


Photos and their arrangement © 2004, 2016 Chuck LaChiusa
| ...Home Page ...| ..Buffalo Architecture Index...| ..Buffalo History Index....|.. E-Mail ...| ..