French Camp Academy (FCA) is an interdenominational Christian boarding home and academy in French Camp, Mississippi. It is intended to serve children and teenagers who need opportunities and resources not available in their home or peer environments FCA also serves young people in their area by providing an accredited Christian education for grades 7-12. [1] The school operates several businesses in French Camp, including a bed and breakfast, a gift shop, and a restaurant. [2]
A group of Scotch-Irish Christians, under the area Presbyterian Church, established the Central Mississippi Institute for Girls in 1885. The French Camp Academy for Boys opened later in 1885. [3] In 1915 a fire destroyed the girls' school; both the schools for boys and girls combined as the French Camp Academy. In 1950 the school was reorganized under a board of trustees, which represented various Christian denominations. [3]
French Camp Academy is in French Camp, a community in central Mississippi, [4] 80 miles (130 km) south of Tupelo and 90 miles (140 km) north of Jackson. The school has a total of 900 acres (360 ha) of land. [3]
The school hosts the Rainwater Observatory and Planetarium, the largest planetary observatory in Mississippi. The observatory, with 16 telescopes, has a clear view of outer space since it is far from major cities, which are sources of light pollution. The observatory is open by appointment to members of the public. [1]
Residents of French Camp Academy in Grades K-6 attend a public school, French Camp Elementary School of the Choctaw County School District. Students in grades 7 - 12 attend French Camp Academy's campus facility. [5] [6]
Students are required to wear school uniforms, similar to many private and public schools today. High school students may attend a vocational technology program in the Choctaw Vocational Center in Ackerman. [7] [6]
French Camp operates the Council House Café, a restaurant, in a 17-foot (5.2 m) by 17-foot (5.2 m) log cabin that was built in 1820 and once served as a meeting place for Greenwood LeFlore. The school received the building as a donation in 1967. As part of a bicentennial project of students and staff, the log cabin was restored. The Council House serves sandwiches, salads, soups, bread pudding, [8] and Mississippi mud pie. [9] The school uses the restaurant as a training area for students, and the profits from the restaurant fund scholarships for students. [8]
French Camp operates a bed and breakfast hotel. In 1986 the school moved two clerestory log cabins from Eupora, Mississippi, to French Camp. The cabins, which had been constructed between 1840 and 1860, were placed together and the school established an addition between the cabins. The addition was designed to have the same historic appearance that the original cabins have. The hotel opened in March 1987. In 1990 the school restored an additional cottage, named the B & B Jr., and placed it behind the main building. Carriage House is a building of newer construction which sits on the former location of an 1880s cabin. Another cabin, the Burford Cabin, is the most newly opened accommodation building within the bed and breakfast. The Buford Cabin is accessible for handicapped people. The main building can accommodate up to eight people. The B & B Jr. can accommodate up to six people, the Burford Cabin can house up to four people, and the Carriage House can accommodate up to six people. [10]
French Camp Academy hosts the WFCA radio station, a non-profit radio station with its studios located along the Natchez Trace Parkway at Mile Marker 181. H. Richard Cannon, president of the school, conceived of the idea of the radio station while taking a mission field trip in New Guinea. [11]
The French Camp village Harvest Festival, held annually every second Saturday of October, has its proceeds benefiting the school. [1]
As of 2022 the school served close to 300 students in its home and academic programs. [1] As of 2011 about 300 children and adults live and work on the campus. [3]
Jackson is the capital of and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Mississippi. Along with Raymond, Jackson is one of two county seats for Hinds County. The city had a population of 153,701 at the 2020 census, a significant decline from 173,514, or 11.42%, since the 2010 census, representing the largest decline in population during the decade of any major U.S. city. Jackson is the anchor for the Jackson metropolitan statistical area, the largest metropolitan area located entirely in the state and the tenth-largest urban area in the Deep South. With a 2020 population of nearly 600,000, metropolitan Jackson is home to over one-fifth of Mississippi's population. The city sits on the Pearl River and is located in the greater Jackson Prairie region of Mississippi. Jackson is the only city in Mississippi with a population exceeding 100,000 people.
Choctaw County is a county located in the central part of the U.S. state of Mississippi. As of the 2020 census, the population was 8,246. Its northern border is the Big Black River, which flows southwest into the Mississippi River south of Vicksburg. The county seat is Ackerman.
Natchez is the only city in and the county seat of Adams County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 14,520 at the 2020 census. Located on the Mississippi River across from Vidalia, Louisiana, Natchez was a prominent city in the antebellum years, a center of cotton planters and Mississippi River trade.
French Camp is a town in Choctaw County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 174 at the 2010 census, down from 393 in 2000.
Clinton is a city in Hinds County, Mississippi, United States. Situated in the Jackson metropolitan area, it is the 10th most populous city in Mississippi. The population was 28,100 at the 2020 United States census.
Vicksburg is a historic city in Warren County, Mississippi, United States. It is the county seat. The population was 21,573 at the 2020 census. Located on a high bluff on the east bank of the Mississippi River across from Louisiana, Vicksburg was built by French colonists in 1719. The outpost withstood an attack from the native Natchez people. It was incorporated as Vicksburg in 1825 after Methodist missionary Newitt Vick. The area that is now Vicksburg was long occupied by the Natchez Native Americans as part of their historical territory along the Mississippi. The first Europeans who settled the area were French colonists who built Fort Saint Pierre in 1719 on the high bluffs overlooking the Yazoo River at present-day Redwood. They conducted fur trading with the Natchez and others, and started plantations. During the American Civil War, it was a key Confederate river-port, and its July 1863 surrender to Ulysses S. Grant, along with the concurrent Battle of Gettysburg, marked the turning-point of the war.
The Chickasaw Campaign of 1736, also known as the First Chickasaw War, consisted of two pitched battles by the French and allies against Chickasaw fortified villages in present-day Northeast Mississippi. Under the overall direction of the governor of Louisiana, Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, a force from Upper Louisiana attacked Ogoula Tchetoka on March 25, 1736. A second force from Lower Louisiana attacked Ackia on May 26, 1736. Both attacks were bloodily repulsed.
Mississippi State Penitentiary (MSP), also known as Parchman Farm, is a maximum-security prison farm located in the unincorporated community of Parchman in Sunflower County, Mississippi, in the Mississippi Delta region. Occupying about 28 square miles (73 km2) of land, Parchman is the only maximum security prison for men in the state of Mississippi, and is the state's oldest prison.
Rainwater Observatory and Planetarium is an educational astronomical observatory and Planetarium run as an educational ministry of French Camp Academy. It is located near French Camp, Mississippi, United States. It is the largest observatory in Mississippi with 16+ telescopes, with the largest instruments including a 32-inch Dobsonian telescope and 14-inch Celestron catadioptric telescope. Rainwater is currently awaiting delivery of the Sollee Telescope, a 25-inch research-grade telescope. When installed in the two-story observatory building already constructed in the observatory complex, the Sollee Telescope will be suitable for serious astronomical studies, in the last remaining "dark spot" in Mississippi on the U.S. Dark Skies photograph.
LeFleur's Bluff State Park is a public recreation area located on the banks of the Pearl River off Interstate 55 within the city limits of Jackson, Mississippi. The state park is home to a 50-acre (20 ha) lake, the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science, and the Mississippi Children's Museum.
The Choctaw County School District is a public school district based in Ackerman, Mississippi (USA).
Dunleith is an antebellum mansion at 84 Homochitto Street in Natchez, Mississippi. Built about 1855, it is Mississippi's only surviving example of a plantation house with a fully encircling colonnade of Greek Revival columns, a form once seen much more frequently than today. Now an inn and conference center, it was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1974. Currently the original horse stable serves as a fine dining establishment with a traditional English pub in the lower levels of the structure
Melrose is a 15,000 square feet (1,400 m2) mansion, located in Natchez, Mississippi, that is said to reflect "perfection" in its Greek Revival design. The 80-acre (320,000 m2) estate is now part of Natchez National Historical Park and is open to the public by guided tours. The house is furnished for the period just before the Civil War. Melrose was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1974.
Fort Adams is a small, river port community in Wilkinson County, Mississippi, United States, about 40 miles (64 km) south of Natchez. It is notable for having been the U.S. port of entry on the Mississippi River, before the acquisition of New Orleans; it was the site of an early fort by that name.
Anchuca, also known as the Victor Wilson House, is a historic Greek Revival house located in Vicksburg, Mississippi, United States. The name is purported to mean "happy home" in the Choctaw language.
Chamberlain-Hunt Academy was a boarding school in Port Gibson, Mississippi. The school was founded in 1830 as Oakland College and closed in 2014.
A Mississippi Landmark is a building officially nominated by the Mississippi Department of Archives and History and approved by each county's chancery clerk. The Mississippi Landmark designation is the highest form of recognition bestowed on properties by the state of Mississippi, and designated properties are protected from changes that may alter the property's historic character. Currently there are 890 designated landmarks in the state. Mississippi Landmarks are spread out between eighty-one of Mississippi's eighty-two counties; only Issaquena County has no such landmarks.
The Tunica people are a group of linguistically and culturally related Native American tribes in the Mississippi River Valley, which include the Tunica ; the Yazoo; the Koroa ; and possibly the Tioux. They first encountered Europeans in 1541 – members of the Hernando de Soto expedition.
Seven segments of the historic Natchez Trace are listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). Also there are additional NRHP-listed structures and other sites along the Natchez Trace, which served the travelers of the trace and survive from the era of its active use.
Silas Dinsmoor was an appointed U.S. Agent to the Cherokee (1794–1798) and to the Choctaw (1801–1813). He later served as a surveyor in Alabama before eventually retiring to Boone County, Kentucky, where he is buried at the Dinsmore Homestead.
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