The Jumonville Campus was initially the site of the Pa. Soldiers' Orphan School, which operated here from 1875 to 1908. The Reverend Asa Harris Waters, a Lutheran minister and founder of the orphan school, organized it in 1866 in the old Madison College buildings in Uniontown. He envisioned the school on this mountaintop, purchased the land in April 1871, erected the buildings, and led it until 1890. His son, the Reverend John Armstrong Waters, succeeded him as superintendent for the remaining eighteen years, from 1890 to 1908.