As Quakers moved westward across America at the end of the 19th century, it was customary to construct an academy to provide a site for worship and the education of their youth. Built by local men using lumber milled from trees downed in the Galveston 1900 storm, this two-story structure served as a place of worship until 1949. It also served as a school, with all grades housed on the second floor until 1914, when a two-room schoolhouse was built across the street for grades 1-8. In 1939, all grades were moved to a new brick building on present-day Spreading Oaks. In 1949, after the adjacent stone church was completed, the academy building was dismantled. The property then became and remained part of the lawn until a very large stone addition to the church was built on that site in 1998.