The Cotton Hill Male and Female Seminary, already in existence before its incorporation by an act of the legislature on March 6, 1856, became one of the South’s leading educational institutions. Professor Norman Flavius Cooledge, uncle of President Calvin Coolidge, had come to Georgia for the climate and became president of the seminary in 1854, remaining until 1862, when 103 male students joined the Army of the Confederacy. Discouraged, Cooledge left teaching for business, and the school’s glory vanished.