Brooklyn Female Academy

The Packer Collegiate Institute was incorporated in 1845 as the Brooklyn Female Academy, an institution devoted solely to female education. The Academy opened in 1846 in a building on Joralemon Street between Court and Clinton Streets in the present-day neighborhood of Brooklyn Heights. While it enjoyed consistently increasing enrollment over the years, the Academy was destroyed by fire on January 1, 1853.

Shortly after the Academy's destruction, Harriet Putnam Packer, widow of one of the Academy's trustees, William S. Packer, donated $65,000 toward the building of a new school, with the only stipulation being that it be named in honor of her late husband. In November of 1854, the Packer Collegiate Institute opened on the site of its forebear institution in a building designed in the Gothic Revival style by noted architect Minard LeFever.

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