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Keeping with Harris and Dunlap's desire to assure a religious oversight to the education to be provided, Reverend Henry R. Wilson, the Presbyterian pastor, was made the first acting principle of the Bellefonte Academy. Rev. Wilson was the first ordained minister in the Bellefonte area.
Rev Wilson was succeeded in 1810 by his successor in the pastorate, Rev. James Linn.
Rev. Linn married Jane Harris, the daughter of James Harris and lived in what is now known as Burnham Place. The house, located south of Willowbank Street along the Logan Branch, was built by Rev. Linn's father-in-law and given to Jane and him as a wedding gift. One of the Academy students would daily carry fire from the mansion house to the Academy for lighting fires in the hearths throughout the building.
By 1815 the number of students had so largely increased that Thomas Chamberlain was engaged as principal and Mr. Linn was selected as president of the board of trustees. Notwithstanding the many obligations of his church work and the burdens which naturally fell upon him as one of the prominent citizens of a rapidly growing community, James Linn time and again took up the work of instruction at the academy and many times acted as principal when the regular occupants of the office were disqualified by illness, or when the institution was unable to secure teachers.
For over half a century Rev. Linn gave his services unsparingly for the benefit of education and the Bellefonte Academy.
Most of the early teachers at the Academy were Presbyterian. This should not suggest that the Academy was controlled by the Presbyterian Church, but rather an indication of the Presbyterian influence in early Central Pennsylvania.
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