James Abbott Fishburne (10 April 1850–11 November 1921), educator, was born in Waynesboro and was the son of Daniel Fishburne, a merchant, and his second wife, Margaret Lynn Guthrie Fishburne. He graduated with a B.A. from Washington College (later Washington and Lee University) in 1870, and Robert Edward Lee, the school's president, wrote a letter to Fishburne's mother commending his academic achievements. Fishburne worked as an instructor at Horner School, in Oxford, North Carolina, from 1871 to 1873. He attended Union Theological Seminary in Virginia (later Union Presbyterian Seminary), in Prince Edward County, for one semester in 1872. The following year Fishburne returned to Waynesboro as co-principal of Waynesboro High School. He taught at Abingdon Male Academy during the 1874–1875 term and served as associate principal at New Roe High School in Allen County, Kentucky, during the 1877–1878 school year.
On 15 September 1879 Fishburne opened a new high school in Waynesboro with an enrollment of thirteen boys and eleven girls. Two years later the school moved to a different building and began accepting only male students. In 1882 it became a boarding school, known as the Fishburne Home School. Its facilities consisted of Fishburne's brick residence (reportedly the first in Waynesboro with hot and cold running water) and a wooden-frame barracks that housed the uniformed cadets. In 1884 Fishburne hired the school's first commandant, a Virginia Military Institute graduate who organized a cadet corps and introduced a complete military system. The following year the institution became formally known as Fishburne Military School.
Despite the addition of military drilling and discipline, Fishburne advertised the school as preparing young men for college or practical life by offering an English, classical, and business curriculum that included courses in mathematics, science, and bookkeeping. He purposefully referred to the institution as a school rather than an academy, a term he deemed too pretentious. To promote a familial atmosphere while retaining strict discipline, teachers lived on campus and supervised students not only in the classroom and on the parade grounds but also in the barracks and at meals. For a short time during the school's early years the faculty included his nephew John Wood Fishburne, who later became a member of the House of Representatives. Although James Fishburne never served in the military, he was greatly influenced by Robert E. Lee and advocated the belief that military training was essential to intellectual development. His goal was not to create soldiers, but rather to use military structure to create scholars and men of character.
In 1890 Fishburne incorporated his school, which had grown to encompass six acres and then enrolled seventy-six cadets. Two years later the school organized baseball and football teams, and in 1913 it started a basketball program. Under Fishburne's leadership, the school became a member of the Association of Colleges and Preparatory Schools of the Southern States in 1897, and by the turn of the century it had graduated more than 500 students. After thirty-four years overseeing the school's daily operations, Fishburne retired as principal in 1913. He continued as president until his death and oversaw another act of incorporation in October 1916 that helped modernize the school's facilities. Three years later Fishburne Military School adopted an Army Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps program, and in 1921 a new Gothic-style brick barracks designed by Thomas Jasper Collins opened.
On 29 August 1882 in Oxford, North Carolina, Fishburne married Mary Hunt Amis, whom he had met while teaching there in the 1870s. They had no children. James Abbott Fishburne died at his Waynesboro home on 11 November 1921 after a long illness and was buried in Riverview Cemetery. The local newspaper reported that on his deathbed he had prayed for "his boys." Alumni prevented Fishburne Military School's closure in 1951 by purchasing the institution and beginning to operate it under the nonprofit Fishburne-Hudgins Educational Foundation, Incorporated. The school averted another threat of closure in 1976 and, in spite of the failure of other military schools in the state, continued to operate successfully in the twenty-first century. In 1984 Fishburne Military School was named to the Virginia Landmarks Register and to the National Register of Historic Places.
Sources Consulted:
Biography in Joseph Byron Yount III, "James Abbott Fishburne (1850–1921)," Augusta Historical Bulletin 8 (1972): 5–10 (portrait on 4); Yount, "History and Heritage of Fishburne Military School," Augusta Historical Bulletin 36 (2000): 7–17; school catalogs, matriculation book, and Robert E. Lee to Margaret Lynn Guthrie Fishburne, 28 June 1870, all in Fishburne Military School Archives, Waynesboro; State Corporation Commission Charter Book, 11:240–242, 93:202–203, 235:618–619, Record Group 112, Library of Virginia (LVA); marriage in Oxford [N.C.] Torchlight, 5 Sept. 1882, and Granville County Register of Deeds, North Carolina State Archives, Raleigh; Fishburne Military School monthly publication CQ (alumni ed.), 6 Apr. 1951; Waynesboro News-Virginian, 27 Oct. 1956, 28 Jan. 1984; Death Certificate, Waynesboro (with birth date), Bureau of Vital Statistics, Commonwealth of Virginia Department of Health, Record Group 36, LVA; obituaries in Richmond Times-Dispatch, 12 Nov. 1921, and Waynesboro Valley Virginian, 18 Nov. 1921 (quotation).
Engraving in Lyon Gardiner Tyler, ed., Men of Mark in Virginia (1906–1909), 2:116.
Written for the Dictionary of Virginia Biography by Tammy F. Layne.
How to cite this page:
Tammy F. Layne, "James Abbott Fishburne (1850–1921)," Dictionary of Virginia Biography, Library of Virginia (1998– ), published 2024 (http://www.lva.virginia.gov/public/dvb/bio.asp?b=Fishburne_James_Abbott, accessed [today's date]).
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