The ACADEMY OF NEWARK buildings, plain, box-like brick structures, set well back on the Academy Lot, SE. corner of Main and Academy Sts., are now used as a meeting place for local organizations, as a home for the TOWN LIBRARY. Inscriptions on old books show that Newark had a library as early as 1763. The first Academy building long since torn down, was of stone, erected in 1776 from funds raised in part in England. Of the present group, two dated from the 1840's, while the third, built in 1872 between the first two, completes a symmetrical ensemble.
When, in September 1777, it was apparent the British General Howe would march through Newark, the trustees sent the Academy funds to Wilmington for safe-keeping. However, they fell into the hands of the British at that place, along with other valuables, including the New Castle County records and President John McKinly himself. After Howe's march, the Academy building was used as a shoe factory for the Delaware militia troops. Classes were resumed in 1780, and the Academy functioned, with some vicissitudes, for over a century, closing finally in 1898, although the trustees still meet.
Notable among visitors at Newark Academy was Edgar Allan Poe, who spent a week here lecturing on poetry, shortly before his death in 1849. -Delaware: A Guide to the First State, 1938, pg. 229-230.
After serving as the town library the building was used as the Newark City Hall for a period of time. In 1976 the trustees transferred the building to the University of Delaware and it is currently is used by the University's Office of Communications and Marketing.
The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.