Anthony Bolmar 1797-1861

Jean Claude Antoine Brunin De Bolmar (name in full) was born at Bourbon Lancy, a small town of France, department of Saone-et-Loire, in lower Burgundy. He served six years of military service then he re-entered civil life in 1826. He traveled to Switzerland, England, Scotland, and then to the United States, early in 1828, where he took up his residence in Philadelphia. While there he turned his attention to the business of Education, especially to the instruction of young gentlemen in the language of France.

Anthony was married in 1829 to Adelaide Williams and by that union had a family of ten children (two of whom died in infancy): Antoinette, Eleonora Martha Carey, Lucie, Sophie Picot, Antoine, Henry Carey, Charles Picot, and Lucie Marie Brunin Bolmar.

He moved his family to the Borough of West Chester when the Asiatic Cholera made its appearance in Philadelphia in 1832. While there he took charge of the West Chester Academy which sprang at once into wide popularity. In 1840 he purchased an elegant building that he opened as a boarding school for young men and boys. Mr. Bolmar's Seminary, as it was known, continued unitl 1854.

Portrait/cartes de visite - T W Taylor/West Chester, PA

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