The school was established by Methodists in 1838. Its Main Building was begun in 1843 and opened its doors in 1846. The Greensboro Patriot of Saturday, August 26, 1843, carried an account of the laying of the cornerstone of the Greensboro Female College the previous Saturday. The building was to be 132 feet long and 52 feet high and three stories tall, in “plain” but “durable” style. No mention was made of the architect or builders. It was expanded in sections over several years and burned in 1865. According to Davis and Sanders, A Romantic Architect in Antebellum North Carolina (28), architect Alexander Jackson Davis was asked to provide a design for the school in 1851, but it is not known if such was executed; the Italianate side additions may reflect Davis’s designs. Methodist minister N. H. D. Wilson was surely accurate in crediting construction to David McKnight.