Pitt Academy in Greenville was first granted a charter by the North Carolina General Assembly in 1786, but there is no evidence that the school opened until 1814. That year the General Assembly granted a charter to the trustees of a school to be known as Greenville Academy. The 1814 act made no mention of any previous charter, although some historians believe that the two charters were essentially for the same school under different names. The board of trustees for the original Pitt Academy included Governor Richard Caswell and two signers of the U.S. Constitution, William Blount and Hugh Williamson. The names Robert Williams and Arthur Forbes appear as trustees of both institutions, furthering the belief that the schools were connected.
Greenville Academy was housed in a two-story frame building at Second and Greene Streets; the trustees purchased the lot on 20 Apr. 1815. In 1821 the school was reorganized and renamed Pitt Academy. In later years, it was also known as Greenville Male Academy. The academy eventually moved to a new location on Evans Street. The school closed before the end of the nineteenth century, and in 1903 the academy building was torn down to make room for a new public school.