The Academy started in the fall of 1852 in a building on the location now occupied by the school parking lot.

[7] In the early 1900s, Barton Academy ranked eighth among all high schools, public and private, in Vermont.

[8] The Academy closed in 1967, replaced by the Lake Region Union High School.

The former building, with the name, "Barton Academy and Graded School", carved on a 4.5 short tons (4.1 t) granite slab over the entryway,[7] is used as an elementary school.

[7] Architectural historians Glenn Andres and Curtis Johnson commented that the school had a "finely proportioned central pavilion with quoina and a broken pediment, and a Palladian porch that screens a recessed entrance.." and "There is a finesse and logic to the composition that makes this village school more than a pastiche of derivative details, perhaps indicative of industrial Barton's commercial ties to major centers of taste.