Pingry School was founded by the Reverend John Francis Pingry, a Presbyterian minister, in Elizabeth, New Jersey in 1861 to provide both scholastic training and moral education for boys. The outbreak of the American Civil War that year caused enrollment to dry up at the Pingry Select School for Boys, an academy Pingry had founded in 1854 in Roseville. After learning that Elizabeth's only professional educator had decided to enlist in the Union Army, Pingry moved to Elizabeth where he founded the Pingry School. Although Pingry gave talks on Proverbs and used the Bible for instructional purposes, the school has never been affiliated with any church or denomination.