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The Governor's Academy (informally known as Governor's or Govs) is a co-educational, college-preparatory day and boarding school in Byfield, Massachusetts. Established in 1763 in memory of Massachusetts governor William Dummer, Governor's is the oldest boarding school in
New England New England is a region consisting of six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the ...
. Governor's educates approximately 400 students in grades 9–12, roughly 60% of whom live on campus. Its campus covers and is north of
Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...
.


History


Foundation

In 1763, the Dummer Charity School was founded in memory of William Dummer (d. 1761), who served as the acting
governor of Massachusetts The governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is the head of government of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The governor is the chief executive, head of the state cabinet and the commander-in-chief of the commonw ...
from 1723 to 1728. A widower with no children, Dummer bequeathed his family farm in Byfield, Massachusetts to Charles Chauncy, Thomas Foxcroft, and Nathaniel Dummer with instructions to establish a "Free
Grammar School A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and other English-speaking countries, originally a Latin school, school teaching Latin, but more recently an academically oriented Se ...
." The school opened in March 1763 with 28 boys and Samuel Moody as the first preceptor (headmaster). Byfield residents attended the school for free until 1837. Governor's is the oldest boarding school in New England and the third-oldest boarding school in the United States, after Maryland's West Nottingham Academy and Pennsylvania's Linden Hall. At times, the academy has billed itself as the oldest continuously operating boarding school in the United States. However, it temporarily shut down several times, including in 1790 and 1819.


A new trend in secondary education

Dummer School was founded to prepare students for college. Although William Dummer was not a college graduate, his brother
Jeremiah Jeremiah ( – ), also called Jeremias, was one of the major prophets of the Hebrew Bible. According to Jewish tradition, Jeremiah authored the Book of Jeremiah, book that bears his name, the Books of Kings, and the Book of Lamentations, with t ...
attended
Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher lear ...
and provided important early support to Yale. William foresaw a need for college-preparatory schools in outlying areas, particularly in Essex County; most prep schools at the time were concentrated near Boston. Under Moody, two-thirds of Dummer students commuted to campus from nearby communities.Cleaveland, p. 21. However, the more historically notable aspect of Dummer School was its boarding program. For the first 15 years of Dummer School's existence, it was the only boarding school in Massachusetts. It was "the first school of its kind in America" to operate on-campus residential facilities for boarders, who comprised the remaining one-third of the student body and lived in Governor Dummer's old mansion. (Today, "Mansion House" serves as the headmaster's residence and plays a regular role in student life.) The curriculum focused on instruction in Latin, Greek, and the classics, with supplemental teaching in sacred studies, basic math, and English. Universities considered classical studies integral preparation for college until the turn of the twentieth century. From 1768 to 1790 (when Moody retired), the Dummer School educated 128 (25.5%) of Harvard's 501 graduates. The Dummer School lost its monopoly on both Essex County and Massachusetts in 1778, when Dummer alumnus Samuel Phillips founded Phillips Academy in Andover. The Phillips Academy historian wrote that Phillips wanted to found a more distinctly sectarian (
Calvinist Reformed Christianity, also called Calvinism, is a major branch of Protestantism that began during the 16th-century Protestant Reformation. In the modern day, it is largely represented by the Continental Reformed Protestantism, Continenta ...
) institution, in contrast to Dummer, where religion was not "a central part" of student life. In October 1782, the school received a corporate charter, which renamed the institution to Dummer Academy. (The academy formally adopted the name Governor Dummer Academy in 1950.) During the early republican era, the term "academy" typically signaled an institution's intention to broaden the academic curriculum beyond Latin and Greek. However, Dummer Academy did not formally establish a non-classical course of study until 1837, and the director of the "English Department" resigned in 1842.


Development

To help raise money, an alumni association was established in 1822. Henry Durant (p. 1849–52) ran the school for two (according to the school historian, unsuccessful) years, after which he moved to California and founded the
University of California The University of California (UC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university, research university system in the U.S. state of California. Headquartered in Oakland, California, Oakland, the system is co ...
. By the time of the school's centennial in 1863, the Dummer Academy had grown into a well known 19th-century prep school that catered mostly to children from affluent families who aspired to the
Ivy League The Ivy League is an American collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference of eight Private university, private Research university, research universities in the Northeastern United States. It participates in the National Collegia ...
. By the turn of the 20th century, however, the school had fallen on hard times, with enrollment and income down, as the school struggled under the shadow of Andover and
Exeter Exeter ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and the county town of Devon in South West England. It is situated on the River Exe, approximately northeast of Plymouth and southwest of Bristol. In Roman Britain, Exeter w ...
, and other schools that had grown to become very well known and prestigious. In 1908, Dr. Charles Ingham became headmaster and launched great efforts to revive the academy. As a result, Dummer Academy became stabilized and began to again thrive as a premier New England prep school that sent over a third of its graduates to Ivy League colleges during that period. Upon Dr. Ingham's retirement in 1930, Edward "Ted" Eames became headmaster, a post he held for 30 years. With limited exceptions, the school educated only boys until 1972. In December 2005, the board of trustees voted to change the business name of the academy to The Governor's Academy (its legal name remains Governor Dummer Academy). A marketing company had found that the name "Dummer" was deterring prospective students from applying. According to the ''
Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...
'', the school's name was frequently "fodder for all manner of insulting puns." Some students and alumni resisted the change, questioning why the academy should let "shallow" teenage jokes supersede tradition. From 2017 to 2024, Governor's has been conducting a large-scale fundraising campaign, which seeks to raise $100 million, including $23 million to support financial aid.


Notable alumni

* Wentworth Cheswell (1765), the first African American elected to public office in the United States * Theophilus Parsons (1765), Chief Justice of Massachusetts * Eliphalet Pearson (1769), first headmaster of Phillips Academy Andover, interim President of Harvard University, 1804-1806 * Samuel Phillips, Jr. (1771), founder of Phillips Andover * Samuel Tenney, scholar, judge, physician/surgeon who treated wounded at the Battle of Bunker Hill, attached to the 1st Rhode Island Regiment, encamped at Valley Forge, PA, designated acting Surgeon General of the Army by General Washington, delegate to New Hampshire's Constitutional Convention, U.S. congressman * Samuel Sewall (congressman) (1772), U.S. congressman, Chief Justice of Massachusetts * Rufus King (1773) delegate to Constitutional Convention, United States Senator and 1816 Federalist candidate for President * Samuel Osgood (1776), first U.S. Postmaster, Speaker New York State Assembly; first President, City Bank of New York * Edward Preble (1776), U.S. Naval officer during Revolutionary War and thereafter, commanded USS ''Constitution'' during war with Barbary Pirates * Tobias Lear (1779), personal secretary to George Washington * Benjamin Pickman, Jr. (1780), Massachusetts state legislator, U.S. congressman *Sir
David Ochterlony Major-General Sir David Ochterlony, 1st Baronet, GCB (12 February 1758 – 14 July 1825) was a Bengal Army officer who served as the British resident to the Mughal court at Delhi. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, he spent most of his life on ...
, American "Tory" officer in the British Army who served in India from 1777 until his death in 1825, rising to the rank of general while helping to consolidate British colonial rule there * Joseph Willard, President of Harvard University (1781–1804) * Samuel Webber, President of Harvard University (1806–1810) * Parker Cleaveland (1795), professor of mineralogy at Bowdoin College, leading early American authority on this subject, known as the "Father of American Mineralogy" * Frederick W. Lander, Brig. Gen. USA, killed in action during the Civil War * Reuben D. Mussey, Jr. (1846), Brig. Gen. USA, later private secretary to President Andrew Johnson, professor at Howard University Law School; he married Ellen Spencer Mussey, who became one of the first female attorneys in the District of Columbia and who was leading suffragist. She also became a founder of the Washington College of Law. * John W. Candler, member of Congress from Massachusetts during the 1880s * Benjamin Perley Poore, journalist, newspaper editor and founder of the Gridiron Club * Yu Kil-chun, Korean reformist and the first Korean to study in the West, entered the school in 1884 * Frank Crowe (1901), civil engineer and dam builder ( Hoover Dam, Shasta Dam) * William Summer Johnson (1932), professor of chemistry at Stanford who was awarded the
National Medal of Science The National Medal of Science is an honor bestowed by the President of the United States to individuals in science and engineering who have made important contributions to the advancement of knowledge in the fields of behavioral science, behavior ...
* Benjamin A. Smith II (1935), U.S. senator from Massachusetts, 1960–62 * Joe Hoague (1937), professional football player, Pittsburgh Steelers * Ted Bergmann, American TV and film producer and screenwriter * Niles Perkins (1938), athlete and physician * Dodge Morgan (1950), the first American to sail solo around the globe with no stops (1986) * Michael Stonebraker (1961) Receiver of the ACM Turing Award also referred to as the "Nobel Prize of Computing" * Jeb Bradley (1970), U.S. congressman, 2003–2007; New Hampshire state senator 2009- * Steve Bucknall (1985), professional basketball player, Los Angeles Lakers * Carrie Walton Penner (1988), Walton Family, Charter School Growth Fund * Dan Gadzuric (1998), professional basketball player, Golden State Warriors * Nat Baldwin (1999), bassist and singer, member of Dirty Projectors *Song, Chang-il (2000), known by his stage name Double K, a South Korean rapper * Derek Falvey (2001), Executive Vice President and Chief Baseball Officer for the Minnesota Twins of Major League Baseball (MLB) * Didit Hediprasetyo (2001), fashion designer * Benn Ferriero (2004), former professional ice hockey player for the
San Jose Sharks The San Jose Sharks are a professional ice hockey team based in San Jose, California. The Sharks compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Pacific Division (NHL), Pacific Division in the Western Conference (NHL), Western Con ...
* Robert Francois (2004), professional football player, Minnesota Vikings, Detroit Lions, Green Bay Packers, Super Bowl champion 2010-11 * Alex Carpenter (2011), Olympic women's ice hockey player * Duncan Robinson (2012), professional basketball player, Miami Heat * Jake Picking (2010), American actor * Matt Peart (2015), professional football player for the New York Giants of the NFL * Shane Smith, baseball player


References


Further reading

*


External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Governor's Academy, The 1763 establishments in the Province of Massachusetts Bay Boarding schools in Massachusetts Educational institutions established in 1763 Independent School League Newbury, Massachusetts Private boarding schools in the United States Private high schools in Massachusetts Private preparatory schools in Massachusetts Schools in Essex County, Massachusetts