Leicester Academy was a private, state chartered school in Leicester, Massachusetts.

History

Leicester Academy was founded on March 23, 1784, when the Act of Incorporation for Leicester Academy was passed by the

Massachusetts General Court The Massachusetts General Court, formally the General Court of Massachusetts, is the State legislature (United States), state legislature of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts located in the state capital of Boston. Th ...

as a private, state chartered institution. The charter issued to the Academy bears the bold signature of

John Hancock John Hancock ( – October 8, 1793) was an American Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father, merchant, statesman, and prominent Patriot (American Revolution), Patriot of the American Revolution. He was the longest-serving Presi ...

, Governor of Massachusetts; and

Samuel Adams Samuel Adams (, 1722 – October 2, 1803) was an American statesman, Political philosophy, political philosopher, and a Founding Father of the United States. He was a politician in Province of Massachusetts Bay, colonial Massachusetts, a le ...

, President of the Senate. The Academy opened on June 7, 1784 on land donated by Jewish merchant Aaron Lopez in Leicester, Massachusetts. Early trustees of the academy included Rufus Putnam (who was also one of its principal benefactors), Moses Gill, Levi Lincoln Sr., Joseph Allen, Seth Washburn, Samuel Baker, and several clergymen of the area. The purpose of Leicester Academy was to promote piety and virtue; and for the education of youth in the English, Latin, Greek, and French languages, together with writing, arithmetic and the art of speaking. The first faculty consisted of two teachers, a principal and an English preceptor. When the school opened, there were three students, two from Sturbridge and one from Leicester. By the end of the school year, the number increased to twenty, and within two years, there were seventy-five students. Shortly after it was founded, Leicester Academy became coeducational, a very unusual situation during those times. Prior to his entering law school and election to Congress, William Whitney Rice served as an English preceptor at the Academy. Because of its excellent academics, Leicester Academy attracted students from all over Massachusetts and from several other states as well. Many of its early graduates became nationally known. Among them were Samuel Crafts, who was a Congressman and Governor of Vermont;

Eli Whitney Eli Whitney Jr. (December 8, 1765January 8, 1825) was an American inventor, widely known for inventing the cotton gin in 1793, one of the key inventions of the Industrial Revolution that shaped the economy of the Antebellum South. Whitney's ...

, the famous inventor; Navy Secretary David Henshaw, and others representing every walk of life. In 1856, a compulsory education law was passed in Massachusetts, which caused Leicester and other surrounding towns to establish a public high school. This caused such a decrease in the academy's enrollment such that, in 1867, the town's high school was combined with Leicester Academy and town funds were used to support the institution. At the fourth Constitutional Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1917, an anti-aid amendment prohibited public funding of any privately owned school or college. After this amendment was ratified by vote of the people, the trustees of Leicester Academy gave up the academy and leased a building to the Town of Leicester for the high school. In 1921, the Leicester Academy became the Leicester High School because of increased costs requiring financial assistance from the town of Leicester, which made it a full public secondary school.

Notable alumni

* Thomas Hill (1837), former president of

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

* Elliott P. Joslin (1886), pioneer in the clinical use of insulin *

(1786), inventor

History

Notable alumni

Notes

Further reading