Vermont Academy | |
---|---|
Address | |
10 Long Walk , 05154 | |
Coordinates | 43°08′30″N72°30′31″W / 43.1417444°N 72.5087004°W |
Information | |
Type | Private boarding and day school |
Established | 1876 |
Head of School | Jennifer L. Zaccara |
Faculty | 50 |
Enrollment | 200 |
Campus | Rural |
Color(s) | Black and orange |
Mascot | Wildcats |
Website | www |
Vermont Academy Campus Historic District | |
Architect | Adden & Parker; Adden, Parker, Clinch & Crimp; Frank Lyman Austin; Clinton Smith |
Architectural style | Italianate, Romanesque Revival |
NRHP reference No. | 15000423 |
Added to NRHP | July 14, 2015 |
Vermont Academy (VA) is a private, co-educational, college preparatory, boarding and day school in Saxtons River, Vermont, serving students from ninth through twelfth grade, as well as postgraduates. Founded in 1876, the campus was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Vermont Academy Campus Historic District in 2015.
The resolution to establish Vermont Academy was made at the annual meeting of the Vermont Baptist State convention in Windsor, Vermont on November 10, 1869. [1] The school was to educate youth of both sexes from the Baptist community. [1]
The largest subscription (of $20,000) came from a native of Saxtons River, Charles L. Jones, who was at that time living in Cambridge, MA. The first campus building was named after him: Jones Hall still stands today. [1]
Founded in 1876 by William M. Pingry, Vermont Academy originally included a boys-only lower school, which gave "...special attention to life in the open." [2]
In 1934 Laurence G. Leavitt became headmaster and served as such for twenty-five years. Enrollment doubled and school debt was eliminated. [3]
O Vermont, we've seen your beauty,
changing with each hour and day.
We have found your hidden trout pools,
where the light and shadows play.
Swirling sparks above a campfire,
hemlocks laden down with snow.
Autumn hillsides flaming crimson,
where the sugar maples grow.
Morning mist upon the mountains,
frosty stars across the sky.
Snowy campus turned to silver,
when the moon is riding high.
O Vermont, we will not leave you,
here behind us when we part.
We will take your beauty with us,
etched forever on each heart!— Dorothy Hall Leavitt, The Vermont Academy Evening Song (1934)
What is Vermont Academy? It is fundamentally and inseparably a part of Vermont — Vermont hills and valleys; it is Mountain Day with the trees a riot of color and the steaks sizzling over the coals; it is ski tracks making patterns on smooth hillsides; it is the lovely blue pyramid of Mount Ascutney rising over the foothills; it is spring nights at the cabin and the first swimming at Bowles pond.
The Vermont Academy curriculum includes courses in Art, College Counseling, English, History, Learning Skills, Mathematics, Music, Science, and World Language (French, Latin, or Spanish). Additionally, VA is a partner with Liceo Europeo, a private school in Madrid. [5]
Home of the Wildcats, Vermont Academy athletics compete in the New England Preparatory School Athletic Council and are a member of the Lakes Region League. The school offers a wide range of sports, categorized by Fall, Spring, and Winter. Fall athletics include: crew, cross country, equestrian, mountain biking, soccer, and wilderness skills. Spring athletics include: baseball, equestrian, fly fishing, golf, lacrosse, rock climbing, and tennis. Winter athletics include: alpine, basketball, dance, freeski, hockey, nordic, skiing, and snowboarding. [6]
The school has five playing fields and two practice ones, an ice rink, six tennis courts, a thirteen-station ropes course, a mountain biking course, 20 kilometres (12 mi) of trails, and a winter sports park, including ski jumps and slopes. [7]
The Vermont Academy campus is located on the north side of Saxtons River, bounded on the south by Burk Hill Road and on the east by Pleasant Street. It is more than 31 acres (13 ha) in size, and includes buildings dating back to the school's founding in 1876. Jones Hall, now a dormitory, was its only building until 1888, when Fuller Hall, named for trustee Levi K. Fuller was built. In 1921, Alumni Hall was designed by the noted architect Frank Lyman Austin. In addition to the Wilbur Library, Vermont Academy has a number of buildings on campus. Dormitories are separated by gender, with space to accommodate just over 100 boys and 60 girls. In the 2000s, several new spaces on campus were created, including: the observatory (2003), the gymnasium and fitness center (2004), and a performing arts center (2006).
The Vermont Academy campus was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2015. [8]
Tuition for the 2023-2024 academic year is $69,500 for boarding students, and $38,000 for day students. [9]
Vermont Academy has educated numerous American politicians and military officers, including the diplomat John Barrett (1885), the ambassador Mark Palmer (1959), the judges Joseph Bogdanski (1931), Fred Tarbell Field (1895), and Frank L. Fish, and three members of the House of Representatives: Henry L. Bowles, Howard A. Coffin, and Samuel B. Pettengill (1904). Frank C. Archibald, the seventh Vermont Attorney General, also graduated from the school. Frank E. Putnam, who was a lawyer and served in the Minnesota Senate, graduated from the Vermont Academy. Military officers include United States Army officers Donald E. Edwards (1955) and Bruce M. Lawlor (1966), Marine Corps officer William W. Stickney (1922), and Navy officer Joseph Metcalf III (1946).
A number of graduates have also pursued professional sports. Professional basketball players include: Bruce Brown (2016), Keron DeShields (2011), Corey Johnson (2015), Tyrique Jones (2016), Jordan Nwora (2017), Simisola Shittu (2018), and Christian Vital, who later transferred to St. Thomas More School. Brown and Nwora are the only two to have played in the National Basketball Association, with Nwora winning the 2021 NBA Finals with the Milwaukee Bucks and Brown accomplishing the feat in 2023 with the Denver Nuggets. Professional hockey players include Chloé Aurard (2018), Paul Fenton (1978), Lotti Odnoga (2018) and Blanka Škodová (2018), while Bill Torrey (1952) is a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame as an executive in the National Hockey League, as a General Manager of the New York Islanders in the 80s, winning four Stanley Cups in a row. Other notable athletes include Bert Abbey (1887) and Danny MacFayden of Major League Baseball, the skiers Rob DesLauriers (1983) and Joseph Peter Wilson, the football player Marcus Santos-Silva (2017), and Jim MacLaren (1981), a triathlete. John Henry Williams (1986), the only son of the baseball great Ted Williams, also attended the school.
Three notable founders and inventors attended Vermont Academy in the nineteenth-century, including: Paul Harris (1888), the founder of Rotary International; Russell W. Porter (1891), the founder of amateur telescope making; and Archibald Query (1900), the inventor of Marshmallow Fluff. Christopher A. Sinclair (1967), the former chief executive officer of Pepsi, also graduated from the school.
The authors George Burwell Utley, Mark W. Smith (1987), John Steptoe, and Helen M. Winslow, the orthodontist Albert H. Ketcham, the scientist Florence R. Sabin (1889), and the religious figures Bishop John Bryson Chane (1963) and missionary Clara Converse (1879), who is credited with establishing education for women in Japan, all graduated from the school.
Joe Perry (1969), the lead guitarist of the noted rock band Aerosmith, graduated from Vermont Academy.
In 2014, Brant Nelson, a math and science teacher at Vermont Academy, was charged with possession and production of child pornography, as well as interstate travel to engage in sexual acts with a minor, and interstate transportation of a minor for sexual activity. Vermont Academy fired Nelson is 2012 after receiving reports of CSAM on his computer. [10] He was later sentenced to 30 years in prison. [11]
Bellows Falls is an incorporated village located in the town of Rockingham in Windham County, Vermont, United States. The population was 2,747 at the 2020 census. Bellows Falls is home to the Green Mountain Railroad, a heritage railroad; the annual Roots on the River Festival; and the No Film Film Festival.
Rockingham is a town along the Connecticut River in Windham County, Vermont, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 4,832. Rockingham includes the incorporated villages of Bellows Falls and Saxtons River, as well as a large rural area west of Interstate 91.
Saxtons River is an incorporated village in the town of Rockingham in Windham County, Vermont, United States. The population was 479 at the 2020 census. For over a hundred years, Saxtons River has been the home of Vermont Academy, an independent secondary school. Most of the village is a historic district listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986 as Saxtons River Village Historic District.
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The Saxtons River is a 22.9-mile-long (36.9 km) river in the U.S. state of Vermont, a tributary of the Connecticut River. Its watershed covers 78 square miles (200 km2) and a range in altitude of 1,800 feet (550 m); land use is about 80% forested and 3% agricultural, and the upper river supports wild brook trout and brown trout, while Atlantic salmon occur but are usually limited to the area below Twin Falls on the lower river.
Norwich University – The Military College of Vermont is a private senior military college in Northfield, Vermont. It is the oldest private and senior military college in the United States and offers bachelor's and master's degrees on-campus and online. The university was founded in 1819 in Norwich, Vermont, as the American Literary, Scientific and Military Academy. It is the oldest of six senior military colleges and is recognized by the United States Department of Defense as the "Birthplace of ROTC".
Vermont Route 103 is a 42.036-mile-long (67.650 km) north–south state highway in southern Vermont, United States. It runs from U.S. Route 5 in Rockingham in the east to US 7 in Clarendon near Rutland in the west. The Vermont Country Store's second branch is one attraction along the route, as well as the Okemo Ski Resort in Ludlow.
Bellows Free Academy is a high school, grades 9-12, in St. Albans, Vermont, USA. BFA-St. Albans is the largest secondary school in Franklin County, Vermont. There were 987 students in attendance as of the 2014–2015 school year.
The Rockingham Meeting House, also known as Old North Meeting House and First Church in Rockingham, is a historic civic and religious building on Meeting House Road in Rockingham, Vermont, United States. The Meeting House was built between 1787 and 1801 and was originally used for both Congregational church meetings as well as civic and governmental meetings. Church services ceased in 1839 but town meetings continued to be held in it until 1869. It was restored in 1906 and has been preserved.
Vermont College of Fine Arts (VCFA) is a private graduate-level art school in Montpelier, Vermont. It offers Master's degrees in a low-residency format. Its faculty includes Pulitzer Prize finalists, National Book Award winners, Newbery Medal honorees, Guggenheim Fellowship and Fulbright Program fellows, and Ford Foundation grant recipients. The literary magazine Hunger Mountain is operated by VCFA writing faculty and students.
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The Bellows Falls Arch Bridge was a three-hinged steel through arch bridge over the Connecticut River between Bellows Falls, Vermont and North Walpole, New Hampshire. It was structurally significant as the longest arch bridge in the United States when it was completed in 1905.
Vermont Route 121 (VT 121) is a state highway in the U.S. state of Vermont. The highway runs 21.439 miles (34.503 km) from VT 11 in Londonderry east to U.S. Route 5 in the incorporated village of Bellows Falls in the town of Rockingham. VT 121 follows the Saxtons River in northern Windham County. The highway has a pair of gravel sections in the towns of Windham and Grafton.
The Bellows Falls Neighborhood Historic District encompasses a residential area of the village of Bellows Falls, Vermont. Located south of downtown Bellows Falls, the area has one of the largest concentrations of well-preserved 19th century residences in southern Vermont. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2002, and enlarged in 2007.
The Hall Covered Bridge, located in southern Rockingham, Vermont, carries Hall Bridge Road across the Saxtons River, just north of its junction with Vermont Route 121. It is a Town lattice truss bridge, built in 1982 as a replica of a circa-1867 bridge that was destroyed by an overweight truck in 1980. The bridge was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.
The Rockingham Village Historic District encompasses the traditional village center of the town of Rockingham, Vermont. Settled in the 18th century, the district, located mainly on Meeting House Road off Vermont Route 103, includes a variety of 18th and 19th-century houses, and has been little altered since a fire in 1908. It notably includes the 18th-century National Historic Landmark Rockingham Meeting House. The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2008.
The Vermont Sports Hall of Fame is an athletics hall of fame in the U.S. state of Vermont. Above all, induction "is for accomplishments in sports and recreation that generate a great source of pride to the state." Launched as a project in 2011, the Hall of Fame inducted its inaugural class on November 17, 2012. Inductees include multiple Olympic athletes and medalists, professional sports hall of fame inductees, and historical contributors from the state of Vermont or one of its colleges and universities.
Bellows Falls Canal is a canal constructed to allow boat traffic to bypass Great Falls on the Connecticut River in Bellows Falls, Vermont. It was constructed by the Bellows Falls Canal Company and was one of the first canals in the United States. It was used for transport, to power mills, and later for hydroelectric power. The Bellows Falls Downtown Historic District includes the canal.