LAWRENCE: Boarding school celebrates two centuries in Lawrence

By Lea Kahn, Staff Writer
When the Rev. Isaac Van Arsdale Brown accepted an offer to become the fulltime minister at the Presbyterian Church of Lawrenceville in the early 1800s, he soon realized that the minister’s salary was inadequate.
    To supplement his salary, the Rev. Brown opened a school for boys in 1810. The fledgling Maidenhead Academy’s first class consisted of nine boys, whose parents paid $600 tuition each.
    The Rev. Brown discovered that even if his new school enrolled all of the boys who lived in the village of Lawrenceville, it would not generate enough money — so he decided to accept boarding students.
    And that marked the beginning of The Lawrenceville School, which will kick off its bicentennial celebration later this year, said Jacqi Haun, who is the co-president of the Lawrence Historical Society. She is also the school archivist for The Lawrenceville School.
    Ms. Haun outlined the private, co-educational boarding school’s 200-year history before about 50 people — mostly members of the Lawrence Historical Society — at the group’s annual meeting Sunday afternoon at the Municipal Building.
    Each of the 12 principals or headmasters has made a mark on The Lawrenceville School, Ms. Haun said. The school actually was owned by each of the first three principals — the Rev. Brown, Alexander Hamilton Phillips and Samuel McClintock Hamill, she said.
    For instance, Mr. Phillips, who bought the school from the Rev. Brown in 1834, worked with the Lawrenceville Female Seminary located about a half-mile north on Main Street. But Mr. Phillips moved to Texas in 1837, following the deaths of his wife and son. He sold the school to Mr. Hamill.
    Mr. Hamill and his brother, Hugh Hamill, operated the Lawrenceville Classical and Commercial High School from 1837 to 1883. Mr. Hamill was instrumental in introducing sports — specifically, baseball — to the school, Ms. Haun said.
    And in a nod to The Lawrenceville School’s current emphasis on sustainability, Ms. Haun pointed out that the school also had its own garden under Mr. Hamill’s tenure. The school community was “living sustainably” off its own garden, she said.
    But the pivotal event in the school’s history occurred in 1883, when the John Cleve Green Foundation purchased the school from the Hamill family, Ms. Haun said. Mr. Green was one of the original students at the former Maidenhead Academy, and he had amassed a fortune as an adult. The foundation was created upon his death in 1875.
    The school was renamed The Lawrenceville School, and James Cameron Mackenzie became its first headmaster, Ms. Haun said. The campus also began to expand under Mr. Mackenzie’s leadership, she said.
    The Circle — a group of buildings surrounding a landscaped circle on campus — began to take shape in the 1880s, she said. The Circle was designed by landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, and the buildings were designed by the Boston architectural firm of Peabody and Stearns.
    Simon John McPherson, who succeeded Mr. Mackenzie as headmaster, tried to create a sense of kinship among the graduates. There was a schism between those who attended the school before it became The Lawrenceville School and those who attended it later, Ms. Haun said, and Mr. McPherson tried to bring them together as alumni.
    Mather Almon Abbott, who was named headmaster after Mr. McPherson died in 1919, also encouraged alumni participation — especially since the John Cleve Green Foundation was “running dry,” she said.
    The campus underwent another expansion under Mr. Abbott’s tenure during the 1920s and 1930s, she said. One of the highlights is The Bowl — a depressed grassy area where the graduation ceremony is held.
    But it was under Headmaster Bruce McClellan’s term that the groundwork was laid for the all-boys school to become a co-educational school, Ms. Haun said. There was a groundswell of support for it during the 1960s, but the school’s Board of Trustees did not approve admitting girls to the school until 1985.
    “It took a generational change (on the Board of Trustees),” Ms. Haun said, adding that the trustees in the 1980s had been students at The Lawrenceville School in the 1960s. The men who were trustees during the 1960s were no longer serving on the board.
    The first girls did not arrive on campus until 1987, Ms. Haun said. It was left to Headmaster Josiah Bunting III, who succeeded Mr. McClellan after his retirement in 1986, to oversee co-education. New dormitories were built to accommodate the new students, she said.
    Another burst of expansion occurred under Headmaster Michael Scott Carey, who served from 1996 to 2003, Ms. Haun said. A new library was constructed, as well as a new music center. The former library was remodeled into the Gruss Center for the Visual Arts.
    And in 2003, The Lawrenceville School welcomed its first woman headmaster, Ms. Haun said. Headmaster Elizabeth Duffy is married to John Gutman, who graduated from the school in 1979.
    Under Ms. Duffy, the school is moving toward a “needs-blind” admission policy, offering scholarships to students who cannot afford the approximately $37,000 tab for tuition, room and board, she said.