Cheshire Academy - Rolling Stone Yearbook (Cheshire, CT)

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“Such are the animating considerations to unite the hearts and strengthen the hands of those who have engaged in the work on which we have now assembled. Let them not be discouraged by any difficulties that may be thrown in their way,. but persevere to the end, resting assured that they will meet the approbation of every liberal and candid mind. Let them look forward unto the distant good they are about to promote,—the services they are rendering to society and re- ligion. And may the blessing of God succeed their undertaking; may His grace and Holy Spirit be our guide in the remaining parts of this solemnity, that de- cency and order may pervade our proceedings, and that this day furnish a useful lesson of instruction to all who are present—grateful to their memories and lasting as their lives.”’ The Constitution adopted was certainly a liberal one for the times. One article says that ‘‘Female Education may be attended to under this institution by such instructors and under such regulations as the Trustees shall direct,’’ and another article says, ‘‘No Laws of the Academy shall compel the students to attend public worship but at such place or places as their respective parents or guardians shall direct.”’ , Only thirteen of the thirty Cheshire men who gave their money for this Academy were Episcopalians. The first building, Bowden Hall, was completed in the autumn of 1796, at a cost of 702 Pounds, ‘‘lawful money.’ The first session opened at once with encouraging prospects. Dr. Bowden moved from Stratford to Cheshire and brought with him almost all the pupils who had attended his ‘‘academy”’ in Stratford. An average yearly enrollment of sixty students was reached and maintained. A liberal course of study was established such as ‘‘the English Language, Philosophy, Mathematics, and every other science taught at Colleges; likewise the dead languages, such as Greek and Latin. And whenever the finan- ces of the Academy will admit, the Trustees sha ll procure an instructor in the French Language, purchase a Library and Philosophical Apparatus, at their own discretion.’ After several petitions to the General Assembly to raise an endowment by means of a lottery had been rejected, the Legislature, in October, 1802, granted a lottery to raise the sum of $15,000. In April, 1802, Dr. Bowden had left the Academy to become a professor in Columbia College where he remained until his death on July 31, 1817. He was succeeded by the Rev. William Smith who, in 1805, witnessed the incorporation of the Academy by the Legislature of the State of Connecticut. Between 1810 and 1823, in accordance with the original intention of Bish- op Seabury, various attempts were made to secure for the Academy the power to confer degrees. In the latter year these attempts were abandoned when Trinity College, then called Washington, was granted a college charter. ‘This does not indicate that there was an active rivalry between the two institutions. On the contrary, there was a close connection between them. An alumnus of the Academy was one of the founders of Trinity College and afterward served as President there, and from the outset the two institutions shared members of the Boards of Trustees to the number of nine, while nine presidents of Trinity were either trustees, principals, or instructors in the Academy, and fourteen pro- fessors in the college were connected with the Academy, to say nothing of the many alumni of Trinity who had associations with the Episcopal Academy. The third Principal of the Academy was the Rev. Dr. Tillotson Bronson, for whom the second oldest building on the campus, (not built until 1866), was named. It was during his principalship that young ladies were admitted to the Academy. This was from 1806 to 1836, at which later date the Con- stitution was changed, making the school exclusively a boys’ school. However, during those thirty years of coeducation at Cheshire, over one hundred girls from

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A History of the Cheshire Academy (Compiled from various sources by CALEB G. SHIPLEY) For nearly a hundred and fifty years, the educational institution at Cheshire has maintained an honorable record and has rendered valuable service to the cause of education. ‘Throughout the Nineteenth Century, and now well into the ‘I’wentieth, its roll of graduates includes names famous in history, politics, education, finance, and society. It has drawn students from many foreign coun- tries, Argentina, Chile, and Venezuela, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Panama: and from the continent of Europe, students from Holland, Germany, Hungary, Rus- sia, Latvia, Spain, and France. There have also been students from England and from China. One might say that the school at Cheshire, in one of its sev- eral forms since 1796, is known all over the civilized world. k Samuel Seabury, the first Episcopal Bishop in America, from his ordination in 1785, had cherished the design of establishing in his diocese an Episcopal col- lege or school. In 1792 he presented a plan for such an institution to the Con- vocation of the Episcopal Clergy, held at East Haddam, Conn., on the 15th of February. Two years later, 1794, the next Convocation (or Convention), taking hold of the matter in earnest, appointed a committee to push the proposal forward. The Bishop and the Episcopal Clergy of Connect icut might have been urged to the establishment of an institution of their own by the illiberal policy of the Corporation of Yale College. While most of the clergy were grad- uates of this institution, extreme caution had been used by the Trustees to pre- vent the admission of anyone as an instructor in the College who should be sus- pected of “‘inclining to Armenian or prelatic principles.’’ In other words, their attitude toward the Episcopal Church was hostile. The Episcopal Clergy loved the church more than they loved their Alma Mater, and they were anxious to increase the number of candidates for Holy Orders without lowering the standard of theological attainments. They sought to effect their object by establishing an institution which should serve the double purpose of a preparatory school and a university. Bishop Seabury was a scholar himself and would have his clergy scholars. He wished them educated upon Church principles that they might be able to contend for Church principles. At the Convention held in Stratford, June 3, 1795, it was therefore decided to establish an Episcopal Academy in this State upon the receipt of proposals for establishing and supporting an Academy from the towns of Wallingford and Cheshire. Proposals were subsequently limited to these two towns and to Strat- ford. This was the last Convention over which Bishop Seabury presided. He died soon afterward and consequently never had the satisfaction of witnessing the completion and adoption of the plan which he had so long urged. The work was taken up by the Rev. John Bowden, a man of sound learning and superior wisdom, who had returned in 1791 from the island of Ste. Croix, where he had gone for his health, and established his residence in Stratford where he ‘‘managed an academy.”’ At the annual Convention in Cheshire, June 1, 1796, a constitution was adopted, a board of twenty-one Trustees was elected, and Dr. Bowden was un- animously chosen the first Principal. This followed the proposition from Ches- hire as to the establishment of an Academy and the opening of a school by the Rev. Tillotson Bronson, pursuant to the wishes of the Convention, in a small building that stood opposite the residence of Dr. Elnathan Beach. The corner- stone of the Academy had been laid with Masonic honors on April 28, 1796, and the Rev. Reuben Ives, who was mainly responsible for securing the Academy for Cheshire, delivered an address in the Church. His concluding remarks were:

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Cheshire and other towns in Connecticut and New York attended the Academy. Between 1826 and 1836, the Academy suffered a decline, often referred to as “‘the dark age of the Academy.’’ There were three principals during that period. All the principals were clergymen and many of them also served as rectors of St. Peter’s Church in Cheshire. This distribution of time and effort naturally hurt the Academy and this custom was finally abandoned. With the Rev. Allen Morgan the institution began a renaissance which continued under the Rev. Dr. E. E. Beardsley, who introduced the boarding school system in 1838, and rose to great heights under the Rev. Sanford J. Horton, who became the Principal in 1862. Dr. Horton brought a number of students with him from Windham, Conn., and established at once a military regime which was at the time a great drawing card. The military aspect of the school continued for the next forty years. The school grew and prospered greatly during the thirty years that Dr. Horton was Principal. When the building that was used as a dormitory and Dr. Horton’s home was burned in 1873, he raised funds and built, in 1874, the building which was given the name of Horton Hall. This dormitory and administration building was in its turn destroyed by fire on the night of January 8, 1941. In 1892 Dr. Horton resigned to be succeeded for four years by the Rev. James Stoddard. Then in 1896, Professor Eri D. Woodbury, long an able helper to Dr. Horton, became the last Principal of the Episcopal Academy, end- ing his term in 1903. At that time the Trustees of the Diocese of Connecticut leased the school for ninety-nine years to the Trustees of the Cheshire School, Inc. The buildings were entirely renovated and the school placed on a thor- oughly modern basis. In 1917 the Cheshire School gave way to the Roxbury School, a tutoring organization which flourished until 1925 and which, in turn, began to expand and return to the traditional lines of the past. The link with the past was made secure when, on April 29, 1937, the former Roxbury School was granted a charter by a Special Assembly in Hartford, Conn., and the school at Cheshire became the Cheshire Academy. The present headmaster of the Academy, Mr. Arthur N. Sheriff, became the headmaster of the Roxbury School in 1922 upon the retirement of Mr. Walter L. Ferris on account of illness. Mr. Sheriff has seen the Academy through its various phases of aligning the old with the new and continuing the policies which have made the school at Cheshire one of the great and historic educational institutions of the nation.