Bacon Academy - Baconian Yearbook (Colchester, CT)

Page 5 text:

KACOfflAN 1983 Zhe official yearbook of . . . Bacon Academy under construction in Colchester, Connecticut PIERPOINT BACON was born in Middletown in 1724, and moved to Colchester at the age of twenty-one. He was a poor laborer who worked building houses. After six years of saving twenty cents daily, he bought 800 acres of land in the southern section of Colchester. Pierpoint was an intelli- gent man, active in politics, yet withdrawn. He lived alone on a farm to hide a physical disability. Pierpoint needed a housekeeper, so he married. No children came out of the marriage. Pierpoint did not save his money knowing beforehand that he would donate it towards the building of a school. The idea occured to him a few months before his death. He left over $35,000 so that his name would be carried on. He requested that the school, bearing his name, be close to the church, free to all children in Colchester, and teach reading, writing, and arithmetic. Bacon Academy was built in 1803 and quickly became the best school in New England. Many of the students enrolled were tuition paying and came from all over the United States. There have been many famous alumnus of Bacon Academy: Steven Austin- founder of Texas William Buckingham and Morgan Bulkeley- former governors of Connecticut Lyman Trumbull- former governor of Illinois Edwin Morgan- former governor of New York William Larrabee- former governor of Iowa Morrison Waite- Chief of Justice of the United States Supreme Court Issac Crary- founder of the University of Michigan