Images: (Top left to right) - Earliest known image of Atkinson Academy (AHS photo); rendering of Atkinson Academy seal designed by AA Preceptor, John Vose, and appearing in Harriet Webster Marr's Atkinson Academy: The Early Years; image of the restoration work on the bell tower, 2025.
(Bottom left to right) - Image by Architectural Historian James L. Garvin [31]; image of rendering appearing in Annual Report of the Town of Atkinson, Year Ending 1955.
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Atkinson Academy
A Brief History of Atkinson Academy: 1787 - 1949
“Our people have been hauling rocks from the old academy to place the new one upon.”[1]
This sentence was recorded on May 9, 1803, in the diary of Reverend Stephen Peabody, the first minister of Atkinson Congregational Church. He’s writing about the foundation being laid for Atkinson Academy, the building we know today on Academy Avenue that serves as the town’s elementary school, part of Timberlane Regional School District. This entry speaks to the spirit of community that, for over two hundred years, has rallied for one of the oldest standing coeducational institutions in the United States.
The First Atkinson Academy (1787 – 1802)
In his diary entry, Stephen Peabody speaks of “the old academy,” which was Atkinson Academy’s original building, burning down in 1802. So let’s dial back to 1787, the year that the Academy was founded by Reverend Peabody; General Nathanial Peabody, a physician and military officer and distantly related to Stephen; and Dr. William Cogswell, also a physician. In her book, Atkinson Academy: The Early Years, historian Harriet Webster Marr – who combed through Rev. Peabody’s diaries - posits that the founders and members of the community agreed that, with the Revolutionary War ending only four years earlier, “Education was the only safeguard of democracy.”[2] Literacy was key.[3]
With this philosophy, Atkinson Academy was founded to serve as a tuition-based secondary school for males with an academic rigor designed to prepare students for the New England universities.[4] The curriculum included Latin and Greek. What was the tuition? $1.00 per quarter – about $34.00 today. Peabody wrote that there was pushback by some of the townsmen, who “regarded it as a wicked plan laid to get money from them.” [5] Many of the students were not Atkinson residents and therefore paid an additional fee to board with Atkinson families.
In 1787, there were five academies in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. [6] What sets the founding of Atkinson Academy apart from these institutions is that the other five were all funded by wealthy benefactors. Eight subscribers, including the three founders, funded Atkinson Academy. At the time, the new nation was in a post-war depression.[7] Marr described the subscribers as impoverished by the war.[8] The eight subscribers formed the Academy's Board of Trustees, overseeing a preceptor, who was the teacher.[9]
Location and Design
One of the three founders, Dr. William Cogswell, donated the land for this first Academy, located at the end of Meditation Lane and Main Street and next to the John Gilbert house, today’s 105 N. Main Street. It was a one-story, frame building with a “spacious fireplace.”[10]
Incorporation - February 1791
Four years after the Academy’s founding, in February 1791, the Trustees petitioned the state legislature for incorporation. The incorporation was granted. The trustees also petitioned for a lottery and a land grant but were denied.[11] The lottery and land grant were both means of raising funds.[12]
Females Admitted - June 1791
In June of that same year, Polly Peabody, Hannah Atwood, Elizabeth Knight, and Lucy Poor were admitted to the Academy. Of the four, Polly Peabody is the most remembered in history. She was the daughter of Mary Haseltine Peabody and Reverend Stephen Peabody. With the young women’s enrollment, the Academy became the second coeducational school in the United States, the first being Leicester Academy in Leicester, Massachusetts. The young women were instructed by a preceptress.
The First Academy Burns - November 15, 1802
Fifteen years after the Academy’s founding, the Academy burned to the ground. Stephen Peabody wrote: Just before two in the morning, we were alarmed with the cry of "Fire!" and to our astonishment, found the academy all of a light inside. The people collected, but it was so far gone that nothing could be saved.[13] Instruction continued for the current term at John Gilbert’s dancing chambers next door and for the subsequent term at John Vose’s house, Vose being the current preceptor.[14]
The Challenges Preceding Rebuilding the Academy
One challenge in rebuilding the Academy was funding. In January 1803, the trustees again petitioned the State Legislature for permission for a lottery to raise $2,000 for building costs. Permission was granted, but ultimately, the lottery would fail. Another challenge was disagreement on where to rebuild. In the end, after a fair amount of wrangling, agreement on the location was reached. The Academy would be built on land donated by Mrs. Anna Knight, widow of Enoch Knight.
May 1803 – The New Atkinson Academy Constructed
And so, as Reverend Peabody recorded in his diary, on May 9, 1803, just six months after the fire, the townsmen hauled the foundation rocks from the old site to the new; and the frame raising took place on May 12th.
The construction cost of the new Academy came to $2,500. Marr writes that the low cost was due to “the freely given labor of the townspeople.”[15] Contributions totaled $400, leaving a $2,100 debt. Preceptor John Vose assumed 1/8 of the debt, Stephen Peabody 7/8.”[16] (Five years later, the trustees would again petition the State Legislature for a land grant, which they received – 13,000 acres in Coos County to be divided between Atkinson Academy and Gilmanton Academy. The idea was to sell off the “wild land,” pay the debt and make a profit. The plan failed, land in Coos County being difficult to sell.)[17]
But back to the $2,500 construction cost. From the account of the building committee, we know that $50.73 of this sum was paid to Moses Atwood for rum.”[18] Moses was only following suit. Sixteen years earlier when the first Academy was under construction, Reverend Peabody recorded in his diary, “Went over and brought them a bottle of rum in grogg [sic]…”[19] And the Reverend was still up to it in 1803: “April 11. “Went over with a bottle of rum. Gave workmen a drink.”[20]
Ebenezer Clifford, Architect (1746 – 1821)
The new Academy was 34’ x 60’ feet, two stories high, with a cupola. The building was designed by noted architect and inventor, Ebenezer Clifford, Esq., a native of Kensington, NH.[21] Clifford collaborated on many of Exeter’s late 18th century public buildings.[22] Along with fellow architect Bradbury Johnson, Clifford designed the 1794 Phillips Exeter Academy building.
Architectural historian James L. Garvin writes that Atkinson Academy, although smaller in size, almost mirrored the Phillips Exeter Academy building. [23] He points out that some modifications were made, due to “Atkinson’s lack of the large endowment that had benefitted Exeter.” One of these modifications was Atkinson’s cupola, which rises from a square tower. Exeter’s rose from an octagonal base. (The Phillips Exeter Academy building burned in 1870.) According to Garvin, Atkinson Academy is the only structure which can be documented as solely Ebenezer Clifford’s own design.[24]
As for Clifford’s fame as an inventor, it has been written that he was “an ingenious mechanic.” Clifford constructed a diving bell, from which he recovered sunken treasure off of the Isle of Shoals. Reportedly, in 1803, the same year that he designed Atkinson Academy, Clifford and a like-minded diving bell inventor, Richard Tripe, made multiple descents in a 5’9” x 5’ bell, submerging into the depths of the Piscataqua River in search of twenty tons of bar iron.[25]
The Academy’s Interior
Garvin posits that the Academy building must have been planned for one room on the first floor and one on the second.[26] He came to this conclusion based on an excerpt from Reverend Peabody’s diary, which reports that at an Academy trustees meeting, “a majority appears to be against two chimneys in the school room.”[27] Another diarist, Rev. William Bentley of Salem, Massachusetts, recorded in 1805 that “the lower part lays in one great undivided room & the stairs ascend on the south part of this room.”[28]
Atkinson Academy Serving the Town as a Private Institution (1803 – 1949)
During its 146 years as a private institution, with partitions being put up -- and taken down-- and being put up again, these rooms served, not only its Academy students, but the Atkinson community, as well.
In 1843, a portion of the Academy was partitioned off, the trustees having granted permission with the town to hold town meetings in the building.[29]
During 1878-1879, the Center School – one of the town’s five one-room schoolhouses at the time -- was in such disrepair, that the town leased space in the Academy to conduct the Center School classes, grades one through eight. (This “dilapidated” Center School was situated across from where the Atkinson Police Department is located today.) In 1879, the new Center School was constructed across the street from Atkinson Academy.
For almost a century and a half, the Atkinson Academy and Center School buildings have been across-the-street neighbors and are dual historical treasures to the community. Today, the Atkinson Historical Society is in the process of restoring the Center School, the town’s last remaining one-room schoolhouse.
In the early decades of the 20th century, the other four one-room schoolhouses were closing one-by-one, with the students being sent to the Center School. By 1929 and in the ensuing years, the town leased space in the Academy to alleviate the Center School’s overcrowding. The Center School grades were then divided into two groups: Primary and Grammar, with two teachers employed. Initially, the Primary Grades were schooled in the Academy building. Later, the Primary grades returned to the Center School and the Grammar grades went across the street.
During its tenure as a private secondary school, the Academy accepted select graduating Atkinson eighth graders. Other Atkinson students choosing to go on to high school attended Sanborn Seminary in Kingston; Haverhill (MA) High School; or Woodbury High School in Salem (NH), with the town paying the tuition on all of the above. [30]
The year 1949 is pivotal in the history of Atkinson’s schools. That year, Atkinson Academy closed, as did its across-the-street neighbor, the Center School. That September, the Rockwell School opened -- in the renovated Universalist Church/today’s Police Department -- to serve the town’s children, grades 1 through 8.
Atkinson Academy Serving the Town as a Public Institution (1956- Present)
Fast forward to September 1956, when the Academy again stepped up to serve its community. To alleviate the overcrowding of the Rockwell School, the Academy building, now owned by the town and vacant for a number of years, reopened to house grades 6 through 8. Thus began the Academy building’s new chapter as a public school.
Atkinson Academy Source Information
A note about Reverend Peabody and his diary-keeping. Reverend Peabody was the first minister of Atkinson Congregational Church and is one of the most celebrated individuals in the town’s early history. He was also a dedicated diarist. Ten of his volumes remain today in Worcester’s American Antiquarian Society and contain a wealth of information on early Atkinson, including the Academy. The volumes are not transcribed, but thanks to the exceptional research work of historian Harriet Webster Marr, invaluable excerpts about the Academy have been included in her book Atkinson Academy: The Early Years. This excellent book evidences the extent to which Marr combed through Peabody’s diaries. To Harriet Webster Marr, a debt of gratitude is owed. It is fitting to mention that Marr was a teacher at Atkinson Academy in the early 20th century.
Another trove of information about Atkinson Academy is included in Atkinson Then & Now, published by the Atkinson Historical Society and based on the collections of Atkinson native and historian Louise Noyes Barnum.
[1] Harriet Webster Marr, Atkinson Academy: The Early Years, (1940), p. 78, #2 - Atkinson academy; the early years, by Harriet Webster Marr; ... - Full View | HathiTrust Digital Library
[2] Marr, AA: The Early Years, p. 30
[3] Marr, AA: The Early Years, p. 9
[4] Atkinson Then & Now, 2nd Edition, published by the Atkinson Historical Society, 1999, p. 81; Entry was examination based (Marr, AA: The Early Years, p. 30)
[5] AT&N, p. 82
[6] Marr, AA: The Early Years, p. 7
[7] AT&N, p. 81
[8] Marr, AA: The Early Years, p.7; and AT&N, 82
[9] Marr says nine men – 5 from Atkinson. 4 from out of town. Marr, AA: The Early Years, p. 36
[10] Marr, AA: The Early Years p. 31; AT&N, p. 82
[11] Marr, AA: The Early Years, p. 35 – Petition for incorporation granted, “but neither the lottery nor the land grant was included in the act.”
[12] Harriet Webster Marr, The old New England academies founded before 1826, pp. 1-2, #18 - The old New England academies founded before 1826 - Full View | HathiTrust Digital Library
[13] AT&N, p. 84
[14] Marr, AA: The Early Years, p. 73, AT&N, p. 85
[15] Marr, AA: The Early Years, p. 81
[16] Of this, Cogswell said, “he struggled with the debit with uncomplaining heart till his death.” William Cogswell, MD, An Address Before the Alumni of Atkinson (NH) Academy, p. 14
[17] The Atkinson and Gilmanton Academy Grant – all info from Marr, AA: The Early Years, Chapter XII, beginning p. 81
[18] Cogswell Address, p. 14
[19] AT&N, p. 82
[20] Marr, AA: The Early Years, p.78
[21] AT&N, p. 86
[22] James L. Garvin, Old-Time New England, “Ebenezer Clifford, Architect and Inventor,” p. 25, Ebenezer_Clifford,_Architect_Inventor.pdf
[23] Garvin, pp. 26-27, (Phillips Exeter Academy burned in 1870.)
[24] Garvin, p. 30
[25] Garvin, p. 33
[26] Garvin, p. 3
[27] Garvin, p. 37, footnote, p. 46; and Marr, AA: The Early Years p. 78, (Diary entry: April 28, 1803)
[28] Garvin, p. 32, footnote, p. 47
[29] AT&N, p. 87
[30] AT&N p. 68 and select YE Atkinson Town Reports, Atkinson, NH Annual Reports | New Hampshire City and Town Annual Reports | University of New Hampshire
[31] Garvin, p. 32 (photo of Atkinson Academy)
Written by Sally Holmes, AHS Director, ’24-‘26, as an introduction to the May 29, 2025, presentation at the Kimball Library, “Atkinson Academy: The Story of the Bell Tower."
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