Deerfield Academy - History

History

Deerfield was never affiliated with a religion, but attendance at Congregationalist Church services was required of boarding students until the 1970s, and school meetings included the singing of Christian hymns.

Deerfield Academy was founded in 1786 when Massachusetts Governor Samuel Adams granted a charter to found a school in the town of Deerfield. It began to educate students in 1799. The academy quickly established itself as one of the finest schools in the new republic, drawing boys from prominent families across New England. The school produced influential men that occupied many congressional and gubernatorial seats in New England. By the end of the 19th century, the shifting trends in industrialization had left rural Deerfield behind. The economic hardships of the times impoverished local farmers and drove them away to the wealthy cities. The board of trustees was considering closing the Academy, as only nine students remained. These were the school's darkest times. With little support from local farmers and a dire economic situation, the 100-year-old school was on the brink of collapse.

In the early twentieth century, Deerfield's fortunes rose with the appointment of Frank Boyden as Headmaster. He quickly reorganized the school and provided it with a sound financial basis. He recruited students actively from local farms and towns, promising parents that their boys would be successful. Boyden had great confidence in the value of athletics as a component of education. He often played on varsity squads that lacked players. He attracted and trained many teachers who would become masters and keep long loyalties to the academy. The prestige enjoyed by the school today is a direct result of the foundations he laid over seven decades, including training scores of men as teachers and headmasters in their own right. His success would not have been possible without the support and assistance of his wife, Helen Childs Boyden. After 66 years of service, Frank Boyden retired in 1968. Boyden's long career and legacy at Deerfield are reviewed in The Headmaster (1966), by Deerfield alumnus John McPhee.

In 1989 the Academy reestablished coeducation, which Boyden had discontinued in 1948.

Eric Widmer '57 served as headmaster from 1994 to 2006. He stepped down in June 2006 and soon after assumed the position of Founding Headmaster at King's Academy in Madaba, Jordan, a school inspired in part by HM King Abdullah II's Deerfield years in the 1980s. It opened in the fall of 2007.

The current Head of School, Dr. Margarita O'Byrne Curtis H '57, previously Dean of Studies at Phillips Andover, is the first woman to hold the position.

The David H. Koch Center for Mathematics, Science, and Technology, named after David H. Koch '59, opened in 2007 and is Gold LEED certified. The building was designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill.