Architect Charles Platt had considerable experience planning art museums when he began the task of designing one for the academy in 1928. The Addison Gallery of American Art was designed as an elegant colonial revival temple of brick with a central portico supported by Doric columns and approached by a wide rise of steps and platform. Platt exercised his control over every detail of the building even serving on the art committee that chose the 400 works of art that were the foundation of the Addison's collection. As plans for the art museums were progressing, trustees continued to debate and disagree about its purpose. James Ropes, now president of the trustees, was certain that the building should be designed to accommodate the teaching of art. But alumnus donor Thomas Cochran and architect Charles Platt, in spite of their earlier expressions of interest in providing studio and art instruction, were equally determined that the visual integrity of the building should not be compromised.

Addison gallry of American Art, south elevation, 1930

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Founded in 1931, the Addison Gallery of American Art houses one of the world's most comprehensive collections of American art. It holds 17,000 works of art dating from the 18th century to the present. Photographs, paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings and other forms of artwork are represented here. Works by famous artists include John Singleton Copley, Thomas Eakins, Winslow Homer, Alexander Calder, and Stuart Davis. The photography collection is large, numbering 7,600 and includes pictures by Walker Evans and Robert Frank. Admission to the museum is free.

Addison Gallery of American Art, 1929-1931, at Phillips Academy

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This tour includes stops in the original Phillips Academy and Andover Theological Seminary campuses as well as Abbot Academy. Historical and cultural landmarks in the central campus and faculty row are included. 

In February 1828, several of Andover's most prominent citizens, including Samuel Farrar, treasurer of Phillips Academy, and Mark Newman, principal of Phillips Academy from 1795 to 1809, met to consider the establishment of a high school for local girls. A committee of seven men was appointed to select a suitable site, the type and cost of a suitable building, the most promising method of raising the necessary funds, and to develop a schedule for the fundraising. These men, who became Abbot's founding trustees, were part of a larger group that had been committed for some time to establishing a school for young women. The group included Phebe Phillips, wife of one of the founders of Phillips Academy, who died before Abbot became a reality; Caroline Jackson, wife of founding trustee Samuel Jackson; as well as several wives of ministers, schoolmasters, and Andover Theological Seminary faculty. They bought a lot on Main Street and erected a fence, but the site raised concern among the parents of prospective students. The mothers objected to Main Street because "Theologues and academy boys" frequently passed that way. Mark Newman donated a one-acre lot, and Sarah Abbot pledged $1,000. By the time her will was probated in 1830, she had donated more than $10,000 to Abbot Academy. Until 1863, Abbot's campus was limited to one acre. Construction began immediately, and Abbot Female Academy opened May 6, 1829 with seventy students. The course offerings were "a very liberal series of studies" that included Greek and Latin, history, geometry, algebra, theology, French, Italian, German, English literature, music, botany and mineralogy as well as access to chemistry and geology lectures at Phillips Academy. The Abbot curriculum, which came to be known as the "Academic Course," was essentially a wide-ranging and scholarly education for life. Often a woman would pursue her studies for five years, not graduating until age 22 or 23. Preparation for college was neither an issue nor even a possibility. Not until New England's colleges for women were established later in the century would a baccalaureate degree be seen as a viable alternative to the course of study that Abbot offered. Like Phillips Academy and Andover Theological Seminary, Abbot Academy had a traditional Calvinist theology at its core during the 19th century. Historian Susan Lloyd describes Abbot's foundations as "a double commitment to basic intellectual training and moral guidance, a commitment strengthened by a habit of resistance to passing fashions, and by--above all--a respect for the importance of women in American society." Indeed, for a period during the 19th century, the school was called Abbot Female Seminary. Known later as Abbot Hall, the Academy building initially provided only classrooms and recitation rooms. A residential building was not constructed until 1854, when Smith Hall was erected. Abbot Academy officially merged with Phillips Academy in 1973.

The first home of the Abbot Female Seminary, Abbot Hall is an exceptional early Greek Revival building. Possibly inspired by Charles Bulfinch's Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston (1818), Abbot Hall is a very early example of what became typical of Greek Revival style public and institutional buildings around the United States during the 1830s and 1840s. The architect of Abbot Hall is unknown as are details about the suppliers or the masons. Records indicate that David Hidden of Newburyport was master builder and that William Saunders of Cambridge fabricated the Ionic columns that support the front portico. 

The building faced School Street when it was first erected. There was a large central room on the first floor and a recitation room on either side.The room on the north side was for the children, and that on the south side was for the older scholars. The back piazza was added during the period of Asa Farwell's leadership, 1842-1852. In 1875 an observatory dome on the top of the building was added to accommodate a telescope purchased that year for approximately $2,400. The Academy Building, estimated at the time to weigh 900 tons, was moved to its present location in the summer of 1888. In 1890 the name was officially changed to Abbot Hall in honor of the Academy's first benefactor. Around 1900 the building was remodeled to make it a science building so that the common usage of Graves Hall with Phillips Academy boys could be discontinued. Further renovations were accomplished in 1906-1908 to provide a larger observatory. In 1907 the Boston firm Andrews, Jacques, & Rantoul added a museum, the John-Esther Art Gallery, to the east end of Abbot Hall to house art studios and an art collection donated by Esther Byers. Since its founding, Abbot Academy had offered drawing and painting classes.

Following the merger with Phillips Academy in 1973, the building became idle. From 1978 to 1990 Abbot Hall housed the Northeast Document Conservation Center. In 1997 Abbot Hall was restored as part of Phillips Academy's renewal and rededication of the Abbot Circle.

Abbot Hall, 1828-1829, at Phillips Academy

In the early 1870s Abbot Academy's two most active trustees, Warren F. Draper and George F. Smith, began to improve the landscape of the girls' school campus. They added new walks, built stone walls and fences, and planted ornamental trees. From the 1850s on, the school slowly increased its land holdings from one acre. In 1877 the trustees acquired an additional 14 acres of the Abbot estate on Phillips Street, bringing the total grounds to 22 acres. A year later, in 1878, Abbot Academy trustees hired civil engineer Charles W. Gay of Lynn, Massachusetts to coordinate improvements and prepare a landscape plan. Gay based his scheme on the existing structures rather than introducing a new master plan for the campus. He added formal drives and paths to connect the buildings. By the 1880s, Abbot Academy's buildings were no longer adequate in size and quality. In 1886 the Abbot Academy trustees, led by Warren F. Draper, hired the Boston firm of Hartwell &amp; Richardson to develop a master plan for the campus, recognizing the need to compete with other women's institutions. Their ambitious plan was modified due to financial constraints. Abbot Hall was moved and turned 90 degrees on the south side of quadrangle, and a new basement level above grade was added. Draper Hall was erected in 1889.

At the west side of Abbot Circle is Draper Hall, the central element of the 1886 Hartwell & Richardson master plan for the Abbot Academy campus. Hartwell & Richardson was a prominent, late 19th-century Boston architectural firm, its designs heavily influenced by the work of Henry Hobson Richardson (though William C. Richardson was not related to him). Their master plan for Abbot Academy was similar to one proposed for the Harvard University campus a few years earlier. Draper Hall was one of the firm's largest commissions, and it was this grand scale that made the building a major landmark.

Draper Hall was named after its principal donors, Warren F. Draper (1818-1905), Abbot Academy trustee, Phillips Academy class of 1843, and Andover Theological Seminary class of 1850, and his wife, Irene Rowley Draper, Abbot Academy class of 1843. The original L-shaped building, designed in a Romanesque style, housed a multiplicity of functions: dormitory suites, dining rooms, kitchen, laundries, servants' quarters, a library, reading room, parlors, offices, the principal's suite, art studios, and eleven music rooms.

After Abbot Academy's merger with Phillips Academy in 1973, the building stood empty for twenty years. By 1994 the south wing could not be saved. The main section of the building was restored by Finegold Alexander & Associates Inc. to its original appearance with a new, three-story oriel on the west facade where the wing had been. The interior was renovated for faculty housing and administrative offices.

Draper Hall, 1888-1890, at Phillips Academy

In 1859 Philena McKeen became principal of Abbot Academy, with her sister Phebe as first assistant, and led the "Fem Sem" for the next 33 years. Through the 1860s and 1870s the school expanded incrementally. By 1878, 22 acres had been acquired and landscaped with the Maple Walk and Oak Grove as key features. For Philena McKeen, the academy's late-19th-century growth was too slow. Industrialization in the United States created a prosperous white, middle class, many of whose daughters were being drawn to the more sumptuous accommodations of Smith, Vassar, Wellesley, and Bryn Mawr. To remain viable in the competition for young women, Abbot's leadership proposed a thorough redesign of the campus based on an ambitious plan by the Boston architectural firm of Hartwell &amp; Richardson. However, the fund-raising effort the school launched in support of this renovation fell far short of the goal. As a college education became increasingly available to women between 1892 and 1935, Abbot Academy sought to follow a dual purpose. It continued to offer its five-year Academic Course, which provided "finishing." As Philena McKeen wrote in her <a href="https://archive.org/stream/singularschoolab00lloy#page/n7/mode/2up" target="_blank">Sequel to Annals of Fifty Years: A History of Abbot Academy, Andover, Mass., 1879-1892</a>, this meant education for life: "fitness for teaching, for travel, for educated society, for church work, for literary clubs, and more than all, for cultivated Christian homes." But, in addition, Abbot became a "fitting" school, introducing a four-year college preparatory curriculum for the growing number of students attracted to the expanding educational and career opportunities that were now more open to white women.

Named in honor of Philena McKeen, principal of Abbot Academy from 1859 to 1892, this building was central to the academy's attempt to enlarge the campus following the master plan of 1886. It completed the Abbot Circle, the heart of the campus. The sparse ornamentation on the exterior is likely due to a restricted budget and an effort by the architects (Hartwell, Richardson, & Driver) to design a modern building, which would be compatible with the unfashionable Romanesque style of Draper Hall. McKeen incorporated the Davis Memorial Hall, an auditorium and gymnasium.  For years after the merger of Abbot Academy and Phillips Academy, McKeen was used for storage. The interior was renovated in the early 1990s and now houses administrative offices of Phillips Academy and a community day care center.

McKeen Memorial Hall, 1903-1904, at Phillips Academy

Samaritan House was built with funds loaned from Phillips Academy treasurer Samuel Farrar. It operated as an infirmary for only a few years, presumably due to its tenuous financial situation. Students were offered free "rooms, bedding, furniture, fuel, diet, medicine, nurses, physicians, necessaries, and comforts as may be requisite and proper for their respective cases." Later, it was the residence of the academy principal for nearly thirty years. Samaritan House is typical of three-story, Federal-era residential buildings constructed in Andover: center entrance, symmetrical facade with double-hung, six-over-six windows and louvered shutters, tall end chimneys, cornice with modillions, and hipped roof. The highly ornate portico, although an authentic Federal-period feature, is not original to this house and may have been added by architect Guy Lowell. He made extensive interior renovations that gave the house new grandeur appropriate for the head of Phillips Academy. Ironically Samaritan House was used as the principal's house for only four more years after being moved. In 1933, a new headmaster, Claude Fuess, took over Phelps House as his home.

Samaritan House was built in 1824 on Chapel Avenue (where Cochran Chapel now stands) and was moved to the intersection of Main and School Streets in 1929. The Samaritan Female Society of Andover and vicinity erected this building as an infirmary for Andover Theological Seminary and Phillips Academy students who were ill, particularly those who could not afford medical attention.



Samaritan House, 1824, at Phillips Academy

Phillips Academy treasurer Samuel Farrar financed Double Brick in 1829 through a fund he established personally. About 1833 the building was transferred to the Andover Theological Seminary, and Farrar turned his attention to building two rows of more modest three-story dormitories. Students wo lived in Double Brick paid rent for their rooms to Phillips Academy, and they paid for their meals separately. Double Brick tenants probably ate at Judge Phillips's farm, located just up Main Street. From 1837 to 1892 Double Brick was the residence of principals of Phillips Academy including Cecil Bancroft, who requested some improvements to his kitchen and bathroom in 1880. A trustee committee authorized the necessary renovations.

Double Brick was originally built to house academy students. Architect William Sparrell made something of a specialty of designing row houses in Boston. Later than many of the houses on Faculty Row (west side of Main Street), Double Brick is an example of a transitional Federal to Greek revival style structure that was common in urban areas of Massachusetts. The basic gable roof design with end chimneys is Federal in style, but the double recessed entry framed with granite piers and lintels is a Greek revival feature.

Double Brick House, 1829, at Phillips Academy

By 1901, this single site at the corner of Main and Phillips Streets served four different buildings in less than 125 years, setting an early precedent for the wholesale relocation of buildings at Phillips Academy, which became standard practice during Charles Platt's tenure as campus architect in the 1920s. Robert Singleton Peabody, valedictorian of the Phillips Academy class of 1857 and the nephew of George Peabody, the noted philanthropist who established an anthropology museum at Harvard, bequeathed his collection of 40,000 artifacts to the school in 1901, facilitating the establishment of the museum. Peabody provided $150,000 to establish a museum, hire a curator and any other necessary staff, and create a department of archaeology at Phillips Academy. He hoped that his museum would attract boys to the archaeology field and would also provide a space for social gatherings. Although the school was in great need of more basic facilities, particularly dormitory space, the Phillips Academy trustees could not turn down this generous gift and gratefully accepted.

The Robert S. Peabody Institute is one of the country's foremost museums of Native American archaeology. It is located on the Phillips Academy campus and serves as teaching resource for the academy students. 

The Peabody was Guy Lowell's first architectural commission for Phillips Academy. The design included all the classic features of Lowell's Ecole des Beaux-Arts and MIT training. 

It was extremely unusual for a preparatory school to have its own department of archaeology with international connections and a building to house a major collection. From the start, the museum found it difficult to reconcile fieldwork and research with classroom teaching

 The museum's strength lies in artifacts from the southeast, southwest, northeast, midwest, Mexico and the arctic. In terms of age, the artifacts range from 10,000 years to today. Though its focus is on North American cultures, it also has a collection of European paleo-indian stone tools. The largest collection—numbering 25,000 artifacts—comes from Pecos Pueblo, New Mexico, during excavations between 1915 and 1929. The museum also has an extensive library and archives, housing glass plates negatives, original field notes, field maps and other materials.

Today the Peabody is a highly regarded museum and a leader in the repatriation of Native American cultural artifacts. Like the Addison gallery of American Art, the Peabody serves both the public and Phillips Academy.

Robert S. Peabody Institute of Archaeology, 1901-1903, at Phillips Academy

The trustees recruited Reverend Griffin as their first Bartlet Professor of Pulpit Eloquence, and Griffin arrived in Andover in 1809, the year that Andover Theological Seminary was founded. At the same time, the minister was being pursued by the Park Street Church in Boston, a bastion of orthodoxy in a city where most Congregational churches had becomes Unitarian. Park Street Church needed a minister of Griffin's stature. Griffin believed that he could manage positions in both Boston and Andover. By the time the house was finished in 1810, Griffin had resigned from the seminary; the commute between Andover and Boston proved too much. Other faculty members made Phelps House their home during the nineteenth century. Since 1933 Phelps House, the most elegant house on Faculty Row, has been the official residence of the Phillips Academy Head of School. Design of Phelps House has been attributed to English-born Boston architect Peter Banner. In 1994 Phillips Academy restored Phelps House to its original paint color.

Phelps House is the best example on campus of a house being tailored to a specific client. Reverend Edward Dorr Griffin was a prominent orator and preacher in Newark, New Jersey, and a theologian the trustees sought to hire for the new Andover Theological Seminary.  No expense was spared in building what Griffin considered an appropriate house.William Bartlet not only endowed Griffin's position at the seminary but also paid for his new residence on Faculty Row.



Phelps House, 1809-1810, at Phillips Academy

The Elm Arch stands in front of the former Seminary Row, where first Phillips Academy principal Eliphalet Pearson is said to have laid it out in the early 19th century. Samuel Farrar, treasurer of Phillips Academy from 1803 to 1840, was an ardent tree planter, and the present Elm Arch (in prior times called the Elm Walk and Cathedral Arch) was his inspiration. None of the trees planted in that era still stands today; most of the Academy's elms are third and fourth generation. In November 1921, an ice storm seriously damaged trees along the Elm Arch as well as elsewhere on campus and along Main Street. Of the Academy's 772 elms standing at the time, only 31 had to be taken down. And another 200 were damaged so badly that the Academy hired experts from the Arnold Arboretum and Olmsted Brothers to supervise the hazardous work of salvage. The bill from the Olmsted's was $4,860. Activism by biology instructor Tom Cone and students in the Andover Ecology Action club pushed the Academy to launch a program in 1978 of careful, consistent, and constant pruning of branches infected with Dutch elm disease, which has kept further tree losses to a minimum.Despite some losses from Dutch Elm disease, the allee remains the Great Lawn's defining north-south axis. The Andover Theological Seminary library, Brechin Hall (1865), once stood at the southern end of the Elm Arch, near the current site of the Armillary Sphere. Brechin was torn down in 1929 largely because it interfered with the broad sweep across the lawn from Salem Street to Chapel Avenue.

Directly across Salem Street from the Memorial Bell Tower, the Great Lawn, originally the "Seminary Common," extends to Chapel Avenue. This space has remained open since the academy was founded. Originally a swampy meadow in front of Seminary Row, it was gradually improved in the 1810s and 1820s. The construction of Foxcroft, Pearson, and Bartlet Halls involved the creation of a terrace, which was enclosed by granite bollards linked by chain in 1821.

Great Lawn and Elm Arch, circa 1820, at Phillips Academy

When Andover Theological Seminary was founded in 1808, it was separate from Phillips Academy yet shared Academy Hill and the same board of trustees. The seminary was founded with the same purpose as the academy: the preservation of Calvinst theology in the face of lioberalism. The seminary focused on training orthodox ministers. Sizable endowment funds were donated, substantial buildings were planned, and, for much of the nineteenth century, the seminary eclipsed the academy in resources, reputation, and the trustees' attention. Because the seminary's campus was eventually acquired by the academy when the seminary departed from Andover in 1908, the two institutions' physical histories are intertwined. Between 1808 and 1821 the academy and the seminary erected three substantial brick structures in a straight line east of Main Street. Seminary Row consisted of Phillips Hall (now Foxcroft Hall), built in 1808-1808; Bartlet Chapel (now Pearson Hall), built in 1817-1818; and Bartlet Hall, built in 1820-1821. The model for Seminary Row may have been the Brick Row of five structures recently completed at Yale College, which was linked to the Andover schools at this time for theological reasons as the bonds with liberal Harvard loosened.

Along with Pearson and Bartlet Halls, Foxcroft Hall was erected for the newly founded Andover Theological Seminary. The building was originally named Phillips Hall in honor of Phoebe Foxcroft Phillips, widow of Academy founder Samuel Phillips Jr., and their son John, who donated funds for its construction. It was built as a four-story, brick structure with a symmetrical facade. Modeled after collegiate architecture at Brown, Yale, and Princeton, it included dormitory rooms for thirty students, classrooms, and a chapel. In 1870 and again in 1912, structural problems in the east wall required extensive rebuilding and loss of much of the historic fabric. In 1929 the fourth floor was removed so that Foxcroft would conform to the architecture of the new buildings on the quadrangle. The original entrances with lunettes, stone lintels, and sills remain.

Foxcroft Hall, 1808-1809, at Phillips Academy

Starting in 1808, William Bartlet donated $160,000 to Andover Theological Seminary over the course of four decades. Nearly half of that money he spent erecting five buildings: Phelps House (1809-1910), Moses Stuart Houses (1810-1811), Pearson Hall (1817-1818), Bartlet Hall (1820-1821), and Park House (1833-1834). In each case (except Park House), Bartlet served as his own contractor, hiring builders, purchasing materials, and paying the bills.Born to a modest family in 1747, Bartlet worked for years as a shoemaker, his father’s trade, before earning enough to invest his savings in a merchant ship. Bartlet’s initial forays into commerce were successful enough to establish himself in trade and leave shoemaking behind. Bartlet made his fortune dealing in molasses, sugar, rum, cotton, iron, copper, salt, coffee, indigo, fish, limes, wine, linens, and a variety of other goods. The vessels he funded traversed well-known routes between Newburyport, the Caribbean, and European ports.Conspicuous in its absence from his ship ledgers is any reference to enslaved peoples. Bartlet, the evidence suggests, had no desire to invest in the slave trade. And he had the opportunity; Bartlet’s ships made port at colonies whose productivity and wealth were based on slave labor: Martinique, Guadeloupe, Surinam, Trinidad, St. Kitts, and (until 1794, when a slave revolution brought about emancipation) Saint Domingue. In 1791, one of Bartlet’s ships called the Polly sailed for the coast of Guinea in Africa. Even there, on what European ship captains called “the slave coast,” Bartlet instructed his own captain, Edward Preble, to sell their cargo of rum and avoid speculating in the slave markets. (Preble later described the voyage to Guinea as a financial disaster, bringing home just 5£ net profit for the creditors.)What kept Bartlet from engaging in the slave trade? Religious conviction was one possibility; he was a devout man (which explains his philanthropic contribution to the ATS), although plenty of Christian men involved themselves in slavery. Business prudence may have influenced him; there was more risk in buying and selling human captives than trading in conventional commodities. Nor is it likely that the brigs Bartlet funded in Newburyport were specifically built to hold human cargo. Whether or not Bartlet believed he was keeping his hands clean from the stain of the slave trade, he still profited mightily from the stolen labor of enslaved peoples. The salted cod that his ships brought south to sell in the Caribbean served as a chief source of nutrition for the enslaved labor force. Molasses, sugar, coffee, and indigo cultivated by enslaved people working tropical plantations brought premium prices in New England and Europe. Those sugar and coffee colonies frequented by Bartlet’s ships were the most valuable land on earth, wealth indisputably derived from slavery.How should the name and history of William Bartlet be represented on campus?How should we understand and react to the legacy of slave labor that, even if indirectly, funded the ATS and made possible some of the oldest and most important buildings on the Phillips Academy campus?

Paid for by strict Calvinist William Bartlet (1747-1841), a Newburyport shipowner, merchant, and textile manufacturer, Bartlet Hall was built in 1821 as a second dormitory and mate to Foxcroft. Modest Federal details, including recessed entries with lunettes and paneling, a cornice with modillions, four large square chimneys, windows with multi-pane lights, and splayed brownstone lintels, survive extensive remodeling. In 1914 the building was completely gutted by fire and rebuilt. In 1929, Bartlet, like Foxcroft, was lowered to harmonize with surrounding architecture. Bartlet and Foxcroft remain dormitories.

Bartlet Hall, 1820-1821, at Phillips Academy

The campus today is recognizably the campus that existed in the 1830s. Likewise, the public road system traversing the center of campus has not changed since the 1830s: Main Street, Phillips Street, and Salem Street remain essentially as they were. Then as now the hub was the "Seminary Common," today's Great Lawn. Fronting the high road, the common extended nearly 1,100 feet from Chapel Avenue on the north to Salem Street on the south. A fence surrounded the common on three sides, just as today a stone wall surrounds it. In 1838 young elm trees bordered the common along Chapel Avenue, Main Street, and Salem Street. On the east side of the common, facing the main road and set up on a broad terrace, stood a row of three dignified brick buildings, the one in the center (Pearson Hall) topped by a tall cuploa. An axial, tree-lined path, nearly 500 feet in length, led to these buildings from Main Street. A second path, called the Elm Arch, crosses the the common, side-to-side. In 1838, as today, everything on and around the Seminary Common belonged to the trustees of Phillips Academy. Unlike today, the campus accommodated three educational institutions, each with its own faculty and students, all under the aegis of one board: Phillips Academy, founded in 1778, then referred to on campus as the Latin or Classical Academy; Andover Theological Seminary, founded in 1808; and the English Academy and Teachers Seminary, founded in 1827. Andover Theological Seminary dominated.

Charles Bulfinch designed Pearson Hall, the second building in Seminary Row. The building was originally named for its donor, William Bartlet of Newburyport, one of the founders of Andover Theological Seminary. It housed a sanctuary and library as well as classrooms for the seminarians and was known as Bartlet Chapel. It was later renamed Pearson Hall in honor of Eliphalet Pearson, the first principal of Phillips Academy and the major force behind the seminary. The Newburyport bricks, 12-over-12 pane windows, sandstone lintels, sills, keystones, and cornerblocks are original. Bulfinch stipulated marble details on all four facades, but, for economy's sake, Bartlet, who had almost complete control of the construction, replaced the marble with sandstone.

Nothing remains of Bulfinch's interior because, in 1875, the building was remodeled, and a clock tower was added. In 1922 architect Guy Lowell restored Pearson to its original appearance with a recreated cupola, cornice, and balustrade. It was also moved back and turned 90 degrees at the south end of the Greener Quadrangle. Pearson Hall is now a classroom building.

Pearson Hall, 1817-1818, at Phillips Academy

Phillips Academy faced a pivotal moment in the development of its campus when architect Guy Lowell died unexpectedly in 1927. With Lowell's death, Charles Platt assumed the role of the school's architect and was given nearly free rein. The plans drawn up by Olmsted in 1927 and 1929 show the extent to which the campus plan was continually being refined and altered. The Oliver Wendell Holmes Library and Cochran Chapel were to serve as key features of the central campus, anchoring both ends of the Great Lawn and framing Foxcroft, Bartlet, and Samuel Phillips Halls. Special Collections in the Oliver Wendell Holmes Library holds some of Holmes's memorabilia, correspondence, and books. These include the stereoscope he invented in the 1860s, the original manuscript of “<a href="https://archive.org/details/schoolboy00holmiala/page/n6" target="_blank">The School-Boy</a>,” a poem that he wrote for and delivered at the Phillips Academy centennial in 1878, and some of the medical books that he owned. Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. gave this collection to Phillips Academy in 1930. Two reading rooms and the central hall remain as Platt intended. Georgian-style woodwork lines both the reference study area, the Garver Room, and the less formal Freeman Room. On One wall of the Freeman Room is a mural painted by Stuart Travis depciting the history of Phillips Academy overlaid on a map of Andover as it appeared in 1830. Originally the second floor housed seminar rooms and the book delivery area with access to five levels of book stacks. In 1959 James Copley, class of 1935, donated funds for a new library wing to house materials for the intensive American history course as part of a comprehensive building campaign called The Andover Program. Designed by Benjamin Thompson of The Architects Collaborative, the Copley Wing was essentially a glass structure attached to the older brick building without disturbing it. Thirty years later, during the late 1980s, the Copley Wing was entirely replaced with a more ambitious addition designed by Shepley, Bulfinch, Richardson &amp; Abbot. A computer center and expanded administrative offices were integrated into the original library. In 2018-2019 another renovation (designed by Ann Beha Associates, architects, and Consigli Inc, builders) updated heating, ventilation, and air systems, added group study areas, expanded the makerspace, converted the first floor book stack into classrooms, and increased the number of seats for students. Platt's reading rooms remain popular with students and are used on a daily basis. With the primary entrance on the east, however, Platt's elegant front facade is now mostly ceremonial.

In 1928 architect Charles Platt designed the Oliver Wendell Holmes Library to house the burgeoning collection of books accumulated by the academy. The library had outgrown Brechin Hall, which it had inherited from Andover Theological Seminary, and Platt wanted to eliminate Brechin as part of his grand scheme for the central campus. The library's original primary facade presides over the Great Lawn and faces west toward Main Street. Constructed of brick, with stone details and double-hung wood sash windows, the design of the two-story building is consistent with the vocabulary chosen by Platt and Guy Lowell before him to harmonize with the original architecture of Seminary Row. There have been three renovations to the library, most recently in 2018-2019.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Library, 1928-1929, at Phillips Academy

Donor Samuel L. Fuller, Phillips Academy class of 1891, selected the site on the old militia training ground, where George Washington reportedly reviewed the troops in 1789. Although the trustees had agreed not to erect any academy buildings on this revered space, a war memorial was considered a fitting addition. Troops had convened here since at least the Revolutionary War through World War I. The bell tower is a square brick structure built over a steel frame with a deep limestone base and a three-tier wooden spire surmounted by a weathervane. Typical of Lowell's work, there is a decorative, almost delicate effect in the details and shutters. Now perceived as a monument, a meeting place, and a focal point, the Memorial Bell Tower has also a source of music for many years. In 1926 installation of a 37-bell carillon was completed, one of the largest in the United States.

The Bell Tower was erected in 1923 at the corner of Salem and Main Street as a memorial to Phillips Academy alumni who had lost their lives in World War I. It is now a landmark, the first glimpse of Academy Hill as one approaches Andover from the south. It was designed by architect Guy Lowell of Boston.

Memorial Bell Tower, 1923, at Phillips Academy

Unlike the "wooden Academy," which had burned to the ground in February 1818, this "Brick Academy" was aligned with Seminary Row (Bartlet, Pearson, and Foxcroft Halls) but located at a distance on the opposite side of Salem Street. The interior was closely modeled on the old Academy: three rooms on the first floor for classrooms, library, and museum, and a large hall upstairs for debates, examinations, and graduation exercises. During the 1840s and 1850s some of those same functions were shared by the Stone Academy on Chapel Avenue. When that structure burned during the winter of 1864, a much larger main Academy was planned at the intersection of School and Main Streets. As soon as that new building was underway in 1865, trustees voted to convert Bulfinch Hall to a gymnasium for seminarians and academy boys. With facilities for gymnastics, bowling, and boxing, the new gym opened on February 14, 1867 and was heavily used and poorly maintained for nearly thirty years. In 1896 a fire gutted the building completely. In 1902 architect Guy Lowell renovated the brick shell for the school's main dining hall, which was on the first floor with a banquet room on the second and the kitchen and service areas in a new wing on the east. In 1936 Bulfinch Hall was rehabilitated as the English department. Perry, Shaw, &amp; Hepburn, architects of Colonial Williamsburg, created an opulent colonial revival interior for classes, debates, and offices. The building was christened Bulfinch Hall at that time. In 2012 the building was renovated again to make it handicapped accessible, replace all systems, add new technology, and expand the structure modestly in the form of a single-story southeast wing attached to the 1902 east wing. Bulfinch, now served by an elevator, contains fourteen seminar rooms and one large multimedia room, four faculty-student conference rooms, and a large faculty room (formerly the debate room). Ann Beha Architects designed the 2012 renovation, and Consigli Construction was the general contractor. The project budget was $6.25 million. By contrast, the original building cost $13,252.73 in 1819 dollars. Of Asher Benjamin's original design, only the walls remain intact.

Bulfinch Hall was the third main academy building. For many years the building was considered the work of Boston architect Charles Bulfinch, but a recent discovery firmly attributes it to architect-builder Asher Benjamin. Historian David Chase found documentation among Phillips Academy treasurer records of a $15 payment to Benjamin for a "Plan of Acad" in May 1818. The payment was likely for a drawing of the exterior only.

Bulfinch Hall, 1818-1819, at Phillips Academy

By 1804 Phillips Academy added a narrow gambrel-roof structure, larger than the original cottage and perpendicular to it, facing Main Street. It was a vernacular building: two-and-a-half stories with end chimneys and 12-over-12 pane windows. When it was built the house was designed to provide six identical rooms for academy boys, the first academy-owned dorm on campus. In the spring of 1806, before students could move in, Phillips Academy Principal Eliphalet Pearson returned to Andover with his family. The trustees made Hardy House available to him to live in while he established the Andover Theological Seminary. Additional improvements had to be made for Pearson, who was, after all, president of the board of trustees. The original cottage became a kitchen ell, and the interior of the "addition" was embellished with trim, pain, and wallpaper. After Pearson's tenure, principal John Adams lived there with his family and several students from 1810 to 1833. William Graves, who restructured the academy's science program during the nineteenth century, lived there for more than forty years. During Graves's residency, Boston architect William Ralph Emerson removed the old kitchen ell and replaced it with a new colonial revival wing. The building was used a faculty residence well into the twentieth century. In the 1970s the academy remodeled Hardy House for the school's admission office. During the 1990s the academy preserved and restored the 1804 section, demolished the rest, and built a new addition designed by Cambridge architect David P. Handlin &amp; Associates.

Across Salem Street from the Flagstaff Quad, the Shuman Admission Center incorporates one of the academy's oldest structures with one of its newest. The building has a long history of renovation. In 1801 the trustees purchased a small cottage from Captain Asa Towne expanded it for academy purposes during the next few years.

Hardy House and Shuman Admission Center, 1804-1805, at Phillips Academy

At a General Court, at Boston 6th of the 3rd m, 1646 (May 6, 1646):Cutshamache, sagamore of the Massachusets, came into the Court, and acknowledged that for the sum of 6 pounds &amp; a coat, which he had already received, he had sold to Mr. John Woodbridge, in behalf of the inhabitants of Cochichawick, now called Andover, all his right, interest, and privilege in the land six miles southward from the town, two miles eastward to Rowley bounds, be the same more or less, northward to Merrimack River, provided that the Indian called Roger &amp; his company may have liberty to take alewifes in Cochichawick River, for their own eating; but if they either spoil or steal any corn or other fruit, to any considerable value, of the inhabitants there, this liberty of taking fish shall forever cease; and the said Roger is still to enjoy four acres of ground where now he plants. This purchase the Court allows of, and have granted the said land to belong to the said plantation forever, to be ordered and disposed of by them, reserving liberty to the Court to lay two miles square of their southerly bounds to any town or village that hereafter may be erected thereabouts, if so they see cause. Cutshamache acknowledged this before the magistrates, and so the Court approved thereof, and of the rest in this bill to be recorded, so as it prejudice no former grant.Cutshamache appears frequently in the seventeenth century records of the English colony in Massachusetts. Most notably, perhaps, is his involvement in selling a large portion of Andover, North Andover, and Lawrence to John Woodbridge sometime in the early 1640s.

The first record of a legal transaction with local Native people was the 1646 purchase of the town of Andover. Part of the Andover agreement ensured that Roger, who may have been Pennacook, was given certain rights to live in town.  Rogers Brook bears his name.





Rogers Brook

Trustee and donor Thomas Cochran pledged $300,000 to build Commons if Phillips Academy trustees could raise the other $300,000 needed. The opening of Commons marked the start of the requirement that all students, except those in Williams Hall, eat in the dining rooms where each student had its own special room on the first and second floors. A small faculty room and two private dining rooms for special occasions were on the middle of the second floor, and the kitchen was located in the basement. Barry Faulkner, an artist of New York and Cornish, NH, and a friend of Charles Platt, created six large murals in the winter of 1930-31. Painted on canvas, they show idalized New England landscapes. In 1970 a $125,000 renovation included separating the dishwashing and food serving operations, installation of conveyor belts to pick up dirty trays, and reorganization of the serving lines. The image of prestige, affluence, and culture that the academy wished to project prevailed over its austere historical presence.

The housing of all the Phillips Academy boys in dormitories and the elimination of boarding houses created the need for a central dining facility for the entire academic community by the 1920s. Paresky Commons, designed by architect Charles Platt and constructed by Thompson Starrett (both of New York City), completed the Flagstaff Quadrangle. In 1980 a student center and snack bar were added in the basement for less than $2 million. A more substantial renovation of Commons occurred in 2007.

Paresky Commons, 1928-1930, at Phillips Academy

Between its beginnings in 1954 and 1977, the Society for the Propagation of Japanese Cherry Trees planted more than 100 cherry trees on Phillips Academy's campus. Many spectacular examples have been located at either end of George Washington Hall, Paresky Commons, in front of Bartlet and Foxcroft Halls, on the west campus by Adams and Rockwell, in the Dudley Fitts Cherry Forest along Phillips Street, and on the north end of the old campus. The construction of Gelb Science Center in 2004 nearly led to the removal of particularly dazzling cherry tree. Longtime biology instructor Tom Cone and students convinced the administration to save the cherry tree.

Cherry Tree at Phillips Academy

Richard Theodore Greener was born in 1844 in Philadelphia. After graduating from Phillips Academy in 1865, in 1870 he was the first African American to graduate from Harvard College. He was editor of the <a href="https://archive.org/details/mirrorofphilomat712phil/page/n533" target="_blank">Mirror of the Philomathean Society</a>, a student publication, while at Andover. Greener was an active and notable voice for the rights of Black Americans in the Reconstruction period, serving as both dean of Howard University Law School and associate editor of Frederick Douglass’s newspaper, New National Era. He also held a key U.S. diplomatic post in Vladivostok, Russia, during the Russo-Japanese War. A deeply loyal alumnus, Greener referred to his time at Andover as “my awakening.”

On September 29, 2018, Phillips Academy renamed the Great Quad in honor of African American alumnus Richard T. Greener, class of 1865. According to Head of School John Palfrey, the dedication of the Quad was made possible by an anonymous donor and funds gathered by Andover’s Knowledge and Goodness Campaign. 

Richard T. Greener Quadrangle, 2018, at Phillips Academy

After Andover Theological Seminary left for Harvard in 1908, the academy's board of trustees entered into several major programs to expand Phillips Academy's campus. In 1924, Thomas Cochran, class of 1890, assumed the role of benefactor. During the next several years, Cochran was directly responsible for, or the major contributor to, nine buildings and the sanctuary during his period of active involvement as a trustee of the academy. Samuel Phillips Hall was the first of the buildings constructed during the Thomas Cochran era of growth. The architect was Guy Lowell of Boston in collaboration with Charles A. Platt of New York City although it was basically Platt's designs that were accepted. More than 2500 alumni donated funds for its construction. It presides over the Greener Quadrangle from the top of the Vista, the dominant east-west axis of Academy Hill. As soon as its location was chosen in 1922, Sam Phil became the keystone for the central campus. It anchored the Vista's eastern end, allowing Charles Platt to expand the organizational plan on which the present campus developed. The importance that architect Charles Platt and trustee donor Thomas Cochran, aided by the school's treasurer James Sawyer, attached to the artistic remaking of the campus was demonstrated by the extraordinary efforts they expended to achieve it, most specifically their willingness to demolish or move incompatible existing buildings. Although buildings at Phillips and Abbot Academy had occasionally been moved in the past, it was usually for practical rather than aesthetic reasons. Only at Andover's campus, it seems, was the idea of creating a vista by moving several buildings actually carried out on a large scale.

Designed as the centerpiece of the new central campus, Samuel Phillips Hall is  a good example of colonial revival style as interpreted by architect Guy Lowell. Grand in size and detail, the building dominates the Greener Quadrangle. The tower, cupola, and weathervane rise to 117 feet, an imposing height even from the vantage point of Main Street. A clock with a face of Andover blue and with gold figures and hands is on the front of the tower. The building itself is constructed of granite and brick 250 feet long, 33 feet deep with north and south wings 31 feet wide and 37 feet deep. The building currently houses the History & Social Science and World Languages departments. Sam Phil is the largest classroom building at Andover.

Samuel Phillips Hall, 1924, at Phillips Academy

Historical records do not mention a name for the burial ground until later in the 19th century. In 1874 a group formed the cemetery association. It was enlarged in 1910 by the Olmsted Brothers and protected by a fieldstone wall. It is now surrounded by classroom and dormitory buildings. Headstones or small monuments mark most graves. One exception is an ornate gothic marble and stone monument to Leonard Woods Jr., president of Bowdoin College; there is also a marker of the grave of Leonard Woods Sr., professor of Christian Theology at Andover Theological Seminary, who died in 1854. Also buried here are Professor Calvin Stowe and his wife Harriet Beecher Stowe, who lived in Andover for twelve years.

Between George Washington hall and Samuel Phillips Hall is the path to the Chapel Cemetery. When Phillips Academy and Andover Theological Seminary opened in 1778 and 1808, the schools did not immediately make provisions for burying deceased faculty, staff, and students. They operated for many years without a burial ground. In 1810 the first known burial occurred on land to the east of the seminary on land owned by Isaac Blunt, a revolutionary War captain and tavern operator. Efforts to obtain the land from Blunt began in 1816, but the official land transfer (of 1.01 acres) took place in 1820.

Chapel Cemetery, 1810-1820, at Phillips Academy

Architect Charles Platt's plan for the east side of Main Street incorporated the Andover Theological Seminary campus as core of the new development. Platt's plan required moving Bulfinch's central seminary building, Pearson Hall. It was lifted from between Foxcroft and Bartlet, moved back and to the south and turned ninety degrees to rest at right angles behind Bartlet. This was the first step in creating a rectilinear quadrangle on the crest of the seminary hill, allowing the new administration building, George Washington Hall, to stand to the rear and center of the quad. As would be the case in each of the buildings designed by Platt, the restrained version of the neocolonial style by Platt stood in direct contrast to Lowell's more elaborate interpretations of the same style.

On the north side of the Great Quad (now called the Greener Quad), architect Charles Platt erected his first major structure for the academy, the new administration building. The trustees chose Charles Platt over Guy Lowell, who had worked for Phillips Academy for 24 years, designing everything from the baseball cage to dormitories. 

The main facade of George Washington Hall, known as GW on campus, faces the Quad with a strong central pedimented pavilion that frames three entrances with lunettes. Compared to the portico of Samuel Phillips Hall, which was designed by Guy Lowell in 1924, Platt's design is slim and refined. 

In addition to donating $500,000 for this administration building, trustee Thomas Cochran purchased a Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington to hang in the lobby of the hall.

GW was designed to house offices for the principal, registrar, treasurer, and other administrators. It also provided a large auditorium, with seating for more than 1200 people. It remains the primary administration building.

George Washington Hall, 1925-1926, at Phillips Academy

Architect Charles Platt had considerable experience planning art museums when he began the task of designing one for the academy in 1928. The Addison Gallery of American Art was designed as an elegant colonial revival temple of brick with a central portico supported by Doric columns and approached by a wide rise of steps and platform. Platt exercised his control over every detail of the building even serving on the art committee that chose the 400 works of art that were the foundation of the Addison's collection. As plans for the art museums were progressing, trustees continued to debate and disagree about its purpose. James Ropes, now president of the trustees, was certain that the building should be designed to accommodate the teaching of art. But alumnus donor Thomas Cochran and architect Charles Platt, in spite of their earlier expressions of interest in providing studio and art instruction, were equally determined that the visual integrity of the building should not be compromised.

BiographyHenry Stimson (1867-1950) was an American statesman and lawyer. A class of 1883 Andover alumnus, Stimson had a close and lifelong relationship with the school, serving as president of Phillips Academy’s board of trustees from 1935 to 1945. Beyond his work with Phillips Academy, Stimson served under numerous U.S. presidents as Secretary of State under Herbert Hoover (1929 to 1933) and Secretary of War under Presidents Taft (1911-1913), Roosevelt and Truman (1940-1945). He also served as the Governor-General of the Philippines, worked as an attorney, and was a Republican politician. Another notable aspect of his career was the Stimson Doctrine, which stated that the US would not recognize any territorial changes established by force, referring specifically to Japanese aggression in China.Complicating Our HistoriesStimson has become something of a controversial figure, especially regarding his role in the Manhattan Project, which produced the first atomic bombs. Serving as Secretary of War during World War II, he was responsible for appointing key leaders and organized the bomb’s development in the U.S. Furthermore, he was a chief adviser on atomic policy to Presidents Roosevelt and Truman. Stimson ultimately defended the decision to drop the bomb based on his firm belief that it would save the most American lives. Another controversial aspect of Stimson’s history is his support of American imperialism particularly in the Philippines and Nicaragua. Regarding the Philippines, Stimson is quoted as saying:“...it was obvious that for all practical purposes, Filipinos were inferior. They needed protection, instruction and example from Americans, and therefore they should consider themselves lucky to be allowed to [have] these advantages with the surrender of their independence.”Stimson was also involved with Executive Order 9066, which incarcerated more than 120,000 Japanese Americans in camps across the western United States during WWII. Although this order was most fiercely supported by General John L. Dewitt, who made his stance on the association of ethnicity and loyalty quite clear, Stimson’s involvement was also key to the creation of this proposal. Despite the fact that Stimson is a controversial figure, his historical legacy is not black and white. Though Stimson felt the use of atomic bombs was necessary to end the war swiftly, he urged the President to drop the weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki instead of Tokyo and Kyoto, which would have resulted in the destruction of Japan’s cultural artifacts. As for Stimson’s view of the Philippines, archived documents suggest that his opinions were more influenced by the absence of effective Filipino governance and less by a sense of inherent social superiority. It is also clear from his post-war correspondence that Stimson's support of Japanese American internment camps was something he deeply regretted.The nuances of Stimson's attitudes and decisions force us to grapple with important questions:<ul><li>Was saving the most American lives an accurate and reasonable justification for using the atomic bomb?</li><li>Can this justify the loss of roughly 200,000 civilian Japanese lives resulting from both the blast itself and the horrifying long-term effects of radiation exposure?</li><li>Should Stimson’s imperialist views be considered through a social lens, a political one, or both? To what extent do we place his remarks in the context of the beliefs and attitudes that prevailed among this past generation of Americans?</li></ul>And further:<ul><li>As Americans living in the 21st century, how can we fairly judge Stimson through our contemporary moral lens?</li><li>To what extent do we place his remarks in the context of the beliefs and attitudes that prevailed among this past generation of Americans?</li><li>What do we do with the dorm currently named Stimson House now? Should we rename it? If so, does that erase the history of this building?</li></ul>As you stand in front of Stimson House, reflect on these questions. They might just spark some interesting discussions about how the history of our school and country are best interpreted.Written by Chloe Rhee, class of 2024

Henry L. Stimson House was dedicated in 1961 under headmaster John Kemper as a boys dormitory, and it currently serves as a dormitory for upperclassmen girls. Located in the Pine Knoll Cluster, Stimson House was built for forty students along with two house counselors and their families. The dorm was built as part of the school's major capital campaign, the Andover Program, in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It was designed by The Architects Collaborative of Cambridge, Massachusetts, which was comprised of architects Benjamin Thompson, J. Timothy Anderson, Thomas Greene, Joseph Maybank, Visvaldis Paukulis, Sherry Proctor, and G.W.T. Rankine.Stimson House consists of brick and glass materials and is stylistically constructed using a combination of sympathetic materials, irregular plans, gable roofs, and informal siting. As with the other dormitories in the Pine Knoll Cluster, this building style dramatically contrasts that of the rest of the campus and is intended to visually coexist with its natural surroundings.

Henry L. Stimson House, 1961, at Phillips Academy

Between Hale House and Fuess House, modernist dormitories built in the 1960s, is a stone and wood gate designed by artist Stuart Travis as the entrance to the sanctuary. Travis worked on the Andover campus for many years, painting murals in the Oliver Wendell Holmes Library and the Peabody Museum. The sanctuary began modestly enough, with the construction of two small islands in Rabbit Pond for duck shelters. Platt and Cochran, never satisfied with less than spectacular results, soon were concocting a bigger and better version. With the expertise of the Olmsted Brothers landscape architecture firm and a virtually unlimited budget provided by Cochran, they completely changed the topography of the old Missionary Woods and adjoining fields. Between the spring of 1929 and the spring of 1930, they dammed an existing stream to create two new ponds, laid out three miles of gravel roads and built bridges for pedestrians. They added dozens of new azalea, wild blueberry, laurel, and rhododendron bushes to the wooded site. Finally, hundreds of birds--ducks, geese, swans, quail, and pheasants--were brought in for the edification and enjoyment of Phillips Academy students. To protect the birds from predators, they fenced the whole site at a cost of $39,000. This ambitious sanctuary proved very expensive to maintain. After Cochran's death, the trustees decided to surrender the concept of a refuge, and the birds were sold or released to the wild. Over the years, the plantings have been allowed to naturalize. The dam, however, is carefully monitored as a flood control precaution. In 1910 a granite boulder near Rabbit Pond was dedicated as a memorial to the Andover Theological Seminary students who established the American Society of Missions.

In 1929 trustee donor Thomas Cochran and architect Charles Platt convinced the trustees to set aside a lightly forested area north of Rabbit Pond formerly known as Missionary Woods, a reference to the pioneering Christian Mission work undertaken by early graduates of Andover Theological Seminary. With that land and a large adjacent tract that Cochran purchased, Phillips Academy hired the Olmsted Brothers to design a bird sanctuary. 

Moncrieff Cochran Sanctuary, 1929-1930, at Phillips Academy

Cochran Chapel was named by Phillips Academy trustees in memory of trustee donor Thomas Cochran's parents. This culminated architect Charles Platt's work at Andover and would be one of the last buildings he designed. Despite being in the throes of his final bout of depression, Cochran was able to attend the dedication of Cochran Chapel in May 1932 before his death in 1933. Like many other Platt buildings on campus, the Chapel is colonial revival brick, granite and limestone structure. Acording to Platt historian Keith Morgan, the portico was modeled on the Lancaster, Massachusetts, meeting house designed in 1817 by Charles Bulfinch. Similarly the 200-foot steeple with square brick base punctuated by round windows on all four sides, two lanterns, and an octagonal copper-sheathed spire, is thought to be based on Philip Hooker's Second Presbyterian Church in Albany. In contrast to its colonial shell, the interior is surprisingly opulent. Numerous minor renovations were completed in the 1970s and 1980s. The original stationary pulpit was removed in 1990 to accommodate choral and theatrical uses of the building. In 1999 a small organ balcony at the back of the sanctuary was expanded by Ann Beha &amp; Associates of Boston, making space for the entire student body and faculty to assemble for weekly all-school meetings.

Cochran Chapel was the final element of architect Charles Platt's grand building campaign of the central campus begun in 1923. Originally planned for the site of the Addison Gallery, its relocation to Chapel Avenue forced Platt to reorganize the entire street. On its new site, Platt adjusted the chapel to align with the Memorial Bell Tower, instead of simply parallel Main Street, to reinforce the north-south axis of the Great Lawn.

Cochran Chapel, 1930-1932, at Phillips Academy

As late as February 1929, plans were underway to demolish the Phillips Inn's wooden ell and build two new wings, faced with granite to harmonize with Stowe House. Soon thereafter, however, Phillips Academy chose to move the old stone building to Bartlet Street and build an entirely new inn on the original site. The Andover Inn has 23 guest rooms on three stories. A two-story wing extends back from the left rear of the building, framing a yard that overlooks Rabbit Pond. A stone wall once enclosed an elaborate garden designed by Olmsted Brothers and Charles Platt. Although owned by Phillips Academy, the inn has always been independently managed.

The Andover Inn was designed in a Georgian-revival style by Sidney Wagner of Bottomley, Wagner & White, with Charles Platt as supervising architect. Called the Phillips Inn until 1940, it replaces an old stone house, the former residence of Harriet Beecher Stowe and her husband, and a huge wooden addition from the 1890s.

Andover Inn, 1929-1930, at Phillips Academy

Andover Theological Seminary erected a building known as the stone workshop, complete with a gambrel roof, in 1828, on the present site of the Andover Inn. Seminary students practiced carpentry, making wheelbarrows, coffins, cradles, and other items for sale and using the money to pay for tuition. Later, Phillips Academy and Seminary students utilized the house as a gymnasium. In June 1852, writer Harriet Beecher Stowe relocated to Andover with her children and husband, Calvin E. Stowe, who accepted a faculty position at the Seminary. Mrs. Stowe requested that the house be remodeled, providing royalty checks from her legendary novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin to transform the “prison-looking walls” into a “beautiful country residence.” She had the long building be separated into rooms, added fireplaces, window seats, painted the walls, pointed the cement, and added an Italianate-style piazza at the entrance and fence. Harriet christened it "Stowe Cabin", at a cost of $2891.12, "transformed at an expense of some thousands of dollars into a beautiful country residency" where Mrs. Stowe lived for eleven years with her husband and six children. It was remembered as the liveliest house on the hill with its many parties and famous visitors.Harriet Beecher married Calvin Stowe January 6, 1836. Calvin and Harriet had seven children: twins Eliza Tyler and Harriet Beecher born. Sept. 29, 1836, Henry Ellis b. Jan. 14, 1838 - d. 1857, Frederick William b. May 6, 1840, Georgianna May b. May 25, 1843, Samuel Charles b. Jan. 1848 d. July 22, 1849, and Charles Edward b. July 8, 1850. Sadly their son Henry Ellis drowned in the Connecticut River while a student at Dartmouth College in 1857. He was interred in the Chapel Cemetery within view of the Stowe's house. Son Frederick W. "enlisted during the Civil War as a Private in Co. A. 1st Massachusetts Volunteers. He rose to Captain and was wounded at the battle of Gettysburg on July 11, 1863, from which he never fully recovered. After a sea voyage around the Horn to San Francisco, he disappeared, and the date of his death is unknown." Both Calvin and Harriet B. Stowe are interred with son Henry here in Andover.After the Stowes left campus in 1864, the building was as a dormitory until a fire damaged it in 1887 when it was renovated for public use as an inn. In May1888, innkeeper Charles L. Carter unveiled the building as Uncle Tom’s Cabin, but the trustees named it Mansion House in October of the same year, and it was re-named the Phillips Inn in 1908.Stowe House’s final modification went into effect as a location change. In 1929, Phillips Academy moved the house from its original site to its present location at 80 Bartlet Street. Now, Andover students currently live in the building’s dormitory facilities.

Located behind the Andover Inn and Cochran Chapel lies Stowe house, once home to the family of writer Harriet Beecher Stowe. The builfing has been renovated for various purposes several times since its construction in1828. Phillips Academy now uses it as a dormitory for students and faculty. The specific address can be found at 80 Bartlet Street, Andover, Massachusetts 01810.

Phillips Academy campus history tour

Addison Gallery of American Art, 1929-1931, at Phillips Academy

Introduction

Images

Backstory and Context

Sources

Additional Information