by Rick Carey. Reprinted from www.Holderness.org
In 1876 the Rt. Reverend W.W. Niles, Bishop
of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire, knew that a
no-frills Episcopal boarding school was needed in the
state. He just didn't know if such a school could succeed.
"The value to our youth and to the
state of a plain, honest, inexpensive school... will be
incalculable, if it can, with the divine blessing that
we seek, be begun and carried forward," he said to
the Diocese's General Convention that year. "We shall
have to begin quietly and to be contented for some years
with small things. Then the seed will grow, if it be the
Lord's planting."
The seed was quietly planted two years later
with the purchase of 115 acres of property in Plymouth
and Holderness from the widow of the Rev. D.D. Balch for
the nominal sum of $4,000. The property, located on Joy
Hill overlooking Plymouth, included the former mansion
and barns of Samuel Livermore, chief justice of New Hampshire.
The Holderness School was founded primarily for the benefit
of clergymen's sons and was charged by the Diocese "to
combine the highest degree of excellence in instruction
and care-taking with the lowest possible charge for tuition
and board."
Fifteen boys enrolled in September, 1879,
under the rectorship of the Rev. Frederick Moreland Gray.
The average annual tuition was $225, and in his blessing
the rector of Holderness's Trinity Church urged, "Let
not the heedless hand destroy, nor malice devour and rage.
Let not the fire or axe come near it."
Over the years the Holderness School has
been mostly spared heedlessness, malice, and the axe,
but fire has come too near on two occasions. In 1882 Judge
Livermore's house, which supplied both classrooms and
residence space for the little school, burned to the ground
in less than two hours. The mansion was replaced by the
wooden Schoolhouse, still in use today, and Knowlton Hall,
a building designed to accommodate 63 students, the rector
and his family, and also the schoolmasters.
The first few decades of the twentieth century
were marked by wildly fluctuating enrollments, from a
lonely 35 to an overcrowded 81, and an unrelenting struggle
to make ends meet. During the thirty-year rectorship of
the Rev. Lorin Webster, however, the Holderness School
began to make a name for itself, thanks largely to the
brilliant choirs that Webster led, and also to the success
of its athletic teams.
The cash-strapped school struggled mightily
following Webster's retirement in 1922, and in 1931 fire
struck again, destroying Knowlton Hall. Students were
boarded at Plymouth's Pemigewasset House for the winter,
and in the spring trustees considered shutting the school
down for good. The new rector, The Rev. Edric Weld, along
with his wife Gertrude, convinced them otherwise, and
then began an innovative campus jobs program (still in
effect today) that involved every student in the upkeep
of the school.
The Welds found other ways to cut costs,
recruited a core of outstanding faculty, and made every
boy feel like a member of their family in the new school
building, Livermore Hall. They began a modest ski program,
and quietly paid many of the school's scholarship commitments
and other expenses out of their own pockets.
The first layperson to head the school was
Don Hagerman, who came to Holderness in 1951. A protoge
of Deerfield headmaster Frank Boyden, Hagerman oversaw
the development of a landmark student leadership program
still observed today, one that rewards character, rather
than popularity. Meanwhile Don Henderson, long-time Holderness
history teacher and also coach of the US National Ski
Team, built the ski program into an incubator of Olympic
and NCAA Division I competitors.
The year 1969 was notable in several respects
at Holderness. That was the year that Hannah Roberts,
the daughter of a faculty member, became the first girl
to attend the now fully co-ed school. It was also the
inaugural year for two signature special programs: Senior
Project and Out Back.
The Rev. B.W. "Pete" Woodward
succeeded Hagerman in 1977, and in the next two decades
Holderness climbed into the top echelon of independent
schools in New England. Thanks to two successful capital
campaigns and frugal business practices, the school was
able - on a debt-free basis - to add several new facilities
to its now 600-acre campus, and renovate a number of others.
The Alfond Library, the Hagerman Center, the Gallop Athletic
Center, the Edwards Art Gallery, and the Connell Dormitory
are all fruits of this effort, as are renovations to the
Schoolhouse, the Carpenter Arts Center, Weld Hall, and
Niles and Webster dormitories.
Another innovation of the Woodward years
was to dovetail the special programs begun in 1969 into
a two-week period of experiential education programs for
the entire enrollment: Artward Bound for 9th graders,
Habitat for Humanity for sophomores, Out Back for juniors,
and either Senior Project or Senior Colloquium for seniors.
In addition, the scope of the school's commitment to financial
aid for its students and professional development programs
for its faculty was considerably enhanced, as was its
embrace of electronic information technologies.
Pete Woodward retired in 2001, but confidence
is high in his successor: Phil Peck, a Holderness history
teacher since 1984, and also former Dean of Faculty, a
Klingenstein Scholar, and one-time coach of the US Olympic
nordic ski team.
Today Holderness boasts a $29 million endowment,
a faculty that has produced headmasters at six other independent
schools, and an array of nationally recognized programs
in experiential learning, the arts, the outdoors, and
winter sports. The trustees have limited enrollment in
order to preserve Holderness's intimacy and small-school
character. The school retains its association with the
Episcopal Church, though its services are ecumenical,
and all faiths are represented in its community. While
no longer a low-cost alternative to other independent
schools, the school still lives within its means, combining
excellent instruction with "the lowest possible charge
for tuition and board."
Holderness remains an honest and unpretentious
school, one with alumni that include such notables as
Bollingen Prize-winning poet Robert Creeley, US Representative
Charlie Bass, Colby College president Bro Adams, Museum
of Modern Art director Glenn Lowry, professional cyclist
Tyler Hamilton, world-champion extreme skier Alison Gannett,
and famed expedition leader Ned Gillette. Looking back
over nearly 125 years of Holderness history, Bishop Niles
would no doubt conclude that the seed was indeed of the
Lord's planting.
