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The Winchendon School

The mission of the Winchendon School is to work with students who have good ability, but for a variety of reasons have not reached their potential. The methods are student-centered and the curriculum is process-oriented. We teach study skills and we inculcate good study habits. We have a 6:1 student/teacher ratio, which allows us to individualize our coursework and to address varying learning styles. The school environment is structured and supportive.

History

As one of Bowdoin College’s most brilliant graduates of his time, Hatch vowed to create a small secondary school which could equip (via the personalized tutorial method) college-bound students with the accelerated and personalized skills to flourish and excel at the most demanding higher educational institutions. Creating the nation’s first accredited Summer School-Camp in 1926, a mecca for students from prominent boarding schools throughout the country and from foreign countries, the year-round Winter School quickly evolved, situated on Bryant Hill over looking Dexter, Maine, two miles away. The Summer School Camp featured idyllic Lake Wassookeag acreage, complete with multiple study cottages and lodge-like sleeping and dining structures lacing the birch-lined lakeshore — along with unsurpassed teaching derived from elite prep school and college ranks. The companion Wassookeag School catered to an intentionally limited student body which received personalized instruction geared to each student’s learning styles. Early tuition was then $2100-a hefty sum affordable to those prosperous families seeking “only the best” for their sons.

The Wassookeag years were vital and colorful for the School. Images abound of intense instruction coupled with the gaiety of the 1920’s, the ‘heyday’ early 1930’s years and pre-war 40’s- winter sleigh rides, water sports and horse riding and clay tennis courts, elegant dances at a rented North Dexter Grange Hall-serenaded by Jim Boyington’s orchestra, custom-cooked breakfasts on blue willow china served to the sons of America’s and international financial elite-savoring family-style Down East cuisine. Students thrived in a 4-Seasons nurturing atmosphere created by School matron Winnefred Hatch and various close relatives-each indispensable to the School’s viability and early success.

The extended Hatch family never forgot its roots in the local community. One day, according to Prudence Hatch McMann’s “On Main Street-A Memoir,” in the 1980’s a baker in Bangor approached the founder’s son, Lloyd H.“Harvey” Hatch, Jr., and thanked him for the School’s generosity 50 years earlier- when local hunger was rampant. “...we’d go up to Dexter to play basketball with the students...Everyone wanted to be on the team. We knew if we went there to play, we’d get food. We’d take forty people to play and watch the basketball games. We didn’t have much to eat in those days during the Depression. They fed everyone, invited everyone to eat...What a feed we had!” Winchendon students still volunteer to help the elderly and those in need.

Hatch’s eagerness to acquire (relative to today) bargain-basement priced seaside mansions was reported in Newport Daily News issues in 1957: including “Vernon Court”-the former Richard Van Nest Gambrill estate; “Stoneacre”-former W.Goadby Loew estate; “Fairlawn”-former I. Townsend Burden estate—these joining the 1920’s “Seaview Terrace”-the former spectacular French-Renaissance-designed Edson Bradley estate-leased from Mrs. George Waldo Emerson and “Honeysuckle Lodge”- the former T. Suffern Tailer estate. The setting, punctuated by formal receptions and presentations by area U.S. Naval top brass, was stimulating to the students. However, the enormous costs of heating and prohibitive overhead led the newly reorganized Board of Trustees to abruptly change direction. Lloyd Harvey Hatch, Sr.- pioneering educational entrepreneur and contemporary with many other early 20th Century private school leaders - retired to Dexter, Maine, as Headmaster Emeritus in 1959. Deerfield Academy’s R. Robert “Bob” Marr was hired as the School’s second Headmaster.

Williams College alumnus Robert Marr’s seasoned prep school experience at Deerfield and earlier at Vermont Academy provided the perfect combination of skill and energy to take the School into its permanent home. As new Headmaster in Newport during the 1959-60 and 1960-61 academic years, Marr maintained the Hatch tutorial model while introducing his own leadership brand. Finding a new campus location emerged as an increasing focus for the new Head. “Now and then, taking a day off from school, we left Newport early in the morning to begin our search,” Marr wrote. His odyssey criss-crossed New England, visiting a fabulous farm-estate near Williamstown, potential farm compound setting in the Berkshires, properties in Royalston...while, finally, serendipitously coming across Winchendon’s present 220 acre campus-the former legendary Toy Town Tavern. “Then, simply by chance and a long shot phone call, we came to Winchendon to look at what we once knew as the Toy Town Tavern, for a long time a nationally known resort place.” Marr persuasively took his case to Simplex Time Recorder President Curtis J. Watkins, civic-minded owner of the resort. A lease- purchase option deal was struck. The school moved in summer 1961 to the spectacular setting-with its majestic views of Mount Monadnock, Lake Watatic, as well as its own Donald Ross 18 hole golf course. Thanks to a major donation in 1963 by Winchendon’s 1962 graduate Walter Buhl Ford, III (1943-2010) great-grandson of Ford Motor Company founder Henry Ford, the School purchased the property and began its current 50 years of vibrant success at this location (1961-2011).

The Winchendon campus’ legendary history is also the stuff of local lore—the first farmhouse (the front portion of Ford Hall today) was built in 1786 by Simeon Stearns. The property subsequently became the Wyman Farm before its 1899 acquisition by the town of Winchendon’s world-renowned wooden toy magnate and philanthropist Morton E. Converse, who converted the farmhouse in 1912 into an expanded children-friendly resort, which gained fame throughout the East and attracted such guests as President William Howard Taft, Thomas A. Edison, Joseph P. Kennedy and family from Brookline, MA, and artist Norman Rockwell and wife.

The opening of the freshly relocated and newly re-named Winchendon School in the fall of 1961 seemed seamlessly managed. Superb teachers like the late Charles Dillaway (Bowdoin graduate and Maine campus hold-over) and English teacher Clifford Eriksen provided colorful teaching in the traditional Hatch mold. The seasoned leadership of Bob Marr and his able Assistant Head (and former Vermont Academy colleague) Frederick L. Zins enabled newly arrived students like me to sense the great traditions of Wassookeag School and Hatch-Newport – while also experiencing the exuberance of a revitalized school and its own incomparable setting.

Marr’s pivotal tenure (1959-1973), was followed by Lewis V. Posich (1973-1982), Stephen V.A. Samborski (1982-1988), J. William LaBelle (1988-2008), and current Head John A. Kerney. Each succeeding distinguished School leader has made enormous contributions, displaying great character, resilience, and educational innovation. Separate articles on each leader’s tenure will be forthcoming.

Academics

The Winchendon School has embraced the importance of a global education and all of our students and teachers participate in Global Dynamics, a groundbreaking interdisciplinary course that provides for the acquisition of key contemporary skills and the development of perspective on an array of global issues and topics. Small classes, a personalized approach, and flexible guidance and support systems are intended to stimulate an interest in learning and to teach students that they themselves are the most valuable contributors to their own education.

Activities

The Winchendon School holds a large variety of outdoor & indoor sports. For athletic programs, there are baseball, basketball, cross-country, cycling, golf, horseback riding, ice hockey, lacrosse, skiing, soccer, softball, tennis, track and field, and volleyball. For recreational sports, the school offers aerobics, cycling, fitness, golf, mountain biking, skiing, taekwondo, tennis, weight lifting. For extra-curricular activities, there are chorus, community service program, drama club, student government, and yearbook.

Student Enrollment

Number of Students
Domestic
International

Tuition

Students	Tuition Template:Alternating rows table section

External Links

Winchendon Alumni

References

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