Exhibit is instructive about Salisbury's many private schools

SALISBURY — The three private schools in Salisbury — The Hotchkiss School, Indian Mountain School and Salisbury School — are well-established, and familiar to most townspeople.

But the town has been an educational greenhouse of sorts through the years, with many schools targeted to specific groups.

Some of this diverse history is revealed in the Salisbury Association Historical Society’s current exhibit at the Academy Building, Independent School’s Heritage, which opened Saturday, July 10 at the building on Main Street across from Town Hall.

There was the Hillcrest School, in the 1920s, for instance. Located on the 300-acre  Dwight Allen farm overlooking Twin Lakes and donated in 1923 by Mrs. Herbert Scoville, Hillcrest was “an all-year-round training school for girls who because of personality, difficulties or unsatisfactory home conditions, need that individual understanding necessary to equip them to meet the problems of life.â€�

For seven years in the 1880s, Lakeville was home to Reid’s Classical School, in the house at the end of Elm Street. The school relocated to Hartford in 1888.

The Taconic School for Girls operated from 1896 to 1914, at first in a house called The Ramblers on Montgomery Street in Lakeville. In 1899 the school moved to what is now the Wake Robin Inn. The Taconic School had a college preparatory curriculum and was closely associated with Hotchkiss.

Mrs. Tracy’s School was in business from around 1929 to 1937. Located on the Hotchkiss campus, it was for children of faculty members (Mrs. Tracy’s husband, John, taught math at Hotchkiss). It also used the school building on Montgomery Street.

Earlier in the 1920s, Hotchkiss faculty asked Miss Anna Stuart, a public school teacher, to open a private school for their children, and thus was Miss Stuart’s Private School born. The exhibit notes that “Miss Stuart said she wasn’t too excited about the idea because she knew the children would be different than those she was used to.�

The Salisbury Academy (aka the Select School) was established in 1833. A group of 25 “town fathers� thought the town “should provide opportunities for education beyond what was offered in the 14 district public schools.�

Tuition for English was $3, for languages $4, and “every student’s family was expected to supply fuel wood.�

The exhibit also records that among the expenses in 1836 was 50 cents for “keeping and ringing the bell.� In 2009, the rediscovered bell had a new rope attached and is now back in business.

The Twin Lakes property formerly occupied by the Hillcrest School was purchased in 1941 by the Institute of World Affairs (originally established in 1924 in Switzerland).

The institute’s graduate-level programs attracted students from all over the world. The property was sold in the late 1990s.

Other private schools in town included the Town Hill School, which merged with Indian Mountain in 2003; Miss Flora Weed’s Home School for Girls (1880s); and St. Mary’s Catholic School (1883-1921).

School faculty have historically become involved in town government and organizations. The exhibit notes that:

• Salisbury graduate Bill Doolittle (1922) was the headmaster at Indian Mountain School from 1939 to 1970, a longtime vice president of the Salisbury Winter Sports Association, and a member of the Scoville Library board and the Zoning Board of Appeals

• Rick Del Prete, who taught history at Hotchkiss for 34 years,  and was athletic director for 24 years, has served on the Board of Education and the Zoning Board of Appeals

• Huber Gray Buehler, an English teacher at Hotchkiss and headmaster from 1904-1924, is listed in records as being a member of what was then known as the “Board of School Visitors� for the Lakeville Public School in 1898.

And finally, it probably isn’t widely known that Hotchkiss had, in 1891, the first portable X-ray machine in the area. Veterinarians used to borrow it, which made for some unusual scenes on campus.