How Berwick Academy Began in 1791

Rev John Tompson founded Berwick Academy in 1791 MARK YOUR CALENDAR

A horseback journey to Boston in January 1791 may have taken days and been hazardous for a 55-year-old rider. But John Tompson of South Berwick prevailed, returning home with a charter passed by the Massachusetts legislature and signed by Governor John Hancock. Tompson promptly started a school that and today Berwick Academy is Maine’s oldest educational institution. (Continued below)

Seth Hurd will discuss the academy’s history in a talk entitled “Reverend John Tompson and the Founding of Berwick Academy.” The program will begin at 7:30 pm on Thursday, April 25, at Berwick Academy's Jeppesen Science Center on Academy Street. The public is invited and refreshments will be served.

Hurd’s lecture is part of the Old Berwick Historical Society's 2013 series of talks, walks and historical events tied to the 300^th anniversary of the Berwicks’ existence as an independent town. The anniversary series is made possible by member donations and by grants from the Maine Humanities Council and Kennebunk Savings.

1791 house at Berwick Academy, South Berwick, Maine

Hurd, a 1990 Berwick Academy graduate, today holds the post of Director of Finance and Operations at the school. He teaches upper school chorus and directs theatrical production. A resident of Acton, Maine, he directs music at the Acton Congregational Church, and is Music Director of the Granite State Choral Society.

The 1791 Berwick Academy charter called for “promoting piety, religion, and morality and for the education of youth in such languages and such of the liberal arts and sciences as the...Trustees shall direct.” Citizens of Berwick, York, Kittery, Rollinsford, Portsmouth and Wells had raised 500 pounds to launch the school.

Tompson himself was pastor of the First Parish Church, which later became South Berwick's First Parish Federated Church of today. In 1791, Maine was part of Massachusetts. Berwick – comprising today’s Berwick, South Berwick and North Berwick -- was founded in 1713 when it separated from Kittery.

Parson Tompson, who was Berwick Academy’s president from 1803 to 1825, also preached throughout the Seacoast area, delivering sermons in Somersworth, Eliot, Kittery, York, Dover, Newington, Durham, Rochester, Wakefield, Portsmouth, Kennebunk, and Wells in addition to Berwick. Tompson followed the latest ideas of his day. He was considered an Arminian, a follower of the theology of Jacobus Arminius, a Dutch pastor and theologian in the late 16th and early 17th centuries.

In 1806, classes at Berwick Academy were held six days a week year round, with Thursday and Saturday afternoons off. Vacations of one or two weeks took place at the end of August, November, February and May. Holidays included “annual thanksgivings, fast days and the fourth of July...[and] all town meeting days,” according to trustee minutes.

Beginning as a private school, the academy was co-ed after 1828. It served as South Berwick’s public high school from about 1886 to 1960. Its famous graduates include John Noble Goodwin, the first territorial governor of Arizona, and authors Sarah Orne Jewett and Gladys Hasty Carroll.

A boarding school from 1960-1974, today Berwick is an independent co-educational “country day school,” grades K-12, serving about 600 students from the Seacoast area of southern Maine and New Hampshire.

More information on the Counting House Museum and all the Old Berwick Historical Society’s programs is available at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., or by calling (207) 384-0000.