About Oliver Wendell Holmes

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. for whom the library was named, was a member of the class of 1825.   Holmes celebrated his time at the Academy with a poem titled “The School Boy”, which he wrote for the centennial celebration.

Holmes was reported to have been a difficult student, and received a prolonged beating from Jonathan Clement, the first assistant instructor. However, he went on to become a doctor of some note, and was also a writer and an inventor.

His son, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., was a Civil War hero, and later became a Supreme Court judge remembered as The Great Dissenter.