Academy Hill retains little evidence of the radical changes in architec- tural style that took place in America in the 19th century. At the height of the early Victorian era, from 1840-65, no new construction occurred at Phillips Academy or the Andover Theological Seminary. The picturesque and romantic Gothic and Italianate styles are almost entirely absent. A flurry of activity in the decade following 1865 produced three fine late Victorian Ruskinian Gothic buildings, all of which were demolished in the 20th century. The Greek Revival style, exception- ally popular in New England during the second quarter of the 19th century, appeared only on the Abbot Academy campus. In 1829, just before the Phillips Academy trustees built the boxy Stone Academy to house the Teachers' Seminary on the corner of Main and Chapel streets, Abbot's founders were erecting their fashionable Greek Revival Academy Building along School Street. It was one of the earliest Greek Revival public buildings in Andover, and it far surpassed the architectural conservatism of Phillips Academy and Andover Theological Seminary. Twenty-five years later Abbot again architecturally led her brother institutions with the erection of Smith Hall, designed by Boston architect John Stevens in the Italianate style. Although not architecturally ornate, it demon- strated a willingness on the part of the Abbot trustees to enlarge the school and respond to new architectural fashions. Its construc- tion provided a dramatic contrast to the vernacular English and Latin Commons which housed Phillips Academy students. At Andover Theological Seminary in the 1850s, the new architectural fashions were expressed only in a few domestic buildings. Professor Calvin Stowe was appointed to the faculty in 1854, and Harriet Beecher Stowe, his wife, supervised a major renovation to the old stone house on Bartlet Street for their residence. Erected in 1828 as a workshop for the exercise of seminary students, the original building was character- istic of the austere architecture built under the supervision of Samuel Farrar. Mrs. Stowe added a poly- gonal porch and wooden blinds in a picturesque manner made fashion- able by the books of Andrew Jackson Downing.

Academy Hall, the earliest identified commission of architect Charles A. Cummings, once dominated the "new" Phillips Academy campus on the west side of Main Street. single catastrophic event propelled the Phillips Academy trustees into the new age of Victorian architecture. On Dec. 21, 1864, the Stone Academy, then being used by the academy's English department, was gutted by fire. When the trustees decided to replace the building, they chose a site across Main Street at the juncture of School Street, evidently concluding that efforts should be made to establish a campus for Phillips Academy distinct from the seminary. In fact, during the remainder of the 19th century the trustees would focus their efforts at creating a new campus on the west side of Main Street, an effort that only ended in 1922, many years after the seminary's 1908 move to Cambridge, Mass. With the burning of the Stone Academy, concerned Phillips Academy alumni gathered forces to aid the school in fund raising and rebuilding. The trustees, giving hearty approval to the alumni effort, appointed a building committee and authorized it to solicit plans. On June 5, 1865, the committee, consisting of Alpheus Hardy, president of the Board of Trustees, John Lord Taylor, treasurer, and Samuel H. Taylor, headmaster, approved the plans and authorized construction of a building to the design of Charles A. Cummings. No information has come to light indicating how Cummings was selected, or if the designs of any other architect had been considered. It is likely that the decision was made by Taylor, reputedly an autocratic head- master. Cummings had only been in practice for about seven years, and little is known about his early career. Indeed, Academy Hall is his earliest   Copyright, Phillips Academy, 2000

identified commission. Born in Boston in 1833, he received technical training at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., where he graduated in 1853. He then received practical training in the office of Boston architect Gridley J.F. Bryant, followed by travel in Europe and Egypt. It may have been during his travels abroad that he acquired a taste for Venetian Gothic architecture, advocated by the English art critic John Ruskin. He designed three Andover buildings, as well as his best-known work in Boston [Old South Church], in this style. Samuel Taylor and the trustees may have known Cummings through his writings; he published articles in various periodicals, including the Christian Examiner. Academy Hall was dedicated on Feb. 9, 1866. It had cost $49,000, of which $21,000 had been raised by alumni and other supporters. The four-story building featured an "exhibition hall" for recitation on the top floor. No greater contrast with the old Stone Academy could have been provided than the design of the new building. Its dimensions, 50 feet by 90 feet, were not particularly large, but the exterior had a pronounced verticality. In addition to the use of Gothic lancet-arched windows and doors, there were a mansard roof capped by a steeply pitched hip and an imposing entrance pavilion. This pavilion featured flanking stair- cases, a gable roof and a bellcote that suggested the appearance of a chapel wing projecting from the center of the building. Academy Hall was set back from School Street against a large open yard that accentuated the building's prominence as the centerpiece of the campus. Directly behind Academy Hall on either side of a large open field were the two rows of wooden dormitories—the English Commons on the north and the Latin Commons on the south. Before Academy Hall was completed, the trustees voted in November 1865 to grade this field for athletic use. The location of the new building and subsequent actions taken over the next two decades confirm that it was the intention of the trustees that Phillips Academy would emerge from the shadow of the Andover Theological Seminary at a location opposite that school.