Lawrence Academy (Groton, Massachusetts)
high school in Groton, Massachusetts
Lawrence Academy at Groton is a private, nonsectarian, co-educational college-preparatory boarding school located in Groton, Massachusetts. Founded in 1792 as Groton Academy and chartered in 1793 by Governor John Hancock, it is the tenth-oldest boarding school in the United States and the third-oldest in Massachusetts, following The Governor's Academy (1763) and Phillips Academy at Andover (1778).
History
Early center of learning
On April 27, 1792, fifty residents of the towns of Groton and Pepperell formed an association to raise funds for a "Publick School ... in Groton, for the education of youth, of both sexes—in which School are taught the English, Latin and Greek Languages, Writing, Arithmetic, Geography, the Art of Speaking and Writing, with Practical Geometry, and Logic." The founders of the new Groton Academy included prominent citizens Oliver Prescott, Zabdiel Adams, Samuel Dana, and Timothy Bigelow. Samuel Lawrence also contributed funds, thus beginning the school's longstanding relationship with the Lawrence family.
The academy is the third-oldest boarding school in Massachusetts. It received its corporate charter in 1793 and a state-funded endowment (11,520 acres of land in Maine) in 1797. Its primary purpose was to educate students from the surrounding region; at the time, Groton was the second-largest town in Middlesex County and the center of the local economy. Although some students came from as far away as North Carolina, the school remained committed to its local base. From 1793 to 1848, thirteen families supplied one out of every six students.
The public source identifies “Lawrence Academy (Groton, Massachusetts)” as high school in Groton, Massachusetts. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Lawrence, Academy and Groton.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1462611. Authority coordinates are 42.604, -71.566. 2 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1792, 1793, 1763 and 1778.
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This entry incorporates text from “Lawrence Academy (Groton, Massachusetts)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.