HISTORICAL NOTE

This material consists mainly of minutes of the trustees, 1850 to 1980, who were in charge of administering the munificent sum of $50,000 left by Benjamin H. Punchard for a free secondary school in the town of Andover. The school opened in 1856, but beginning in 1868 when the first building burned, the town gradually took over funding and running the school until by 1910 it was considered to be public. In 1947, George K. Gardner, a law professor at Harvard helped the trustees decide what to do with the $3,000 annual income which would not sustain even one teacher. Gardner suggested that the money be used to enrich the instruction of the pupils in the high school as the trustees saw fit.

Besides these four bound volumes, there is a folder of clippings and school memorabilia, including obituary resolutions and material from the 1878 graduation.

This material has the Accession Number 1981.163.

Processed by Mary F. Morgan, November 1982.