Proctor Academy - Intersections

Settled in 1761 as "New Breton," Andover's early inhabitants struck upon a design for the central village that has great significance today. Main Street runs east-west (as Routes 4 & 11) and Lawrence Street (running south) intersects to create a focal point. But Lawrence Street does not plunge north, where it would quickly run into Ragged Mountain. Instead, early settlers fashioned a half-mile loop to the north, aptly named North Street. At first, North Street was a residential country road, with a farmhouse owned by the Fentons, a chapel, an inn (which became MLS,) and private homes. Over the decades, Proctor Academy absorbed all but the eastern corner of the district.

The first settlers would not recognize the place now. Most of North Street is so much a part of a prep school campus that townspeople rarely dare navigate it by car. Every 55 minutes, it is overrun with young pedestrians, cyclists and skateboarders--most of whom are moving across the street....from Maxwell Savage and the Wise Center to Shirley Hall and the Fowler Learning Center.

So, the square between Slocumb Hall, Proctor Pond, Maxwell Savage and Shirley Hall is where the school comes together outdoors, again and again, throughout the school day.

Of course, things have changed over the years. Proctor Pond was once nothing more than a wetland, and Shirley Hall replaced a maple grove.

Slocumb was the village livery stable, and the chapel has become our Health Center.

The Town of Andover was established long before the school we know as Proctor was founded to meet the needs of local students, and as recently as the 1940s, the school population was only about fifty students.

Today, Proctor enrolls 346 students, employs 180 (the largest--by far--in the town) and dominates the center of the village.

What was once the Moulton House Inn on North Street has been a boys' dormitory for a long time. Here's a photo from an MLS dorm party at which Edna Peters cooked waffles.