Timeline

The History of Brooks School

While the history of Brooks School encompasses an entire century, its origins — the land, the lake and its inaugural philanthropist — date back well beforehand. 

Native Americans first inhabited the agriculturally-rich land next to what used to be a much smaller body of water that formed when surrounding drumlins dammed up one of two natural outlets and subsequently trapped glacier melt. Lake Cochichewick, named "the place of the great cascade" by the Pennacook people who first inhabited the area, was later listed as the Great Pond of Cochichewick on all maps produced between 1604 and 1906, explaining the school's mailing address. 

It was prominent Lawrence paper manufacturer William A. Russell who purchased the land in 1863 from the family of Daniel Foster with the intent of maintaining a gentleman’s farm. His son, also named William, was responsible for developing the first large-scale Holstein dairy cattle farm in the country on the site then called Lakeview Farm. 

During the mid-1920s, Rev. Endicott Peabody, the longtime headmaster of Groton School, sensed a growing need to create an additional New England boarding school that educated what was perceived as an influx of students at the time. A chance encounter with Groton parent Richard S. Russell (William A. Russell’s younger son) led to the donation of 65 acres of his family’s North Andover estate for Peabody’s proposed new school. 

Please explore our timeline to see more important facts and figures about Brooks’ past 100 years.