Noyes Academy

The Noyes Academy was a racially integrated school, which also admitted women, founded by New England abolitionists in 1835 in Canaan, New Hampshire, near Dartmouth College, whose then-abolitionist president, Nathan Lord, was "the only seated New England college president willing to admit black students to his college". The school was unpopular with many local residents who opposed having blacks in the town. After some months, several hundred white men of Canaan and neighboring towns demolished the academy. They replaced it with Canaan Union Academy, restricted to whites. Background In the background of the Noyes Academy's foundation is the unsuccessful attempt, in 1831, to found a college for African Americans in New Haven, Connecticut. The citizens of that city "vociferously condemned the Black College proposal. The intensity of passion that exploded over the college meant the idea was stillborn." (See Simeon Jocelyn and New Haven Excitement). A direct result was the formation of the New England Anti-Slavery Society. "A more modest, and some thought wiser, course of action" was working to get black students admitted to existing academies and colleges. "The idea gradually evolved that, in the short run, what was needed was an integrated preparatory school" to prepare blacks for college or seminary.