During the 30 years after its opening the school enrolled more than 2,000 students from 17 states and territories of the new republic, as well as Canada and the West Indies.

The longevity of the school, the size of the enrollments, the wide geographic distribution of the student body, the development of the curriculum and the training of teachers, all distinguish it from the numerous other female academies of the Early Republic.

Prominent residents, including the Reverend Lyman Beecher, Senator Uriah Tracy, Colonel Benjamin Tallmadge, Julius Deming, and the Oliver Wolcott family, had family, social, political and business networks which helped attract students to Litchfield.

During the Revolution, Pierce had a distinguished record, rising to become the Assistant Paymaster of the Continental Army, and personal friend of General Washington.

[5][6] In 1798, due to the increased popularity of the school, a subscription was held by the town leaders in Litchfield to raise funds to construct a building for the Female Academy.

The building is no longer standing today but a marker on North Street in Litchfield denotes where the school was located (41°45′14″N 73°11′30″W / 41.7539°N 73.1918°W / 41.7539; -73.1918).

[7] Sarah Pierce seized upon the post-revolutionary rhetoric of Republican Motherhood, which stressed the responsibility of women to provide the early intellectual and moral training of their children, and was believed to be crucial for the survival of the country.

In 1792 the school differed little from the large number of small female academies opening throughout the country, especially in the northeastern states.

Pierce first offered a limited curriculum of a smattering of English, ancient and European history, geography, arithmetic and composition.

Unlike most women heading female academies, Pierce was lacking in any talent for art, needlework, music and French, hiring assistant teachers for those subjects.

She sent her nephew, John Pierce Brace, to Williams College to receive training in teaching the “higher branches” of mathematics and science.

He joined the school as her assistant in 1814, teaching till 1832 when he left to take over his former student Catharine Beecher's Hartford Female Academy.

There has been an assumption that students at the female academies of the Early Republic were drawn from a narrow stratum of elite families.

Pierce created an educational philosophy in which all learning – academic, moral, religious and social – was part of the total development of the young women in her school.

Proper behavior and emotions were stressed continually through readings from the bible, history, biographies and British periodicals.