McCollom Building

[2] In 1860, soon after graduating from Dartmouth College, Cecil Bancroft (1839–1901) was appointed as Principal of the school, where he stayed until 1864, leaving to marry Frances A. Kittredge, one of his students.

In that year, George W. McCollom (1814–1878) of New York City, a rich man born on a farm near Mont Vernon, gave the school $10,000 (equivalent to $254,333 in 2023) in memory of his late wife, Mary Ann Stevens, a niece of William Appleton.

By 1906, the number of students had fallen to eleven, partly reflecting a decline the population of rural New England towns like Mont Vernon as farms moved to the Midwest, and trustees decided to discontinue the school.

The regular fitting schools had, by their superior advantages, drawn many of the class that formerly came to Mont Vernon, and McCollom Institute could no longer compete in the work.

It operated as a boarding prep school through 1937, eventually owning several town buildings as dormitories, a 9-hole golf course, and Stearns Pond, which was used for ice hockey.

[7] In 1990 the remaining grades moved to the Village School and the McCollom Building was given to the town of Mont Vernon, at which time it adopted the current name.