Names in 1991 by the U.S. Department of Education as an Exemplary Secondary School as part of its Blue Ribbon Schools Program, Williston Northampton has a long history of excellence.

 

Williston Seminary was founded in 1841 by Samuel and Emily Williston.  Initially coeducational, Williston Seminary later became a college-preparatory school for boys.  The Williston’s amassed a great fortune from the production of cloth-covered buttons and the manufacture of rubber webbing and thread.  They also supported the local colleges both financially and personally.

 

Eighty-three years later, in 1924, Sarah B. Whitaker and Dorothy M. Bement founded the academic Northampton School for Girls.

 

In 1971, the two schools merged to form Williston Northampton, a coeducational school offering a strong secondary education to prepare interested students for the rigorous academic programs of colleges today and the demands and complexities in life afterward.

 

The School is located on 100 acres in the heart of the Pioneer Valley a few miles from the base of Mount Tom, 85 miles west of Boston, and 150 miles north of New York.  Within a 15-mile radius are Smith, Mount Holyoke, Hampshire, and Amherst colleges and the University of Massachusetts.

 

A self-perpetrating 25-member Board of Trustees governs the School, which is a nonprofit institution.  The current endowment is estimated at $32 million.  The School's alumni body of 8,000 contributed more than $1 million in Annual Giving last year.

 

Williston Northampton is accredited by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges and is affiliated wit the National Association of Independent Schools, the Association of Independent Schools of New England, the College Board, the School and College Conference on English, the Art Association of New England Preparatory Schools, and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education.