School History

---

It was in September 1937 that the Rev. Frank C. Leeming, then Rector of St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Peekskill, New York, conceived the idea of a self-help school for boys. After having talked the matter over with the Bishop of the Diocese, the Rt. Rev. Dr. William T. Manning, he approached the Reverend Mother of the Community of St. Mary, who offered the use of buildings at Van Cortlandtville. In September 1938, most of the year previous having been used in the painting and decoration of the buildings by men and women of the parish, the school opened with an enrollment of twenty-four boys and a staff of seven.

By the end of the first year, it had become apparent that the location was not a good one because of the lack of room for further expansion, and so the Canfield property of thirty-eight acres and several buildings on Route 6 was purchased. The enrollment for the second year of the school jumped to forty-three.

In 1943 the Tompkins estate immediately across from the Canfield place was purchased and added to the school, and the 1940 enrollment was fifty-four boys.

Organized as a self-help school, the boys from the beginning have assumed much of the responsibility for the care of the buildings. They take tums washing the dishes, cleaning their rooms and the classrooms, setting and clearing tables, and even constructing buildings.

In December 1956, the school sold the Tompkins property to the Beach Shopping Center and, with the returns form that sale, purchased the McFadden property, which immediately adjoined the Canfield place. This gives us seventy acres on the north side of Route 6.

The present buildings house 117 boys and thirteen resident masters. Two of the staff live off-campus. In 1953, the gymnasium and field house was built, and in more recent years, a new dormitory, dining hall, and library have been added. The school has a well-equipped infirmary and a resident nurse.

St. Peter's is incorporated by the University of the State of New York as a non-profit organization. A board of trustees governs it. Its graduates attend most of the leading colleges and universities, some of which are Bowdoin, Brown, Bucknell, Carnegie Tech., Colgate, Columbia, Dartmouth, Franklin-Marshall, Hamilton, Harvard, Hobart, Kenyon, Lehigh, Maryland, M.I.T., Michigan State, Middlebury, New Hampshire, N.Y.U., Nicholas Junior, Penn. State, Pennsylvania, Princeton, R.P.I., St. Lawrence, Trinity, Union, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and Jefferson, Washington and Lee, Wesleyan, Yale, and the General Theological Seminary.

Saint Peter's is a Church School with the altar as its center. Its subjects are taught from a Godward point of view, and its faculty is made up of convinced Christians. We believe that the Church is in the world to teach—to teach men that God is their Creator and that they are entirely dependent on Him—that without Him, they can do nothing. It aims to send its boys out into college and business to live and work as Christian gentlemen.

"At St. Peter's we believe that the whole man, the capable man, does not emerge save through the appreciation and understanding of a religious experience. For that reason, our program is built around the focal point of the Christian altar, and S.P.S. men are expected to think in terms of service to God and man. If in following this approach we also recognize, foster, and train our students to meet a higher educational responsibility leading to a life of leadership and service, then we have fulfilled our destiny and justified our existence."

Richard McDowell

Dean, St. Peter's School, 1958