History ==
=== Nichols Academy ===
An institution was established in 1815 as Nichols Academy. Its founder was Amasa Nichols, a wealthy industrialist from Dudley, Massachusetts. Other early benefactors of the academy included textile manufacturers such as Samuel Slater. A Universalist, Amasa Nichols intended for the school to be center for Universalist education. He resigned his position as an academy trustee in 1823, after non-Universalists were admitted to the board of directors. Nichols Academy subsequently became a private academy offering either a "classical" or "English" education to both male and female students ages 12 to 21.
After free public schools opened in the surrounding area, enrollment dropped, and Nichols Academy trustees arranged with the town for the school to serve as the Dudley town high school beginning in 1871, an arrangement that lasted until 1909 when the academy closed its doors. The campus buildings, designed by such architects as Elbridge Boyden and Charles F. Wilcox, were then used …
