Coburn Classical Institute

In its early years, Waterville College (now Colby College) had maintained a Latin school in the college buildings. Around 1828, the college trustees wanted a classical academy to prepare boys for entrance to the college. Land was donated by Hon. Timothy Boutelle, and funds raised by the college president Jeremiah Chaplin, for a small brick building in which the school went into operation in the fall of 1829. The school was under the charge of Henry W. Paine, then a member of the senior class at the college. Regarded as an appendage to the college, no act of incorporation was sought. There were 61 students in the school's first year.{{cite book|author=United States. Bureau of Education|title=Circular of Information|publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office|url=https://archive.org/details/circularinforma13educgoog|year=1903|pages=[https://archive.org/details/circularinforma13educgoog/page/n441 207]–}}

For about two years, 1839 and 1840, Waterville Academy was closed. The school re-opened in 1841, and in 1842 the trustees of Waterville College incorporated the school separately and passed control to a new board of trustees. Girls were admitted to the school beginning in 1845.

In 1865, the school was renamed the Waterville Classical Institute. In 1868, a Bachelor of Letters degree was first awarded to women. Around 1874, Abner Coburn pledged $50,000 to the endowment of the school, on the condition that $50,000 also be raised to support two other institutes proposed by the college (called at the time Colby University).

In 1882, Coburn erected a new building for school at an additional expense of $38,000, and the school was renamed Coburn Classical Institute.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PhU-AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA313 |title=Board of Trade Journal |year=1906 |pages=313–}}Little Talks #749. Colby College Special Collections. December 31, 1967. accessed at: http://web.colby.edu/specialcollections/2011/01/17/lt749-readonly/ {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304061442/http://web.colby.edu/specialcollections/2011/01/17/lt749-readonly/|date=2016-03-04}} An observatory dome was added to the school in 1889, with an Alvan Clark & Sons equatorial telescope.

In 1970, the school merged with the Oak Grove School in Vassalboro, Maine, which was renamed the Oak Grove Coburn School and closed in 1989. In 1990, the State of Maine purchased the Vassalboro campus and turned it into the State of Maine Criminal Justice Academy, a police academy which trains all law enforcement officers, state, county and municipal, who have the power of arrest and the authority to carry a firearm in the State of Maine.{{Cite web|url=http://www.maine.gov/dps/mcja/about/about.htm|title=Maine Criminal Justice Academy: About the Facility}}

• Louise Helen Coburn (1856–1949), 1873 A.B.,Coburn, Louise H,. Skowhegan on the Kennebec, Skowhegan, ME 1941 one of the five founders of Sigma Kappa sorority and a pioneer for women's education at Colby College
• Obadiah Gardner (1852–1938), politician
• Ida Fuller (1858–1930), founder of Sigma Kappa sorority
• Asher Hinds (1863–1919), politician
• Edwin Francis Lyford (1857–1929), lawyer and politician
• Charles Francis Meserve (1850–1936), academic administrator and president of Shaw University; attended in the 1870s{{Cite web |last=Carroll |first=Grady L. E. |date=1991 |title=Meserve, Charles Francis |url=https://www.ncpedia.org/biography/meserve-charles-francis |access-date=2023-05-12 |website=NCpedia}}{{Cite book |last=Ashe |first=Samuel A'Court |url=http://archive.org/details/biographicalhis06ashegoog |title=Biographical History of North Carolina From Colonial Times to the Present |date=1905 |publisher=Greensboro, N.C., C.L. Van Noppen |others=New York Public Library |pages=342–348 |via=Internet Archive}}
• Marston Morse (1892–1977), mathematician
• Charles L. Phillips (1856–1937), U.S. Army brigadier general{{cite magazine |last=Brewster |first=Mary Phillips |date=June 10, 1939 |title=Obituary, Charles Leonard Phillips |url=https://digital-library.usma.edu/digital/collection/aogreunion/id/21817/rec/2 |magazine=Seventieth Annual Report of the Association of Graduates of the United States Military Academy |location=Newburgh, NY |publisher=Moore Printing Company |page=139 |via=West Point Digital Library |ref={{sfnRef|Brewster}}}}
• Jane Maria Read (1853–?), poet and teacher
• Clyde Sukeforth (1901–2000), enrolled 1916, major and minor league baseball player, manager and scout.

• Elijah Parish Lovejoy (1824–1826), headmaster
• Ginger Fraser (1919–1921), athletic director

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{{Maine Private and Boarding High Schools}}

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Category:Schools in Kennebec County, Maine

Category:Private high schools in Maine

Category:Preparatory schools in Maine

Category:Education in Waterville, Maine