“It is the one thing that money can’t buy,” said Lou Jefferies, head of Hill archives. “If someone decided to make a school like this, they could buy the land, build the buildings, and within three to four years you could have a school. But the one thing you can’t buy is legacy, and tradition, and history, and the lives the school has touched over a hundred and sixty-nine years. Only time and commitment can do that, and that’s what the archives preserve.”

Over the past summer, six Hill students in the Hill History Scholars program joined Jefferies to learn what it takes to piece history together from first-hand accounts. Students spent the two weeks after the rest of the school headed home for the summer, meeting daily in the archives and in the Humphries Writing Center to learn about research from some of Hill’s own experts. Several faculty members presented to the students, drawing on their own backgrounds as historians and researchers. 

Hill History Scholars completed in-depth research projects on notable events and figures from Hill’s past. 

“I researched Lincoln Ellsworth, a polar explorer from the Class of 1921,” Taylor Owens ’20 said. “I found letters in his file that were written to the Headmaster, Jay Wendell, about things that he’d sent to the school, like the medal of honor he received from Congress and a silk flag. We couldn’t find them until one day when going through the archives, we found this old cardboard box with all the artifacts.

“Mr. Miller, Mr. Jeffries, and I have been working on putting together a display box to put in the library, which will be coming out soon,” Ellsworth said. “We’re excited to share it with the community.”

Len Miller, assistant headmaster and the architect of this entire program, said that the first year of Hill History Scholars was a tremendous success and that he looks forward to this upcoming June when the program will enter its second year. Applications will be open to rising fifth and sixth formers this winter term.