History & Legacy

Statue of a mustang outside a building on the Mount Ida campus.

The former Mount Ida College was founded in 1899 when George Franklin Jewett and his wife Abigail Fay Jewett purchased a property on a hill in Newton Corner named Mount Ida and began a college prep and finishing school program, the Mount Ida School for Girls, that steadily grew, adding a junior college curriculum in 1907. Under the financial stress of the Great Depression, the school closed in 1935, but was purchased four years later by William F. Carlson and reopened on the newly acquired Robert Gould Shaw II estate in Newton Centre. Mount Ida officially became a college in 1967, began admitting men in 1976, and in the late 1980s merged with Chamberlayne Junior College and the New England Institute of Funeral Service Education. Mount Ida College closed its doors on May 17, 2018, and the land and campus buildings were acquired by the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The UMass Amherst acquisition ensured that the campus would maintain its education purpose, and the university has preserved the legacy of Mount Ida College through archives, scholarships and on-campus recognition.

History of the Campus

Before the English settlers came, Newton was the traditional homeland of the Massachusett people, who mostly left its natural landscape intact. The early English settlers in the area arrived in the 17th century.  At first, these were mostly small, subsistence farms, but by the 1700s several large homesteads had been established. In the mid to late 1800s, much of Newton became more residential, but Oak Hill, where the Charles River of Campus of UMass Amherst and formerly Mount Ida College is located, remained mostly unchanged, sparsely settled and dominated by agriculture, because it wasn’t served by railroads. 

 In the second half of the 19th century, the family of William Sumner Appleton owned the land the campus is on as part of a 340-acre estate he named Holbrook Farm. The family used it as their summer home.  

In 1909, the Shaw family purchased the land and renamed it Boulder Farm due to a huge boulder located near the main gate on Dedham Street, the main entrance to campus.  Today, a smaller boulder is visible in front of the Boulder Farm house on Carlson Avenue. Robert Gould Shaw II, who commissioned Shaw Hall in 1912, was a first cousin of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, the Civil War commander of the 54th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry of African-American soldiers.  Robert Gould Shaw II’s mother, Pauline Agassiz, was the daughter of the Harvard natural historian Jean Louis Agassiz. His father, Quincy Adams Shaw, had made an estimated $30 million in copper mining out West. Robert II was a socialite, international polo player, and one of the prominent figures of the Boston elite during the Gilded Age. He and his first wife, Nancy Witcher Langhorne, from a prominent Virginia Railroad family, divorced after four years of marriage. She went on to marry Waldorf Astor, became Lady Astor, and was the first woman to sit in the British House of Commons. Robert II then married Mary Harrington, former wife of Charles Henry Convers. Together they moved and lived into Shaw Hall. 

Shaw Hall was completed in 1913 and designed by architect James Lovell Little, Jr. to recreate an English manor house. It is said that the interior of the first floor was brought over from a manor house in England. This included floorboards, oak paneling and the grand staircase where it was estimated, at the time, to be 400 to 800 years old.  A New York Times article in 1913 said Robert II enjoyed his foray into country life so much that he gave up “clubs, yachts, and races” for dairy farming in a $12,000 cow stable (referring to the building Hallden Hall that is still located across campus).  After Robert II died in 1930, the family continued to live for a bit at Shaw Hall.  However, due to the Shaw fortune collapsing during the Great Depression, the house was vacant for three years and the interior furnishings sold at auction.   

“Mount Ida School for Girls” was founded in 1899 by George Franklin Jewett and Abigail Fay Jewett, and located in an elegant home in Newton on what was called “Mount Ida Hill”.  The name Mount Ida College was derived from this location.  The school, known as a college prep and finishing school, steadily grew, adding a junior college curriculum in 1917.  After facing financial difficulties and foreclosure due to the Great Depression, the school closed and was sold to, Dr. F. Roy Carlson in 1936.  In 1937, Dr. Carlson found a new home for the then “Mount Ida School for Girls” when he purchased the Shaw Estate for $80,000.00.  The estate included Shaw Hall, along with two other buildings, Holbrook Hall and Hallden Hall, all were under disrepair.

Aerial view of Mount Ida Campus in the early 1900s.

Preservation of the Mount Ida College Legacy

  • UMass Amherst is the institution of record for former Mount Ida College students who are seeking their transcripts and diplomas. Records for Mount Ida College alumni are maintained by the UMass Amherst Office of the University Registrar. Graduates of Mount Ida College are eligible to receive a UMass Amherst Diploma for credits earned at Mount Ida College by contacting the Registrar.
  • Mount Ida College’s iconic Mustang Statue has been permanently preserved outside of the Health, Wellness and Recreation building and includes a plaque that honors the students, faculty and staff of the College.
  • Mount Ida College endowments, including the Dr. Carol J. Matteson Scholarship, continue to fund scholarships for students in Veterinary Technology and other campus programs
  • The Robert S. Cox UMass Amherst Special Collections University Archives (SCUA) preserves and makes available to the public the Mount Ida College archives which includes photographs, yearbooks, course catalogs, student scrapbooks and other memorabilia.