Deerfield Academy opened on January 1, 1799 in a two-story brick building designed by American architect Asher Benjamin (1773-1845). It offered a classical education to students of high school age, admitting students from Deerfield as well as more distant towns, including Springfield, Massachusetts, (about 30 miles away) and Charlestown, New Hampshire. By the year 2000, the Academy extended east and west from the Deerfield Common, having grown from one building to more than twenty-five. Its enrollment had grown as well, from the first student body of forty-nine to over 600 students who came from as close as Deerfield and as far away as Jordan and Japan.