The Prospect Hill School was created when the Rev. John Moors mobilized a group of the leading citizens of Greenfield, Massachusetts, to pool their money for the purchase of the estate of Greenfield’s former postmaster, D.N. Carpenter. The estate was on several acres of wooded land with a view of the Connecticut River Valley and a large mansion. The Prospect Hill School for Girls opened in 1869. At first, the mansion was used for both classrooms and housing, but within a year or two a separate classroom building was constructed. In 1880, it was rechartered as a school directed by the American Unitarian Association. It operated until 1907. In 1930, it merged with the Stoneleigh School, that had been in Connorsville, Indiana and later Rye, New Hampshire.  The resulting Stoneleigh-Prospect Hill School purchased a 150 acre tract on the Bernardston Road. In 1969, the school merged with the Mary A. Burnham School of Northampton to create the Stoneleigh-Burnham School. This photograph was taken in the early 1870s.