Thornton Academy

Thornton Academy (often abbreviated as TA) is a co-educational, independent boarding and day school serving grades 9–12 located in Saco, Maine. Thornton Academy also opened a full-time, private junior high school on its campus, named Thornton Academy Middle School, which serves grades 6-8 for Saco, Dayton and Arundel students. History Thornton Academy was first established in 1811, under the name "Saco Academy" in response to a petition by citizens of southern Maine, most of them from Saco, to the Massachusetts legislature, which passed, in both houses, a bill founding the school in February 1811. The founding legislation also granted, as was common, one half a township or in northern Maine (most of what is currently the southern part of Greenville) as an endowment so long as the trustees named in the founding charter raised US$3,000 in funds. After successful fundraising and construction, Saco Academy officially opened on January 4, 1813. The school was plagued for years by financial difficulty. The name was officially changed to Thornton Academy in 1821 in gratitude for the gift of $1,000 by Dr. Thomas G. Thornton, also the marshal for the Maine territory, which put the school on solid financial footing. Depending upon the economic indices used, the gift was worth about US$20,300 in 2018 dollars.