1883: Charlotte Haxall Noland is born at Burrland, in Fauquier County, Virginia.
1904:Noland decides on the name Foxcroft during a summer at England's Oxford University in England.
1914: In October, Foxcroft opens its doors to 24 students. Noland becomes known as Miss Charlotte.
1914: Miss Charlotte holds the first Fox/Hound basketball game in November, beginning the School’s oldest and most beloved tradition.
1918: Miss Charlotte becomes sole owner of Foxcroft by buying out co-owner Major Hartley.
1930: Covert is purchased as Miss Charlotte’s home. It burned in 1933 and was rebuilt the next year.
1933: Miss Charlotte receives a gift of 80 cherry trees from the School for Christmas.
1936: The first Foxcroft scholarship fund is established.
1936: Court, the first of the modern dormitories, is completed.
1937: Miss Charlotte gives Foxcroft to its alumnae.
Miss Charlotte institutes military drill.
1947: Applegate and Dillon Dormitories are completed.
General George Marshall and General Cummings review the Foxcroft Corps at Commencement.
1952: Schoolhouse is dedicated, completing the work of the Building and Endowment Fund.
Van Santvoord Merle-Smith becomes the second Head of Foxcroft.
1956: Foxcroft holds a science conference.
Miss Charlotte receives an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Columbia University, recognizing her as one of the foremost educators in the world.
The “new” Orchard Dormitory is completed, replacing “Old Orchard.”
Bertha Adkins becomes the third Head of School, bringing a renewed commitment to the academic life.
1966: The Engelhard Activities Building is completed.
Alexander Uhle succeeds Adkins as the fourth Head of School.
1968: The McConnell Stable and Riding Hall is completed.
Audrey Bruce Currier Library is dedicated.
Coit Johnson becomes the fifth Head of School.
Foxcroft is the first girls’ school to receive a Kenan Grant for faculty professional development.
1979: Richard Wheeler becomes the sixth Head of School.
McClain Jeffrey Moredock becomes the seventh Head. He is followed, briefly, by Dr. Geraldine Pearson in 1988.
Foxcroft celebrates its 75th anniversary.
Mary Louise Leipheimer becomes Foxcroft’s ninth Head of School.
1991: Poet Maya Angelou electrifies her audience as Goodyear Speaker.
Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, Doris Kearns Goodwin, gives her Goodyear address to a standing-room-only crowd in the Engelhard Gymnasium.
2003: Interim Term trip goes to Antarctica.
The first building of the 2003 Campus Master Plan is completed: A maintenance building called “Sally’s Service Center.”
2009: Goodyear Fellow James Baker, III, speak to a capacity crowd in Engelhard.
The $14 million Athletic/Student Center, a significant renovation and expansion of the Engelhard Activities Center, is dedicated.
2010: The first Think Pink basketball tournament to benefit the Cherry Blossom Breast Cancer Foundation is held.
Foxcroft becomes the first school in Virginia to partner with Purdue University’ EPICS engineering program.
2012: Actress Lisa Kudrow speaks at Commencement.
Foxcroft’s first LEED-certified building, Stuart Hall, opens its doors to 50+ students and three faculty families.
2013: Foxcroft kicks off its Centennial Celebration with a worldwide Day of Service and hosts the Cherry Blossom Breast Cancer Walk, Run & Pooch Prance for the first time.
Foxcroft celebrates its Centennial with a weekend full of activities.
2014: Catherine Smylie McGehee is installed as the 10th Head of Foxcroft School in a September garden ceremony.
Ruth Bedford ’32 leaves Foxcroft more than $40 million, the largest gift ever bestowed to a girls’ school.
Ellen Stofan, Chief Scientist of NASA, speaks with students.
Dorm Renovation Project is completed with upgrades to Applegate, Dillon, Orchard, and Reynolds.
2016: Court is rededicated as a welcome center.
National Sporting Museum and Library: Miss Charlotte's Sport School
Charlotte Haxall Noland (1883-1969) spent her childhood leading others (sometimes into mischief) and riding the farm horses around her family home of Burrland. The family reunited with Burrland after two years in the city, and a year later Charlotte went to stay with her aunt in Richmond to make her debut. It was an unqualified success, but upon her return home, the pragmatic Charlotte assessed the ritual as “a lot of fun, but really a waste of time.”
A turning point came when Charlotte went to work. She found employment as the physical education teacher at St. Timothy’s School in Baltimore, and found that the gym suited her well. She went on to teach at Bryn Mawr School in a similar capacity, refining ideas for her dream school. Eventually she enrolled in a summer course in physical education through the Sargent School at Harvard where she learned the rules and how to officiate a new sport known as basketball.
Upon returning to Baltimore, Charlotte set up a gymnasium for girls, finding clients from all the surrounding schools. She built up enough capital to open her dream school, near her hometown of Middleburg. The school was named Foxcroft School (Charlotte fell in love with the name when she walked past a family home belonging to a Major Foxcroft one summer) and opened in 1914. Charlotte had her dream school at age 31.
In many ways, Foxcroft was an expression of Charlotte Noland’s belief in the virtues of sport and physical competition. The school motto is “mens sana in corpore sano” (a healthy mind in a healthy body). Beagling was an early mandatory excursion for all students. A basketball tradition was founded at Foxcroft with an annual Thanksgiving game between the school’s two houses, the Foxes and the Hounds.
Other sporting traditions began to take shape: the girls were trained in riding (aside or astride) by Miss Charlotte (as she would be called forever afterward) and, with parental approval, be given training on jumping their steeds. Students spent a weekend each year riding their horses to Luray, Virginia (a round trip of over 100 miles). A Coon Hunt was organized every October, and very soon the school had its own horse show.
From 1932 to 1946, Miss Charlotte served as Joint Master to the Middleburg Hounds with Daniel Sands. Early in the school’s development, she allowed the best riders from among her students to ride with the Middleburg Hunt. Miss Charlotte’s hunting career eventually came to an end, as she never truly recovered from a bad fall while hunting. She gradually lost the full use of her injured leg, and riding became difficult. Instead, she turned to fishing, spending her retirement in her boat, “The Sea Fox,” and she reportedly caught a 68 pound marlin!
Many of the sporting traditions at the school have continued on, and riding is still a signature program of the school. Today, Foxcroft School is a cornerstone of Virginia’s hunt country and an embodiment of its founder’s vision.
1930 Library of Congress Photograph by Frances Benjamin Johnston | Foxcroft School documented in the Carnegie Survey of the Architecture of the South
https://www.loc.gov/item/csas200905127/
1931 Fortune Classic | Girl's Schools
https://fortune.com/2011/10/02/girls-schools-fortune-classic-1931/
1949 Library of Congress Photograph by Toni Frissill | Miss Charlotte Haxall Noland, Founder of Foxcroft School Middleburg VA
https://www.loc.gov/item/2009632163/
Thomas Balch Library | Photograph of Foxcroft School from the Audrey Windson Berger Research Collection
2002 Haunted Places: The National Directory | Middleburg's Foxcroft School
2012 Foxcroft's 98th Commencement Ceremony | Lisa Kudrow Urges Foxcroft School Graduates to "Decide Who You Are"
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2012/5/prweb9548957.htm
2013 Foxcroft Wintermission | Forgotten Footprints
https://wintermission.wordpress.com/2013/02/15/the-forgotten-footprints-of-foxcroft-monday/
2014 The Gracious Posse | Educator in Residence ~ Cathy McGehee, Head of Foxcroft School
http://thegraciousposse.com/2014/11/educator-in-residence-cathy-mcgehee-head-of-foxcroft-school/
2014 Fox News | Westport Heiress Leaves $40 to VA Boarding School
http://fox61.com/2014/10/28/westport-heiress-leaves-40-million-to-va-boarding-school/
2017 National Sporting Library - Miss Charlotte's Sporting School
https://nslmblog.wordpress.com/tag/charlotte-noland/
Virginia History: Raspberry Plain Manor and connecting families | Foxcroft Built by John Kile in 1820
https://www.raspberryplainmanor.com/history/
Legends of Loudoun: An Account of the History and Homes | Foxcroft
Loudoun Times-Mirror | Foxcroft announces inaugural Hall of Fame
http://www.loudountimes.com/sports/article/foxcroft_announces_inaugural_hall_of_fame_class835
2017 Middleburg Eccentric | .Middleburg Women - Sincerely Me (Miss Charlotte)
https://middleburgeccentric.com/2017/11/middleburg-women-sincerely/
People:
John Kyle and Jane Ball
Charlotte Haxall Noland (1888-1969) - Founder, 1914 (age 31)
School Motto: “Mens sana in corpore sano” - a healthy mind in a healthy body
Tombstone: 1 Kings 3:12 “Lo, I have given you a wise and understanding heart”
Rosalie Noland - Miss Charlotte’s sister
Emily Northcross - First nurse, 1935
Eleanor Mackubin - Riding mistress
Teresa E Shook - Athletics program head, 1930 graduate
“Shook, or “Shookie,” graduated from Foxcroft in 1930 and returned to the School shortly after her graduation as a member of the faculty. For 35 years – from 1932 to 1967 – she taught at Foxcroft, serving as head of the athletic program, director of riding, basketball coach, and director of the military drill program. As a student, she was a starting forward on the 1929 and 1930 Foxcroft interscholastic basketball teams and her contribution to the growth of Foxcroft sports in her years as athletic director and coach were exemplary. This was recognized in 1967, when the Teresa E. Shook Award was initiated in her honor. The prize is given annually “to the girl who has shown skill in performing a sport and has made and outstanding contribution to the spirit of good sportsmanship.” Loudoun Times - Mirror
Events:
Fox/Hound Basketball
“Miss Charlotte enrolled in a summer course in physical education through the Sargent School at Harvard where she learned the rules and how to officiate a new sport known as basketball...A basketball tradition was founded at Foxcroft with an annual Thanksgiving game between the school’s two houses, the Foxes and the Hounds.” NSLM Blog, 2017
“Miss Charlotte, serving as her own athletic director, scheduled the School’s first interscholastic basketball game in 1917 and its first road trip in 1921. Foxcroft sports steadily grew under her leadership.” Loudoun Times-Mirror