Frank Cramer founded what is now The Harker School under the influence of David Starr Jordan, the first president of Stanford University. The school was a feeder school for the new university, which opened in 1891.
The school was first and briefly known as the Palo Alto Preparatory School for Boys. It was both a day and boarding school located in the home of Rev. W.D. Bishop on Waverley Street in Palo Alto. In 1892, the school was renamed Manzanita Hall.
Some years later, Cramer moved the school out to the town’s Alba Park “fringe area” of the late 1890s. By this time, the tiny campus was comprised of two buildings, Manzanita Hall and Madrone Hall.
J. Leroy Dixon, a well-known educator in the area, purchased the school from its founder in 1902, sold it, then bought it back it for a brief time. Dixon owned Manzanita Hall for a total of seven years. He once stated that while the school was under his ownership, “Manzanita Hall had students from all over the country and sent more boys to Stanford than any other school in the state.”
According to newspaper reporter Rosa Jensen, Manzanita Hall was not a military academy under Dixon’s ownership. Rather, the school “stressed cultural subjects, which he [Dixon] still feels make a good background for any career.”
In June 1919, ownership of Manzanita Hall once again changed hands, this time to Col. Richard P. Kelly. Under his leadership, the school altered its curriculum and was later moved to Parkinson Avenue. A boys’ camp was also established. In 1925, Manzanita Hall became known as the Palo Alto Military Academy.
Sarah Ellen Polk Harker was the mother of Catherine and Sara D. Harker, the women who founded and ran Miss Harker’s School for Girls in Palo Alto.
Mrs. Harker was born in Indiana on Oct. 28, 1845. She was two years old when her family embarked on the Oregon Trail. While on the trail her father, Adam, died of pneumonia after being exposed to bad weather while crossing a raging river.
Adam was a cousin of President James K. Polk. He came from Kentucky with his three sons to La Porte, Ind., and served (it is believed) as foreman for her grandfather, Nathaniel Winchell. Sarah’s parents married in 1842 and had two children together, Sarah and her sister Caroline.
Years later, Sarah married James Bartlett Harker, a native of New Jersey. He died the same year Catherine Harker opened her school. Sarah and James had three daughters: Catherine, Sara and Caroline. Tragedy struck the family again on June 18, 1893, when Caroline, the youngest daughter, committed suicide by drowning during a state of depression at age 22.
Sara D. Harker eventually left Portland, Ore., where the family had settled, to work at Miss Harker’s School. In 1902, Sarah’s sister Mrs. Caroline Wellman joined her. Together, the Harker women put all their energy into Miss Harker’s School.
Sarah Ellen’s daughters never married, but their much-loved students became their legacy.
The foundations of what would eventually become The Harker School were laid by Frank Cramer, one of the earliest residents of Palo Alto. After graduating from Lawrence College in Appleton, Wis., in 1886, Cramer worked as a teacher in his home state before moving to Palo Alto to attend Stanford University. A biologist and lifelong lover of the sciences, Cramer earned his master’s degree in zoology from Stanford in 1893.
In 1891, Stanford president David Starr Jordan influenced Cramer to open the Palo Alto Preparatory School for Boys. The school was renamed Manzanita Hall in 1892, and by September of 1894 the school had enrolled 24 students.
Palo Alto was a young but growing community at the time Cramer founded the school. In 1890, the city boasted only six buildings and 12 residents. Four years later, the number of buildings had jumped to 165 and the city had a population of 700.
Catherine Harker was born to a pioneer family in Portland, Ore., on March 2, 1865. She was the daughter of James Bartlett Harker and Sarah Ellen Polk. The family was of English, Scotch and Dutch ancestry. Catherine, known as “Cassy” to family and friends, was the oldest of three sisters. Middle sister Sara became Catherine’s right-hand woman at Miss Harker’s School for Girls. Sadly, Caroline, the youngest, became despondent while in her early twenties and ended her own life.
Young Catherine attended Portland Oregon High School. Before she went to Palo Alto to open her school in 1903, she was a substitute at Portland High School, had private students, taught at Curtner Seminary in California (1895-1898) and at Mills College in Oakland, California (1890-1893; 1898-1901).
Catherine opened her school for girls in 1903. It began on the corners of Kingsley and Bryant in the vacated Castilleja Hall. Eighty students were enrolled and seven graduated the first year. In 1907, the school moved to a six-plus acre spot in an old vineyard. Cows, chickens, potato patches and vegetable gardens could be seen from the classrooms. Board and tuition in 1903 was $500; the day school cost was between $50 to $90.
Headmistress Harker, who taught Latin and mathematics in addition to her administrative duties, has been described in a variety of sources as a dignified woman with a strong sense of the importance of academics, who often laced her lessons with humor.
The 1952 edition of the Miss Harker’s School Yearbook, “The Echo,” wrote, “Miss Catherine Harker… was not only a meticulous scholar whose daily lessons were carefully organized in neatly penciled notes, but she was a strongly attractive teacher, usually dressed in the dignity of white shirtwaists and long black skirts of her day, who re-assured her students with a contagiously delightful sense of humor.” The October 1952 edition of local magazine Tall Tree said, “Her faculty of combining humor and scholarliness made her courses a delightful experience.”
The motto of Miss Harker’s School for Girls was non ministrari, sed ministrare: “Not to be served, but to serve.” In 1923, the City of Palo Alto changed its street signs to reflect the school’s presence. Katherine and Central became Melville and Harker, respectively.
Catherine Harker passed away Dec. 12, 1938 at the age of 73 after suffering a heart attack while on the school grounds.
The Harker boarding program, which moved to the Saratoga campus in 1972, officially closed on Thurs., June 6, 2002, due to the growing space needs of Harker’s expanding K-Gr. 12 program. The decision to close the program at the end of the 2001-02 school year was extremely difficult for then president Howard Nichols, who was once a Harker boarding student.
Caring, capable staff took care of the health, academics and social lives of approximately 1,377 school year boarding students and approximately 2,100 summer boarding students when the program was active. Study hall, meals, recreation, shopping, haircuts – all the daily needs – were met by the enthusiastic, dedicated dorm staff.
Staff who have lived and/or worked in the dorm include Terry Walsh, Joe Rosenthal, Pam Dickinson, Pat Walsh, Cindy Kerr, J.R. Del Alto and Andrew Hansen. Many of the dorm staff were coaches, teachers and bus drivers by day, and dorm staff by night. Some started out at the Harker dorm and went on to be teachers.
The dorm provided a family element to the school over the years, and with breakfast and dinner served each day to the boarding students. Harker encouraged faculty to come early or stay late and spend time with the boarders. The boarders always enjoyed seeing teachers outside of the classroom, and many of the teachers developed special bonds with this “extended family.”
As the program ended, former dorm staff members shared some of their favorite memories:
“I remember that we would play capture-the-flag before study hall when daylight savings time commenced in the spring. We had a great time.”—Howard Nichols (1940-2008), former head of school
“Drive-in movies on the lawn where Dobbins is, big pool parties and whale-watching with 24 sick kids and three sick staffers. And I’ve got a million more!” —Pat Walsh, Gr. 5 teacher
“One of my fondest memories when I was a houseparent in the dorm was the Major’s dog, Dutch, a 140-lb. mastiff. Dutch was the unofficial school mascot, and as such, had the run of the dorms and the campus.”—Dan Gelineau, former asst. head of school
“Staying up all night with the kids reading fairy tales after an earthquake; hiking through the hills to cut down the perfect Christmas tree and then having a party to decorate it with handmade ornaments; making bag lunches for the girls so they could have ‘home’ lunch; sewing on untold numbers of patches on sweaters; knowing that kids like Marta, Theresa, Jessica and many others felt like they were ‘home.’” —Cindy Ellis, middle school head
“I’ll never know who really had more fun in the weekend boarding program — me or the kids!”—Pam Dickinson, director of the Office of Communication
“Sitting in the dorm office with a bowl of fruit on my desk and having boarders stop by after school for a snack and a chat. The younger kids would plop down on my lap for a little TLC. It will be strange after 23 years not to have children asking me for a key to their room or a dollar or two to buy snacks.” —Terry Walsh, archivist
“I have the greatest respect for the boarding students. Boarders become independent and self-reliant and remember the kindnesses shown to them and know how important kindness is in their lives. I am a much better person because of what I have seen these children do and the expressions of friendship and kindnesses shown to each other. Only if one lived it would one be able to know how meaningful and important the boarders have been to each other.” —Joe Rosenthal, executive director of advancement
The women for whom The Harker School is named came from strong pioneer stock. Catherine and Sarah Harker, who founded and ran Miss Harker’s School for several decades, were the maternal grandchildren of Otelia Winchell Cullen Polk De Witt, a pioneer who joined the Oregon Trail in 1847. In 1909, De Witt was elected “first Mother Queen” of the Oregon Pioneer Association at 95 years of age. The ribbons she was awarded are still stored at the Harker archives.
De Witt died in 1911, and the obituary (probably written by her daughter, Sarah Ellen Harker, and published in a San Francisco newspaper) also sits in Harker’s archives.
According to the obituary, Otelia Winchel (sic) was born on Jan. 14, 1814, in Brookville, Ind. She married John Cullen in 1835 and produced a boy, John W. Cullen, the following year. John Sr. died shortly after. In 1842 she married Adam Guthrie Polk.
Otelia and Adam had two daughters, Caroline and Sarah Ellen. Both sisters eventually moved from Indiana to Portland, traveling along the famous Oregon Trail. The head of their wagon train was Samuel Markham, whose wife, Elizabeth, was Otelia’s cousin. According to Linda Markham Curry, a descendant of the Markham family, Elizabeth was the mother of noted Bay Area-based poet Edwin Markham.
Adam Polk died while crossing the Columbia River, leaving his widow and children to survive the harsh winter alone. They arrived at Oregon City, Ore., sometime in November or December 1847. Upon their arrival, they moved into a cabin on First and Morrison Streets. The family later moved to Portland, into a frame house built by Captain Nathaniel Crosby, the great-grandfather of singer and actor Bing Crosby.
Otelia married cargo ship officer Francis G. De Witt 1848. They had three children together: Marie B., Francis M. and Otelia V. Caroline and Sarah Ellen eventually arrived in Palo Alto, where they joined the staff at Miss Harker’s School. Sarah Ellen was the mother of Catherine and Sara Harker.
On March 23, 2002, Miss Harker’s alumna Gloria Brown sat down for an interview at a Harker gala event. Brown, a Palo Alto resident, graduated from Miss Harker’s School as a high school senior in 1945. The interview was held to honor the 100th anniversary of the founding of Miss Harker’s School in 1902.
Brown answered questions about life in the Palo Alto boarding school during World War II. She described how Miss Sara Harker went shopping armed with over 50 ration books. There was little help in the kitchen and on the grounds, but the small, devoted staff worked very hard to make life comfortable for the students. Brown spoke about the war efforts of Miss Sara and the students. For her efforts, Miss Harker received a letter from General Douglas MacArthur, thanking the headmistress for her work to improve the life for underprivileged children of Japanese leper parents.
Brown went on to describe the delightful Sunday dinners and the parties with boys (from schools approved by Miss Sara, of course). She spoke about her admiration for Sara Harker, calling her the “most influential person” in her life. This, in spite of nearly being expelled for tossing her Latin book out of the bus window as she left for summer vacation.
Brown closed the interview with an explanation of the school’s motto: “To serve, not to be served,” and a recital of the school’s anthem. She also told the appreciative audience that she “will always be a Harker girl.”
Some pieces of history unearthed from Harker’s archives reveal that its summer programs have provided students with fun, engaging activities for several decades.
A Palo Alto Military Academy summer program brochure from 1920 describes a schedule of morning academics, military drills, calisthenics, swimming, baseball and hikes. In the late 1920s and into the ‘40s, brochures touted an academic “Coaching Program” in Palo Alto with morning classes in arithmetic, spelling, composition, reading and penmanship, followed by an 11:30 – 12 military drill and an afternoon of exercise and daily swimming. Harker also hosted a recreational camp at Camp Eldorado at Lake Alpine in the Sierras where the boys slept in tent cabins and ate in a log cabin mess hall. Fishing, archery, swimming and campfire programs were offered, and popular activities included bike and horseback riding, bugling, rifle practice and boating at the Palo Alto Yacht Harbor and at Lake Alpine.
By the 1950s, the summer program featured Puppet Pantomime, an original variety show presented by the children, Aquacade in the school pool, arts, crafts and woodworking. By the 1960s – after Major Donald Nichols purchased the school – the Harker Day School featured a six-week program of “Academics, Recreation, and Just Plain Fun!”
After the move to the Saratoga campus in 1972 and into the 1980s, Harker’s summer school continued to offer academic enrichment, recreation and sports for boys and girls in both boarding and day programs. Activities included archery, dance, drama, martial arts and weight training, and an ESL program was added with boarding students coming from around the world.
In the 1990s Harker began offering extended trips such as Fields of Dreams: A Midwest Baseball Tour and Excellent Adventure in San Diego. Non-academic classes such as Hands on Science, Friendly French and performing arts workshops were offered in the morning. A three-week Club Harker session was added at the end of the original five-week camp offering families even more options, providing a more relaxed format of the regular program, as well as offering World Camp, an intensive English instruction that ended with a California Caravan Tour.
Today, Harker continues to offer fun and popular summer programs, including the Summer Institute, Tennis Program, Swim Program and Music School.