Roxbury Latin School

Roxbury Latin School. “RL” is a private, college-preparatory all-boys day school located in West Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1645 by John Eliot, Roxbury Latin bills itself as the oldest boys’ school in North America and the oldest school in continuous existence in North America. It sits on a 120 acres (49 ha) campus.

Eliot was a Puritan missionary to the American Indians known as “the apostle to the Indians.”

Roxbury Latin has been recognized in several lists of schools that send their students to selective universities.

In the five-year period from 2019 to 2023, Roxbury Latin placed 84 students at Ivy League schools, nearly half of whom (38) attended Harvard College. Approximately 55 boys graduate from Roxbury Latin every year. In 2010, Forbes ranked Roxbury Latin the fifth-best prep school in the U.S.

In June 2022, Roxbury Latin‘s financial endowment stood at $171 million.

Notable Graduates

• James Pierpont (1677), principal founder of Yale University
• Paul Dudley (1686), Chief Justice of Mass. Supreme Judicial Court (1745–1751) and Attorney General of Mass. (1702–1718)
• John Wise (1669), clergyman credited with revolutionary phrase “no taxation without representation“
• Joseph Warren (1755), Continental Army General who was killed at the Battle of Bunker Hill, surgeon
• Increase Sumner (1763), governor of Massachusetts (1797–1799), Justice of Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (1782–1797)
• John Warren (1767), founder of Harvard Medical School, renowned surgeon
• Francis Cabot Lowell (1789), businessman, member of Boston Lowell family, founder of Lowell, Massachusetts
• Arthur Vining Davis (1884), president of Aluminum Company of America (1910–1949), major educational benefactor in United States
• James Dole (1895), founder of the Hawaiian Company in Honolulu, Hawaii currently known as Dole Food Company
• Edward Lee Thorndike (1891), famed psychologist, former professor at Columbia, member of National Academy of Sciences
• Paul Dudley White (1903), “Father of Modern Cardiology,” noted cardiologist, founder of American Heart Association
• George Lyman Kittredge (1875), influential literary scholar and professor at Harvard University
• Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. (1890), landscape architect and journalist
• Clifton Sprague (1913), U.S. Navy Admiral in World War II and Navy Cross recipient for leadership in Battle off Samar
• Roger Altman (1963), deputy Secretary of Treasury in Clinton administration, founder and chairman of Evercore