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On June 8, 1922, The Marin Journal reported that during graduation ceremonies for The Katharine Branson School in San Rafael, Headmistress Katharine Branson announced that the school would reopen in the Fall at the former estate of John Martin in nearby Ross. The school’s move to the secluded and pastoral valley would mark its beginnings as one of the most respected and prestigious boarding and then preparatory schools in the nation. Few people, however, are aware that the school began in a barn one block from downtown San Rafael.
In the 1910’s, the growing population of San Rafael put some pressure on already overcrowded schools. The San Francisco Examiner published an article on August 22, 1917 stating that “San Rafael’s public primary schools [are] so lax and antiquated” that “twenty odd families” had announced the opening of a new “community” school, quoting one founder: “Parents in San Rafael simply had to take matters into their own hands to see that their children receive proper education.”
Marin Superior Court Judge George Zook and businessmen Eric Ord and George Hind all had young daughters and wanted a higher quality education for their children. Joining forces with other interested families, they acquired in early 1917 the former site of Miss Stewart’s School, which consisted of an old barn with two large rooms and an attic in downtown San Rafael near 5th and D Streets—next to the recently opened Carnegie Library and where today is located the San Rafael City Hall. The Little Grey School opened in the fall of 1917 with two teachers, and 25 boys and girls in grades 1 through 4.
By 1920, the school’s Board of Trustees was looking for a headmistress to move the school in a more academically rigorous direction, and to prepare the upper school students for college. A founding Trustee of the school, Clara Hamilton Martin, contacted the Dean of Bryn Mawr, where her eldest daughter attended, for recommendations of candidates.
This was how they found Katharine Branson, a Latin teacher and administrator from private schools on the East Coast, and her sister Laura, a mathematics teacher. At a time when most prestigious secondary schools for girls prepared them for marriage and motherhood, Katharine and Laura wanted more for the school they chose to lead. As the school brochure stated in the 1920’s: “The purpose of The Katharine Branson School is to give girls a thorough foundation…which will fit them to enter any of the American colleges and universities…and will prepare them to take an active and intelligent part in the activities of any community in which they may live."
School officially opened for the first time as The Katharine Branson School on September 6, 1920, with fifty-four students, three of whom were now in residence.
By the fall of 1921, the school had expanded to 64 day and 10 boarding students, and the trustees knew they had to find a larger and more suitable location for the school, far from the attractions and diversions of downtown San Rafael. In early 1922, they secured the purchase of the secluded estate that locals called the John Martin Place in Ross. 100 years later, students and staff at The Branson School still enjoy the peaceful setting of the hidden valley in Ross, far removed from the old, grey barn in downtown San Rafael.
Photos courtesy The Branson School