At the modern school's web site, there is this description that is so similar to Lovecraft's narrative. "Athough the school was closed, the idea of a school remained alive in the mind of its leading founder. Moses Brown was both the treasurer of the School Fund that remained after the Portsmouth school was closed, and the leader of the effort to reopen the school after the War of 1812. To encourage the drive to reopen, Moses Brown donated 43 acres of his Prospect Hill farm to the Yearly Meeting. Additional aid was given when Moses, his son Obadiah and his son-in-law William Almy donated half the money needed to construct the school's first building, Middle House. In 1819 the school reopened in Providence as the New England Yearly Meeting Boarding School. It was not until 1904 that the school assumed its present name in honor of its most distinguished and dedicated founder."
Interestingly, we read on, "Augustine Jones was principal from 1879 to 1904. He broadened the curriculum, adding music, art, and a more organized athletic program. In 1884, the first day students were admitted. As a result of changing national attitudes towards coeducation, in 1926 Moses Brown became a single sex school, admitting only boys. Headmaster L. Ralston Thomas developed a faculty celebrated for its academic excellence and for its devotion to the school and its students."There is no doubt of the dates. 1904 was the year Lovecraft lost everything, save his mother. January through march 1927 saw the writing and completion of Charles Dexter Ward!
Had Lovecraft attended Moses Brown in high school, it would have been filled with girls. So, too, Charles Dexter Ward in his junior year would ahve been surrounded by the fairer sex. Not after 1926, though.
