Michigan Military Academy facts for kids
Quick facts for kids |
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Orchard Lake Schools Historic District
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The Academic Building of the Michigan Military Academy was built in 1890. It now holds many of the classrooms for St. Mary's Preparatory.
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 Location in Michigan
Location in the United States
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| Location | Indian Trail, Orchard Lake, Michigan |
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| Area | 15 acres (6.1 ha) |
| Built | 1858 |
| Architectural style | Gothic, Tudor Revival, Queen Anne |
| NRHP reference No. | 82002859 |
| Added to NRHP | March 19, 1982 |
The Michigan Military Academy, also known as the M.M.A., was an all-boys military prep school in Orchard Lake Village, Oakland County, Michigan. It was founded in 1877 by J. Sumner Rogersand closed in 1908 due to bankruptcy. Some journalists have referred to the school as the Second West Point. The property was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982 as the Orchard Lake Schools Historic District.
Early history and establishment
In 1858, Joseph Tarr Copeland (b. May 6, 1813), a U.S. Army general who would later serve in the American Civil War, purchased several acres of land and began to build his retirement home on the shores of Orchard Lake. Most of the 90 acres (364,000 m²) he owned were used for agricultural purposes, and he was slowly selling tracts of land for profit. The area was popular with tourists, so in 1871 Gen. Copeland converted his residence, a large, castle-like home on the shores of Orchard Lake, into the Orchard Lake Hotel. Business was good for a few years but development in the area forced many vacationers to seek seclusion farther north and the Panic of 1873 forced Copeland to find profit elsewhere. In 1877 Gen. Copeland sought to sell his home and the land around it. J. Sumner Rogers, who was a professor of Military Science and Tactics at Detroit High School, had wanted to establish a creditable military prep school in the Detroit area for some time. Seeing the opportunity at hand, Rogers bought the land with the help of some wealthy Detroiters, and later that year he established the Michigan Military Academy. He modeled the academy after West Point and its success was immediate.
Peak years
Over the course of its 30-year history, the Michigan Military Academy had 2,558 enrollments and 458 graduates. The graduating class of 1893 played a prominent role in the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago, and many of the classes won National Drill Competitions.
On June 19, 1879, William Tecumseh Sherman, General in Chief of the U.S. Army, delivered a variant of his famous "War Is Hell" speech to the graduating class. A total of 10,000 people arrived to listen to Sherman's speech, and the press reported that it was the largest number of people ever to gather within the township's boundaries (at that time the village of Orchard Lake was part of West Bloomfield Township). Some claim that he said: "There is many a boy here today who looks upon war as all glory, but, boys, it is all hell"; however, the published text of Sherman's address does not contain that line.
Future City of Detroit Mayor, Cadet John C. Lodge, recorded his memories of the Sherman speech, "At one of our graduation exercises the speaker was General William T. Sherman. He was not eloquent, and he didn't have a very pleasant voice; it was somewhat shrill."
Notable alumni
- Harry Archer, musician and composer
- Daniel Read Anthony Jr., U.S. Congressman from Kansas, 1907-1929
- Sewell Avery, chairman of the board of Montgomery Ward
- John A. Bloomingston, college athlete and attorney
- Edgar Rice Burroughs, author of the Tarzan novels. He later spent time on the school's faculty.
- Kurtis Froedtert, Physician, businessman, and philanthropist
- George Schuyler Hodges, artist, inventor, and automobile executive
- Frank P. Lahm, U.S. military aviation pioneer, brigadier general in the United States Army Air Corps
- John C. Lodge, mayor of Detroit from 1923–1924 and 1927-1928
- Fenton R. McCreery, U.S. diplomat
- Truman Handy Newberry, United States Senator from Michigan, 1919–1922
- Sylvester H. Scovel, war correspondent
- Walter Cowen Short, MMA faculty 1890-1891, US Army brigadier general
- Frederic L. Smith, automobile executive
- George Veazey Strong, commander of the Military Intelligence Corps during World War II
- Clayton Teetzel, college athlete and coach
- Harry Van Surdam, athlete, musician, superintendent of El Paso Military Institute
The Seminary and other schools
Two years after the Academy closed, in 1910, Fr. Joseph Dabrowski, the director of the Polish Seminary of Detroit, purchased the campus and moved his school there. The seminary has stayed there to this day. It is now called SS. Cyril and Methodius Seminary. The campus is also home to St. Mary's Preparatory, and Madonna University of Livonia, Michigan holds some classes on the campus.
