Founding John Davenport, a founder of the
New Haven Colony, was an early proponent of education in the colony.
Grammar schools of the time generally prepared young men for college, but the
Puritan colony was too far from England for its citizens to attend the existing English schools. The exact date of Hopkins School's founding is a matter of definition. The historical record of the executors' report implies the trust was created on May 4, 1660, but since the
Julian calendar was in use then, the date corresponds to May 14 on modern calendars. The papers that created the fund were presented and accepted on May 30, and many use this date as the official date of the school's founding. Finally, on June 4 (June 14 on modern calendars) Davenport transferred control of the bequest to the colony, on the condition that the colony accept responsibility for the support of the school.--> In 1838 the school moved once again, as the trustees believed that moving the school away from the town center would allow its students to focus more on their studies. Throughout August and September that year, they rushed through the necessary transactions to buy the new plot of land, currently the site of the
Yale Law School. Following this move the trustees released an announcement to New Haven's three
newspapers summarizing their hope that this new location would provide sufficient space for the boys to learn and be separate enough that they could do so in peace. Graduate
Henry Murphy laid out plans for the new campus in 1922, and designed the original Baldwin Hall building in 1925. The school opened at the new premises, the present campus, in 1926. Baldwin Hall was initially the only building, but the campus expanded greatly over the next century. Hopkins had begun to refer to itself without "Grammar School" in the casual name by 1935,