La Salle Military Academy

La Salle Military Academy was a Catholic school with middle school/junior high school and high school divisions located in Oakdale, New York. It closed in 2001, and the school's rather extensive campus is now owned by St. John's University, New York.

The school was founded by the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, or "Christian Brothers" (sometimes called the "De La Salle Brothers," having been founded by St. Jean-Baptiste de la Salle in France in the 1600s as an organization of Catholic men under vows dedicated to teaching; the term "De La Salle" brothers distinguishes them from the Irish Congregation of Christian Brothers and other, similarly-named and purposed groups).

The school was actually founded in Westchester, New York in 1883 as Westchester Institute. Soon thereafter, the school relocated to Clason Point in the Bronx, New York, and was renamed Clason Point Military Academy. In 1926, the school purchased the estate of Frederick Gilbert Bourne, of the Singer sewing machine company, which featured a 110-room mansion, Indian Neck Hall, overlooking Great South Bay, Long Island (the building had been designed by Ernest Flagg).

The school had extensive boarding facilities and attracted many sons of the wealthiest Catholic families in the northeastern United States. In the mid-1990s, the school decided to begin admitting girls as well as non-military students.

Alumni include numerous famous people, including Hollywood movie director John Frankenheimer, former New Hampshire Governor and White House Chief of Staff John H. Sununu, former Nicaraguan President and dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle, and former U.S. Congressman from New York [http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=M001098 John M. Murphy] (1965 graduation speaker). It also had a large New York mafia family patronage, including sons of the Gambino crime family.

ee also

* List of defunct United States military academies

External links

* [http://www.lsmaalumni.com LaSalle Military Academy Alumni Association]
* [http://www.lasallerifles.org/home.htm LaSalle Rifles]

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