Good Will-Hinckley
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Hinckley Good Will Home Historic District
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1916 photo of the Prescott Administration Building
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| Location | US 201, Hinckley, Maine |
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| Area | 525 acres (212 ha) |
| Built | 1899 |
| Architectural style | Colonial Revival, Mixed (more Than 2 Styles From Different Periods), Queen Anne |
| NRHP Reference # | 87000232 |
| Added to NRHP | January 9, 1987 |
Good Will-Hinckley is a charitable organization in Fairfield, Maine. Organized in 1889 by George W. Hinckley, the membership-driven organization is dedicated to providing assistance to indigent and troubled families. It has a campus of more than 1,800 acres (730 ha) in Fairfield, on which it operates the Maine Academy of Natural Sciences, a boarding and day school focused on agricultural and outdoor education, and the Glenn Stratton Learning Center, a day treatment school focused on children with social, emotional, and behavioral challenges. It is also home to the L. C. Bates Museum, one of the oldest natural history museums in Maine.
The Good Will-Hinckley Home Association was organized in 1889 by George Walter Hinckley, a native of Guilford, Connecticut who trained both for the ministry and as a teacher. As a young man he was impressed by the changes effected in under-privileged and troubled youth when given a suitably nurturing environment, and to this end he established a home on a 125-acre (51 ha) farm in the northeastern part of Fairfield, Maine, a rural community in southern Somerset. Hinckley traveled widely to raise funds for the Good Will School, and had by his death in 1950 grown the campus to 3,000 acres (1,200 ha) and 45 buildings, and served more than 3,000 underprivileged and troubled youth.
Sometime thereafter the organization, then operating as the Hinckley School, began marketing itself as a college preparatory school, similar to Phillips Exeter Academy and Tabor Academy. The Maine Attorney General sued the organization, which in 1970 was found to be operating outside its chartered purpose, and was given three years to return to that purpose. This was addressed in part by enlarging the organization's charter to include a broader range of educational activities. The school closed its doors in 2009 after state funding for boarding facilities of the sort it provided were reallocated to home-based treatments for at-risk youth, leaving only a day program. The subsequent reorganization consumed part of the organization's endowment and forced the sale of 680 acres (280 ha) of its campus.
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