Joseph Burnett, a wealthy resident of Southborough, founded St. Mark's School in 1865, reportedly counseled by Dr. Henry Coit of St. Paul's School of Concord, New Hampshire, who told Burnett that with six sons to educate, he would do well to found a school, instead of sending them north to St. Paul's. Episcopalian St. Mark's is thus one of the earlier New England schools founded on the British model, as opposed to New England academies such as Phillips Academy and Phillips Exeter Academy, both founded nearly a century earlier. St. Mark's initial board of trustees was composed of members of many prominent Boston families, as well as many eminent Episcopal churchmen, and from the first the school attracted many members of Boston Brahmin and New York Knickerbocker families, although St. Mark's great headmaster William Greenough Thayer admitted a limited number of Jewish boys as well. There were students of color whose fathers were clergy within the Episcopal Church. The first unaffiliated African-American student did not enroll until 1964.St. Mark's continues to maintain close ties to the Episcopal Church.