In 1890 John and Abigail MacDuffie purchased Miss Howard’s School on Union Street, Springfield, Massachusetts. This property included the home of Samuel Bowles of the founding family of the "Springfield Daily Republican" which was transformed into a classroom building known as Main House. The school property once adjacent to a park designed by Frederick Law Olmsted was transformed and renamed The MacDuffie School, an all-girls college preparatory school. It was located on a 15-acre campus in the middle of Springfield's Maple Hill neighborhood of tree-lined streets, and with landscaped grounds of late 19th- and early 20th century mansions that were once homes to Springfield's leading industrialists and businessmen. Fashioned after their alma maters, MacDuffie provided young women the same access to excellence in education the MacDuffies experienced at Harvard and Radcliffe. A suffragist and believer in civil rights, Abby MacDuffie instilled a sense of curiosity about the world, equality for all, and progressive thinking in her students that remains at the school’s core today.