Jefferson Marshall Lovejoy was born in Sharon, Vermont on June 5, 1814. In 1842 he established the Raleigh Male Academy, later called Lovejoy Academy, as a private classical school for boys in Raleigh, North Carolina. The head schoolteacher for several decades, Lovejoy established the institution as one of the best schools for boys in the south and many future prominent North Carolinians attended it in their youth. Lovejoy died in Raleigh, North Carolina on June 26, 1877.