For Sale: Buckingham Female Collegiate Institute
Buckingham Female Collegiate Institute. Brick House.
Sketch by Margaret Pennington. Courtesy Historic Buckingham.
In 1843, the Buckingham Female Collegiate Institute was up for sale, advertising it in the Richmond newspapers.
BUCKINGHAM FEMALE COLLEGIATE INSTITUTE, FOR SALE.
By the virtue of a decree of the circuit superior court of law in Chancery for the County of Buckingham, pronounced the nineteenth day of September, 1843, the case of Theod. C. Gannaway and others against the Trustees of the Female Collegiate Institute, A. J. Huestis, R. G. Loving, B. B. Brown and others; and Harod E. Scott and others, vs the said Trustees, Huestis, Loving, Thompson, Brown and others. We the Commissioners therein named, will, the 12th day of January next, on the premises, sell at public auction to the highest bidder that very valuable property known as the Buckingham Female Collegiate Institute, a most extensive building, designed for the purposes of a Female Academy, containing 50 rooms, including a Chapel, Lecture Rooms and a commodious Dining Room, with all the needful buildings and improvements of brick, recently erected and in good condition, to which is attached about 120 [?] Acres of Land enclosed handsomely for Gardens, &c.; constituting in all respects the best and largest establishment of the kind, known in the State — located 15 miles from Buckingham Court House, 12 miles from Cumberland Court House, and 12 miles from New Canton, in a remarkably healthy region.
The terms will be, $3000 in cash; time will be given for the balance of the purchase money — on the credit payments good security will be required and the title to the property retained until they are made.
J. A. LANCASTER, Jr.
B. B. BROWN.
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Following this financial crisis, the Institute reopened in August of 1848 under the guidance of a new president, the Methodist Episcopal minister Dr. John C. Blackwell, and reestablished its reputation as a preeminent female academy in Virginia.
For much more about Buckingham Female Collegiate Institute, consult my essay, “A Noble Idea: Buckingham Female Collegiate Institute,” in “At a Place Called Buckingham.”
slate river ramblings . . . . 
Dear Reader:
I am very thankful for the Buckingham Collegiate Institute which made a marvelous impact on the scholarly women of that day. My great-grandmother, Willie Ann Holman Hooper, spent about two years at St. Mary’s in Raleigh preparing to attend The Institute. She was there in 1863 studying with General Lee’s eldest daughter, Mildred, whom Lee affectionately called “Life.”
Harry Stuart Holman
Harry,
Many thanks for sharing this. I hope we hear from more Slate River Ramblings followers whose family members were educated here.
The Institute was a wonderful place. Much more coming in a new series of posts about this marvelous school.
Joanne