October 31, 2019 / Joanne Yeck

Buckingham Female Collegiate Institute: 1845

buckingham county, buckingham female collegiate institute

Buckingham Female Collegiate Institute.

In response to the recent series of posts about the Buckingham Female Collegiate Institute, Slate River Ramblings follower Ted Kinker shared an article from the July 1845 issue of The Southern Planter which reveals that the Institute might have closed and been transformed into a Collegiate and Agricultural Institute. The author of the article, J. F. Schermerhorn, had made a “provisional contract to take the premises” but decided not to exercise his option. For the benefit of subscribers to The Southern Planter, Schermerhorn laid out his proposed curriculum and use of the property in a letter to the Editor. After all, his ideas might have been useful to someone else. You can read his letter here: The Southern Planter (July 1845).

His description of the property and its setting reflects many written before and after 1845:

The Female Collegiate Institute which is now proposed to convert into a Collegiate and Agricultural Institute, is a substantial brick building one hundred and eighty feet long, thirty-six wide, and has fifty-two rooms, cost within ten years past between twenty-eight and thirty thousand dollars. It can now be purchased for six thousand dollars and one hundred and twenty acres of land attached to it. — It is situated in one of the most healthy regions of Virginia — of easy access, only twelve miles from New Canton on the James River and Kanawha Canal, and eighty miles from Richmond. A daily line of stages passes the Institute to meet the canal packets. It is in a fine, respectable neighborhood of country gentlemen; removed from the haunts of vice and dissipation; and where, if anywhere, the morals of the youth can be guarded.

Without fail, old Buckingham is described as healthy and free from vice!

In case you missed the recent series about the Institute, click here:

For Sale: Buckingham Female Collegiate Institute

For much more about Buckingham Female Collegiate Institute, consult my essay, “A Noble Idea: Buckingham Female Collegiate Institute,” in “At a Place Called Buckingham.”