Boscobel College

Boscobel College for Young Ladies was a school in Nashville, Tennessee, that operated between 1889 and 1914. One of its founding objectives was to provide the lowest possible cost of higher-education for young women. The school, at its peak in the 1890s, had over 100 female students, many of whom were boarders. In 1898, Boscobel advertised its literary faculty and music and art advantages as unsurpassed, and promised to prepare young ladies for life's work and its duties.^[1]

Contents 1 The property 2 Closing of the college 3 People 4 References

The property

The campus was built around an East Nashville mansion, formerly owned by Anna Shelby Williams. The mansion was built of blue-burned brick with marble mantles from Italy and stood atop a tree-covered hill^[2] overlooking the Cumberland River.^[3] The campus covered ten wooded acres on Sevier Street near South Seventh Street (then called Foster Street), south of Sylvan Street.

Boscobal was the same name given to the property by John Shelby, who built the original mansion for his daughter, Anna Shelby Williams.

In 1918, the property became home to the National Baptist Seminary and Missionary Training School, which functioned until 1931. In 1940 the buildings were razed and sold for scrap. Much of the site of the old school is now the James A. Cayce Homes, Nashville 's oldest and largest public housing development.

Closing of the college

For reasons not fully understood today, Boscobel College closed in 1914. One possible reason was a rising popularity of coeducation. Other local schools for females closed during this same era: Radnor College in 1914, Buford College in 1920, Columbia's Athenaeum college in 1907, and Franklin's Tennessee Female College in 1913.^[4]

People

Presidents

• 1893 — Zuinglius Calvin Graves (b. 1816-1906)
• 1899 — Carey Albert Folk (b. 1867-1957)^[5][6] graduated from Richmond College and attended Johns Hopkins University
• 1904-1912 — Cynthia W. Rust (b. 1859), widow of Dr. John O. Rust^[7]
• 1912 — Mrs. Luane W. Everett (b. 1870)^[8]

Regents

• 1896-1904 — Dr. John O. Rust (Reverend) (1859-1904)

Teachers

• Late 1880s (for about two years) — Minnie Gattinger (1857–1944), taught fine art and German
• 1895-1896 — Maria Louisa Arnold (1836-1914) was a 1859 graduate of Mary Sharp College^[9]
• 1893-1896 — William Owen Carver (1842-1954), taught philosophy, Latin, Greek, German, and psychology
• 1912 — Grace B. Kennon (1877- ), taught ethics, philosophy, science
• Mrs. L. Everett
• Mrs. Julius Henry Bayer taught music
• circa 1897 — Eliza Jane McKissack taught music

Former students

• 1895-1896 — Margaret Graves (Maria Louisa Arnold's cousin)
• Agnes Shepard Bates (1886-1912); music teacher in Earlington, Kentucky. She studied post graduate music Boscobel, although the institution had no "official" graduate program. Before attending Boscobel, she taught music at Bethel University (Tennessee).^[10]
• Verna Holt, from Nacogdoches, Texas
• Margaret M. Beatty, from Nashville
• Edith A. Roper (b. 1875) — who later taught science at Boscobel, Jessamine Institute (1894-98); Boscobel College (1899); Milan, Tennessee (1900-02); Georgetown College (Kentucky) (1902-05); Union University, Tennessee (1906-08); Alabama Central College (1908-09); Howard Payne University (1910-?); Baylor College for Women

References

Substantial records and correspondence stored as follows:

1. Robert Boyte Crawford Howell (1878-1955) Papers, Tennessee Department of State, State Library and Archives, Microfilm Accession Number: 1270 (1972)

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