Benedict College Historic District

The Benedict College Historic District

The Benedict College District includes five buildings reminiscent of the institution’s early construction between 1895 and 1937 – Morgan Hall, Pratt Hall, Duckett Hall, Antisdel Chapel, and Starks Center – located near the center of campus. It was placed on the National Register on April 20, 1987. The National Register categorizes the Benedict College Historic District significant because of its cultural affiliation, educational purpose, and architecture under Criterion A and C. The buildings served a major role in the education of African Americans and reflect a range of architectural characteristics of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Another Benedict property listed on the National Register of Historic Places is Starks Hall, also known in the city of Columbia as the Urquhart House, located off the main campus at 1618 Oak Street.

Architecture The Benedict College Historic District includes a significant collection of late 19th Century and early 20th Century vernacular educational buildings. They display a variety of architectural characteristics ranging from Morgan Hall, erected in 1895, and features irregular massing, a wrap-around porch, turned posts, sawn porch brackets, and corbeled chimneys typical of the late 19th Century. Antisdel Chapel which was constructed in 1932 and features the symmetry and classical detailing typical of the neoclassical revival style. Especially noteworthy is Duckett Hall, designed by noted Columbia architect James B. Urquhart and built in 1925. Notable features include the central pavilion, which is defined by Ionic pilasters and rest on a belt course dividing the first and second stories, the cornice with modillions, and the parapet that tops the central pavilion.

Officials at the South Carolina Department of Archives and History describe buildings in the District as some of the best examples of the diversity periods, styles, and materials in the architectural history in the city of Columbia. According to National Register officials, the Historic District “…encompasses all the extant buildings associated with the early development and expansion of the College from the late nineteenth century to the 1940s and possesses integrity of location, design, materials, setting, feeling, and association.”

Morgan Hall Morgan Hall, the oldest building on Benedict College’s campus, was constructed in 1895. The three-story building has a basement and combination gable and hip roof. Projecting bays are on the left front and right rear sides. Windows are one-over-one or twoover-two. There are interior and corbeled chimneys.

Decorative elements include rockfaced granite lintels and sills with margins, and balustrades with sawn brackets on the porch.

Morgan Hall was erected with $9,000 contributed by the American Baptist Home Mission Society. From 1895 to 1965, the building served as home to five Benedict presidents: Rev. Abraham Osborn (1895- 1911), Rev. Byron W. Valentine (1911-1921), Dr. Clarence B. Antisdel (1921-1930), Dr. John J. Starks (1930-1944), and Dr. John Alvin Bacoats (1944- 1965). The building housed classrooms and offices from 1965 to 1987, when it was closed pending renovations. The threestory building now houses the Office of Institutional Advancement, which welcomes alumni and members of the community daily.

Morgan Hall is named for Thomas J. Morgan, who served as executive secretary of the American Baptist Home Mission Society and editor of the society’s influential Home Mission Monthly from 1895 to 1902.

During the Civil War, Morgan was colonel of the Fourteenth United States Colored Infantry. Following the war, he served as a commissioner of Indian Affairs.

He was an uncompromising champion of higher education for Blacks. Morgan and Henry L. Morehouse, executive secretary of the American Baptist Education Society, led the missionary vanguard which objected to the Hampton Institute model of industrial training on the grounds that it would restrict Black colleges to rudimentary education and was designed to make Negroes content with being servants to Whites. In contrast to the Hampton model of industrial training, Morgan urged the Mission Societies to establish for Blacks technical departments and schools “to develop among them architects, artists, engineers, master mechanics, superintendents of mines, overseers of mills and the like. He believed that Black progress depended upon “leadership of noble and powerful minds raised up from their own ranks.”

Pratt Hall Pratt Hall was constructed in 1902 as a hospital and training school for nurses and was used in this capacity until 1927, when the building was converted into a girls’ dormitory. Since 1966, Pratt Hall has housed administrative offices and is currently home to the Division of Business and Finance.

Pratt Hall is two-and-a-half stories high and has a raised basement. Among the building’s special features are front end pavilions, hipped roof, and interior corbeled brick chimneys with recessed panels. There are three dormers on the facade; the central dormer is pedimented while the others are flat. The rear street elevation of Pratt Hall has a central pavilion with a large gabled-with-returns dormer, flanked by flat dormers.

Windows generally are one-over-one or two-over-two.

Pratt Hall was built during the administration of President Abraham Osborn, the College’s fifth president. It was a gift from Mr. and Mrs. John Pratt of Carlton, New York and named in honor their deceased daughter. The memorial tablet over the entrance is inscribed “PRATT NURSE TRAINING SCHOOL, ERECTED BY MR. AND MRS. JOHN PRATT OF CARLTON, N.Y. IN MEMORY OF THEIR DAUGHTER 1902. SARAH PRATT ENGLISH.”

The “Training School for Nurses” was led by two teachers: Dr. Joseph A. Lightner and Dr. Matilda Arabella Evans. Dr. Evans was distinguished in the field of medicine which aids in the designation of Pratt Hall as a historic site. She is considered the first black woman doctor licensed in South Carolina and the first woman doctor in Columbia.

She was born in Aiken County and attended Schofield Industrial School at Oberlin College in Ohio and the Women’s Medical College in Pennsylvania where she received her medical degree in 1897.

The small hospital had only 12 rooms and 20 beds but was in constant use in meeting the medical needs of Benedict students and patients from the Black community. Major and minor surgeries were performed in the hospital. Until 1927, when it was renovated to serve as a dormitory, Pratt Nurse Training School provided a full three-year course for nurses. They were taught anatomy and physiology, dietetics, hygiene, nursing ethics, bacteriology, chemistry, and practical nursing.

They also received instruction in various types of special nursing assistance such as the art of massage.

Duckett Hall In 1925, the General Education Board of the American Baptist Home Mission Society gave Benedict College $100,000 to construct a science building. Noted Columbia architect James B. Urquhart designed the structure, which served as a science building until 1966. It currently houses the Division of Business. Throughout the academic year, visitors from across the corporate and non-profit community both locally and nationally conduct lectures as well as internship and employment interviews in the historic building. The building now houses the Tyrone A. Burroughs School of Business & Entrepreneurship, which welcomes over 300 students or 17% of the student population daily. It is the College’s second largest academic school whereby students work to earn the Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting & Finance and Business Administration.

The three-story brick building’s facade has a central pavilion topped by a parapet. Decorative elements include the cornice with modillions and plain frieze, row-lock arch and panel brick door surround and central bays separated by brick pilasters with Ionic capitals, resting upon a wide belt course which separates the first and second stories.

The windows have twelve-over-twelve panes and are capped by flat arches.

Duckett Hall was completely gutted and reconstructed during the 1989-90 academic year. The $750,000 modernization provided Benedict College with a stateof-the-art business facility. The renovation modernized classrooms, provided totally new electrical and environmental control systems, and the building was made handicapped accessible. The first and third floors have classrooms and teaching areas. Faculty offices are located on the second floor. Laboratories for accounting occupy major portions of the third floor. Classrooms and laboratories are equipped with the most up-to-date teaching equipment.

The building is named in honor of Professor Thomas L. Duckett, a noted science teacher at Benedict College for more than 40 years, who retired in 1941. Professor Duckett, a native of Newberry, South Carolina, enrolled at Benedict College as a high school student in 1897 and was hired to teach biology following his graduation in 1905. He organized the first science division at the College and served as secretary of the faculty for many years.

Before Antisdel Chapel was built, Benedict students and faculty worshipped in a makeshift chapel on the first floor of Osborn Hall, a boys’ dormitory. Dr. Starks became president in 1930 and announced that he would raise funds to build a chapel. Architects hired by the American Baptist Home Mission Society drew plans for the building and estimated construction cost to be $48,000.

Antisdel Chapel Antisdel Chapel was built in 1932 in the midst of the Depression by Benedict College’s first Black president, Dr. John J. Starks, the principal fund-raiser for the edifice.

The one-story brick building features the symmetry and classical detailing typical of the neoclassical revival style of architecture. It has a three-tiered octagonal steeple with an open belfry resting on a large square brick base which rises from the gable roof. The front entrance has a central pediment portico with four Doric columns, responding pilasters and entablature. Each side of the building contains four windows with fan-light windowheads. Decorative elements include the cornice with modillions and triglyphs on the entablature of the portico; decorative urns sur­rounding the base of the steeple and oculus in the pediments of the portico and rear and side gables, and on sides of square roof projections on the facade; small gabled entrances extend on either side of the facade; flush metal exterior doors and metal windows.

Antisdel Chapel has been a Benedict College landmark for nearly 90 years. It served as a significant center of Black activities in Columbia before desegregation of public facilities. The city’s Black community continues to use the building for meetings, lectures, con­certs and other functions.

The fundraising campaign was launched with a $1,000 gift from Dr. Clarence B. Antisdel, the last White president of Benedict (1921- 1930). After retirement, Dr. Antisdel remained at Benedict as president emeritus and dean of the School of Theology until his death. In life and death, the Antisdels gave $22,000 to Benedict in addition to a legacy of service which in no way can be measured. When the Chapel was completed in 1932, it was named for Dr. Antisdel.

Antisdel Chapel continues to serve as a sanctuary where Sunday Worship Services and bible studies are held for the students, faculty, staff, and community. The award-winning Benedict College Gospel Choir also holds practices and performances in the edifice. As a meeting place, Antisdel Chapel welcomes large groups such as the Baptist Educational & Missionary Convention of South Carolina, South Carolina Baptist Congress of Christian Education, Young People’s Christian Assembly, and Benedict-Morris Pastors’ and Christian Workers’ Conference. Annually, thousands of parishioners and students encounter the Chapel’s essence through its beauty and history.

fanlight, radiating voussoire over windows, and circular medallion in the central pavilion, inscribed “Benedict College AD 1937.”

Starks Center Starks Center was opened during the 1937-38 academic year as a library for Benedict College and Allen University.

The only Carnegie library for Blacks in South Carolina had been built on the campus in 1895 for use by the two schools. The old library had become too small and outmoded. Work on the new library began in 1935 after the American Baptist Education Board contributed $10,000 toward the construction cost, with a stipulation that Benedict arrange for the remaining $20,000. Benedict President John J. Starks drew up detailed plans for the building.

The schools originally thought that the Works Progress Administration would provide free skilled and unskilled labor, but the federal government retracted the offer because

the schools were private and church-supported. As the library was being built, Dr. Starks began negotiations with Allen to share in the construction cost. The arrangement for Allen to raise half of the $20,000 did not work out. Allen did agree to pay Benedict a yearly rental fee of $500, payable in monthly installments of $50. When the library was completed in 1937, the Benedict College Board of Trustees named it in honor of Dr. Starks.

The t-shaped, one-story building has a basement, a gable-end roof with a central pavilion, interior brick chimneys, and semicircular bays projecting from end gables. Decorative elements include a large central entrance which has an archivolt and traceried

Starks Center, as the building is known today, served as a library until 1974 when the Benjamin F. Payton Learning Resources Center was opened. Over the course of the years, it has been used as the student union building which had lounges, game rooms, meeting rooms, offices for the Student Government Association, post office, and campus security. It currently houses the Office of TRIO Programs and has two (2) lecture halls and two (2) computer labs.

Throughout its existence Starks has been used as a conference center for various groups in the city of Columbia, the state of South Carolina, and the southern region, before public facilities were desegregated in the 1960s many educational, religious, civic and social organizations found Starks to be an ideal place where southern Whites and Blacks could escape their tragic estrangement and come together to know one another as men and women. It was in Starks Library on November 10, 1939 that eight chapters of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People met to organize the South Carolina Conference of Branches of the NAACP.

Starks Hall - Urquhart House In 1979, Starks Hall became the first Benedict College facility to be listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

Originally located at 1618 Oak Street, the building was purchased by the institution in 1960 to house the J. J. Starks School of Theology. The significance of this building has resulted in Starks Hall, referred to the Urquhart House, being designated as a landmark (#94) by the Richland County American Revolution Bicentennial Committee and a Historic Landmark (#68) on the City of Columbia’s Historic Landmarks List.

Starks Hall, an antebellum house at 1618 Oak Street, was built in 1895 near Waverly, Columbia’s first subdivision.

The house was built by William G. Childs, a banker and railroad promoter who was a key figure in the development of Waverly. The name Waverly was inspired by Sir Walter

Scott’s Waverly novels in the early 19th Century. The subdivision was laid out in blocks of four-and-a-half acres each just west of the city boundaries. It is a 12-blockarea bounded by Taylor Street on the north, Harden Street on the east, Gervais Street on the south, and Heidt Street on the west.

William G. Childs was one of the biggest property owners in Waverly, which was established as a community for middleclass White families. Childs served on the board of the Columbia Electric Railroad Company and was instrumental in extending its services to Waverly in 1894. He built his home the next year, just outside the subdivision. Childs had 11 children and 10 grandchildren. A grandson is noted U. S. Army General (Retired) William C. Westmoreland, whose mother grew up in the building now owned by Benedict College.

The Secretary of State issued a charter on August 21, 1902 incorporating Waverly as a town. In 1913, the subdivision was annexed to the City of Columbia. By the early 1920s, most White families had moved out and Waverly had developed into an area where Black professionals lived.

In 1919, the structure became home to James B. Urquhart. Urquhart was a renowned architect in the state of South Carolina. He designed many of the schools in the surrounding area to include Wardlaw School, Booker T. Washington High School, Columbia High School, and St. Andrews High School. He is credited with planning the Palmetto Compress Warehouse, Richland County Court House, and the Manson Building.

Specific to Benedict College, Urquhart designed the

Science Building known today as Duckett Hall. The institution is proud to have a part of its building inventory the home of a designer of one of its buildings.

Benedict College bought the 1618 Oak Street property in 1960 to house its J. J. Starks School of Theology. Mrs. Julia A. Starks, wife of the former Benedict president, contributed $10,000 toward the purchase price. The building is named for her.

Benedict discontinued the Bachelor of Divinity program in 1964 but continued to use Starks Hall for classes in religion and philosophy. From 1968 to 1988 the building housed the Benedict Bridge, where students received academic advising and personal counseling. The building currently houses the Office of Admissions and International Programs. It welcomes the community as well as current and prospective students and their parents daily.

Continuing the Legacy...

The continued preservation of the Benedict College Historic District is a top priority for Dr. Roslyn Clark Artis, Benedict’s 14th and first female president. She believes that our past has a definite influence on our future and impresses upon the Benedict College family that “you don’t know where you’re going, until you know where you’ve been.” Thus, maintaining the legacy of our founder, Mrs. Bathsheba A. Benedict, continues through preservation and restoration activities on the Historic District ensuring that the story of the institution and its buildings are held sacred.

This specialized work safeguards the College’s most significant structures that witnessed the education of the recently emancipated in 1870, the fight for equality through the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, and the

continued fight for justice with today’s Black Lives Matter Movement.

Benedict College has been strategic in its approach to preservation.

Since 2018, the institution has Benedict College has received more than $3.1 million in grants from the National Park Service, National Trust for Historic Preservation, and the Richland County Conservation Commission to conduct much needed maintenance on each of the five (5) buildings in the District as well as another county and city landmark, Starks Hall. Beginning with the College’s oldest building, Morgan Hall, activities have included roof and attic repairs/replacement; upgrades to plumbing, wiring, and mechanical systems; and flooring. More specific projects such as Duckett Hall, in particularly, underwent window restoration of more than 50 historic windows.

Preservation work on Antisdel Chapel includes repairs to antique pews and plaster.

The Benedict College Historic District Expansion Project, funded by the National Park Service, is also underway. It will allow the institution the opportunity to update the current National Register Nomination

to include significant cultural, educational, and architectural activities from 1937 – 1979 and expand the boundary to include, potentially, one (1) contributing building and three (3) noncontributing buildings.

Since the 1987 application, Benedict College has continued to serve as a leader in the community. Like many HBCUs, the College served as a core site for the planning of demonstrations and sit-ins during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Additionally, there are many notable graduates who walked our hallowed halls and have made significant contributions to the state of South Carolina, the southeastern region, and the nation.

It was the meeting place for students involved in the iconic cases of Barr v.

City of Columbia (March 1960) and Edwards v. South Carolina (March 1961) whereby Benedict College students Charles Barr, Milton Greene, James Edwards, and Talmadge Neal spearheaded demonstrations and protest rallies in Downtown Columbia. Their arrests resulted in the United States Supreme Court overturning their convictions.

Precedence for legal gatherings and illegal charges of trespassing

in the state of South Carolina was set. Numerous other alumni who have contributed to the shaping of the nation such as Septima Poinsette Clark, revered as the Mother of the Civil Rights Movement; Modjeska Monteith Simpkins, often referred to as the matriarch of the South Carolina Civil Rights Movement; the Honorable Harold A. Stevens, the first African American Justice of the New York State Supreme Court; Dr. Leroy Walker, chair of the 1996 Olympics Committee; and Dr. Edwin Russell, a scientist who worked on the atomic bomb.

There were several buildings that were not included in the original application that have architectural significance directly linked to the founding of the institution and that of the famed, local architecture firm Lyle, Bissett, Carlisle, and Wolff. Antisdel House, built in 1927, is referred to as “The President’s House.” It served as the home to Dr. Clarence B. Antisdel, the College’s eighth President. Since its erection, the edifice housed the institution’s succession of presidents until 2017. It has undergone renovations; however, the architectural and structural integrity has remained intact. The Benjamin F. Payton Learning Resources Center, Benjamin E. Mays Human Resources Center, and Mather Hall were designed and constructed by Lyle, Bissett, Carlisle, and Wolff. The integrity of these buildings are structurally sound and in good condition. Through the completion of extensive research, Benedict College hopes to continue the legacy by working to update and expand the current nomination.

The chart below details awarded grants for the preservation of the Historic District since 2018.

Year

Grant Name

Funding Source

Amount

2018

Preservation of Morgan Hall

National Park Service • HPF - HBCU

$500,000.00

2018

Morgan Hall Roof Project

Richland County Conservation Commission

$35,000.00

2020

Pratt Hall Preservation Project

National Park Service • HPF - HBCU

$500,000.00

2020

Starks Center Preservation Project

National Park Service • HPF – AACR

$500,000.00

2020

Starks Hall Exterior Project

Richland County Conservation Commission

2021

Duckett Hall Preservation Project

National Park Service • HPF - HBCU

$500,000.00

2021

Antisdel Chapel Renovation Project

National Park Service • HPF - HBCU

$500,000.00

2021

Duckett Hall Individual Building Project

National Trust for Historic Preservation

$60,000.00

2022

Preservation of Morgan Hall Phase II

National Park Service • HPF - HBCU

$500,000.00

2022

Roof Project at Starks Hall

Richland County Conservation Commission

$20,475.00

$15,000.00

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