Washington College (California)
Washington College, also called Washington College of Science and Industry, was a private coeducational
History
Washington College was founded in 1871 on a small hummock donated by E.L. Beard, located across from the C.P.R.R. Washington Corners depot, by the people of Washington Township as a scientific and industrial school. The founders were local landowners, educators and farmers, including W.F. Lynch, Albert Lyser, William Horner, Origin Mowry, H. Curtner, S.I. Marston, H. Crowell, and M.W. Dixon. The first building cost $30,000.[1] It opened July 1872 with the Reverend Silas Sykes Harmon and his wife as teachers. Two of their daughters later taught there; Rev. Harmon later started a school in Berkeley.[2][3][4] It was coeducational and nonsectarian; according to its catalog, "The idea is that young women should enjoy equal intellectual advantages with young men, and that they should be educated together." Courses were given in bookkeeping, calligraphy, commercial letter writing, Latin, Greek, and advanced English. By its third year of operation, it had an enrollment of 130 students from all over the state, only some of whom lived on campus in an impressive dorm, women on the first floor and men on the second, with a gymnasium for group exercise.[1][5] The Daily Alta California on August 13, 1875, reported another year of college overflow, necessitating the procurement of entire houses from the village to house the overflow students, and called for the construction of new campus buildings for housing.[6] Washington College continued as a nonsectarian coeducational academy for eleven years until 1883.[7]
One of the founders, and the owner of the land, was Henry Curtner, a local landowner and merchant. In August 1883, under a lease agreement with Curtner, the college opened as an institution of higher education under the auspices of the Disciples of Christ, with J. Durham, Mr. Pollard, and J. H. McCollough as early leaders.
Washington College was described in the 1939
Successor institutions
In 1896 Curtner opened Curtner Ladies' Seminary, a girls' school, in the college buildings under the leadership of H. C. Ingram and his wife, Ingar Stephenson-Ingram, both of whom had been teachers at the college.[2][10] Other Washington College faculty also continued to teach there.[12] According to a retrospective in the Oakland Tribune on April 15, 1953, there were accommodations for 52 students.[13] It began as a high school but later added a normal school course, which was much in demand at the time.[14] The main building burned down on the morning of July 4, 1899; since Ingar Ingram was seriously ill, the school did not reopen.[2][15]
In 1900, with the assistance of Irvington and nearby towns, William Walker Anderson built a new school on the site and moved his University Seminary, a military school for boys, from
Anderson Academy closed in 1914 and the Anderson family used the site as their home, renaming it "Bonnie Brae".
Notable people
- Frank Chance, baseball player and manager[9][21]
References
- ^ .
- ^ a b c d e Country Club of Washington Township, History of Washington Township, Alameda County, California, Washington Township, California: 1904, pp. 86–87.
- ISBN 9780738530055, p. 23.
- ISBN 9780804717342, p. 17.
- ISBN 0970507208.
- ^ "Washington College". cdnc.ucr.edu. Daily Alta California. August 13, 1875. Retrieved 7 June 2021.
- .
- ^ Quoted in Holmes and Singleton, p. 24.
- ^ ISBN 9780786416813, pp. 8–10.
- ^ a b Ware, p. 219.
- ; quoted in Holmes and Singleton, p. 71.
- ^ .
- ^ Article by Gladys Williamson, cited in Holmes and Singleton, pp. 28–29; Holmes and Singleton give the opening year as 1895, Ware as 1896.
- ^ Holmes and Singleton, p. 29.
- ^ Holmes and Singleton, p. 32.
- ^ Holmes and Singleton, p. 33.
- ^ Holmes and Singleton, p. 35.
- ^ Holmes and Singleton, p. 36.
- ^ Holmes and Singleton, pp. 80–81.
- ^ Holmes and Singleton, p. 97.
- ^ Holmes and Singleton, p. 27.