The Athenaeum Rectory is a historic building in

Columbia Columbia may refer to: * Columbia (personification), the historical female national personification of the United States, and a poetic name for America Places North America Natural features * Columbia Plateau, a geologic and geographic region in ...

Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...

that features both

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

and

Moorish The term Moor, derived from the ancient Mauri, is an exonym first used by Christian Europeans to designate the Muslim inhabitants of the Maghreb, the Iberian Peninsula, Sicily and Malta during the Middle Ages. Moors are not a distinct or se ...

architectural elements. Completed in 1837, the building originally served as the

rectory A clergy house is the residence, or former residence, of one or more priests or ministers of religion. Residences of this type can have a variety of names, such as manse, parsonage, rectory or vicarage. Function A clergy house is typically ow ...

for the Columbia Female Institute and as the residence of the school's first president, the Reverend Franklin Gillette Smith. The structure was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1973.

History

The structure, later to be known as the Athenaeum Rectory, was originally intended to be the residence of Samuel Polk Walker, nephew of President

James K. Polk James Knox Polk (November 2, 1795 – June 15, 1849) was the 11th president of the United States, serving from 1845 to 1849. He previously was the 13th speaker of the House of Representatives (1835–1839) and ninth governor of Tennessee (183 ...

. Construction commenced in 1835.

Rectory of the Columbia Female Institute

By the time construction was completed in 1837, the intended resident had been changed to the Reverend Franklin Gillette Smith (1797–1866) who came to

to serve as the president of the Columbia Female Institute, an

Episcopal Episcopal may refer to: *Of or relating to a bishop, an overseer in the Christian church *Episcopate, the see of a bishop – a diocese *Episcopal Church (disambiguation), any church with "Episcopal" in its name ** Episcopal Church (United State ...

school for female students. In 1851, the Rev. Smith resigned from the Columbia Female Institute due to alleged improprieties with a student. The authority who asked for his resignation was the Institute's co-founder, Rt. Rev. James Hervey Otey, the first Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Tennessee. Stung by a general backlash from Smith's local supporters, Bishop Otey moved his family and his administrative base to

Memphis, Tennessee Memphis is a city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the seat of Shelby County in the southwest part of the state; it is situated along the Mississippi River. With a population of 633,104 at the 2020 U.S. census, Memphis is the second-mos ...

, which continued as the

seat A seat is a place to sit. The term may encompass additional features, such as back, armrest, head restraint but also headquarters in a wider sense. Types of seat The following are examples of different kinds of seat: * Armchair (furniture), ...

of Tennessee's bishops, informally and formally, until 1982, when the Episcopal Diocese of West Tennessee was created.

Rectory of the Columbia Athenaeum School

Still committed to his educational mission, Rev. Smith soon founded the Columbia Athenaeum School on property adjacent to the Columbia Female Institute. The Athenaeum Rectory continued to serve as the residence for the Smith family and housed reception areas for the newly founded school. The Columbia Athenaeum continued to operate until 1903. During its 52 years of operation, the school developed a national reputation for the breadth and quality of its curriculum. Reverend Smith believed that the intelligence level of women was equivalent to that of men and offered courses that were traditionally available only to men, such as

calculus Calculus, originally called infinitesimal calculus or "the calculus of infinitesimals", is the mathematical study of continuous change, in the same way that geometry is the study of shape, and algebra is the study of generalizations of arithm ...

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

, and

marine biology Marine biology is the scientific study of the biology of marine life, organisms in the sea. Given that in biology many phyla, families and genera have some species that live in the sea and others that live on land, marine biology classifies s ...

. The main school complex consisted of twelve buildings. Once the school had ceased operation, the property was sold by the Smith heirs. The facilities housed a local

high school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...

until 1914. In 1915, the City of Columbia constructed a new high school on the property. Members of the Smith family continued to occupy the Athenaeum Rectory until 1973 when it was donated to the Association for the Preservation of Tennessee Antiquities for use by the residents of

Maury County Maury County ( ) is a county located in the U.S. state of Tennessee, in the Middle Tennessee region. As of the 2020 census, the population was 100,974. Its county seat is Columbia. Maury County is part of the Nashville-Davidson–Murfreesboro ...

. Today, the rectory is operated as a historic house

museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these ...

. In addition, a small cottage that Reverend Smith used as a study survives to this day. Events are held twice annually which recreate the educational experiences of young women at the female institute.

Architectural significance

The Athenaeum Rectory features elements from a variety of architectural styles:

Greek Revival The Greek Revival was an architectural movement which began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe and the United States and Canada, but ...

, Italianate, and others. The structure was designed by Adolphus Heiman, an architect of the early 19th century who designed many buildings in the Middle Tennessee area.

Nathan Vaught Nathan Vaught (died 1880) was a builder in Tennessee who was responsible for several noteworthy buildings. A "master builder" from Maury County, Vaught was responsible for construction of The Athenaeum in Columbia, Tennessee. One of his works, W ...

, a master builder from Maury County, was responsible for construction of the building. The renovated home is open for guided tours.

Notable people

Bessie Alexander Ficklen Bessie Alexander Ficklen (, Alexander; November 10, 1861 – March 3, 1945) was an American poet and artist. Her essay on "Dream Poetry", appeared in one of the leading magazines of the 19th-century and attracted much attention. She wrote more for ...

(1861–1945), writer, poet, artist

In popular culture

Television

The Athenaeum was featured as a haunted location on the paranormal series, ''

Haunted Live ''Haunted Live'' is an American paranormal television series that premiered on September 14, 2018 in the United States on Travel Channel. The series features the Tennessee Wraith Chasers, a group of paranormal investigators who are famous for t ...

'' which aired in 2018 on the Travel Channel. The paranormal team, the Tennessee Wraith Chasers investigated the former headmaster's house, which is said to be haunted.

References

External links

*
Middle Tennessee: Hood's 1864 Campaign
Civil War Traveler website

Tennessee Portrait Project (National Society of Colonial Dames of America in Tennessee) {{List of Athenaeums in the United States Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Tennessee Defunct private universities and colleges in Tennessee Houses in Columbia, Tennessee Female seminaries in the United States Historic house museums in Tennessee Museums in Maury County, Tennessee Moorish Revival architecture in Tennessee Gothic Revival architecture in Tennessee Houses completed in 1837 National Register of Historic Places in Maury County, Tennessee Polk family