The Masonic Female College and Cokesbury Conference School is a historic building in Cokesbury, South Carolina, that was the home of several different educational institutions in the century from 1854 to 1954. Together with the adjacent village of Old Cokesbury, it is now listed on 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 ...

as an

historic district A historic district or heritage district is a section of a city which contains older buildings considered valuable for historical or architectural reasons. In some countries or jurisdictions, historic districts receive legal protection from c ...

. When built in 1854, the school building was the home of the Masonic Female College of South Carolina, which was established in 1853 and operated until 1874 under the sponsorship of Bascomb Lodge No. 80 of

Freemasons Freemasonry or Masonry refers to fraternal organisations that trace their origins to the local guilds of stonemasons that, from the end of the 13th century, regulated the qualifications of stonemasons and their interaction with authorities ...

. The school was unusual for its time in providing an education for young women. From 1876 to 1918, the building was the site of the Cokesbury Conference School, a school for boys from 1876 to 1882, and

co-education Mixed-sex education, also known as mixed-gender education, co-education, or coeducation (abbreviated to co-ed or coed), is a system of education where males and females are educated together. Whereas single-sex education was more common up to t ...

al thereafter. In 1918, it became a

public school Public school may refer to: * State school (known as a public school in many countries), a no-fee school, publicly funded and operated by the government * Public school (United Kingdom), certain elite fee-charging independent schools in England an ...

, and operated as such until 1954. In 1954 the property reverted to the South Carolina Annual Conference of the

United Methodist Church The United Methodist Church (UMC) is a worldwide mainline Protestant denomination based in the United States, and a major part of Methodism. In the 19th century, its main predecessor, the Methodist Episcopal Church, was a leader in evangelical ...

. The three- story

Greek Revival style 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 ...

building has a

bell tower A bell tower is a tower that contains one or more bells, or that is designed to hold bells even if it has none. Such a tower commonly serves as part of a Christian church, and will contain church bells, but there are also many secular bell tower ...

and four square columns that extend from the ground level to the

pediment Pediments are gables, usually of a triangular shape. Pediments are placed above the horizontal structure of the lintel, or entablature, if supported by columns. Pediments can contain an overdoor and are usually topped by hood moulds. A pedimen ...

. The first floor contained four student recitation rooms and four music rooms, there was a

chapel A chapel is a Christian place of prayer and worship that is usually relatively small. The term has several meanings. Firstly, smaller spaces inside a church that have their own altar are often called chapels; the Lady chapel is a common ty ...

on the second floor, and the third floor housed a Masonic Lodge headquarters. The school building and Old Cokesbury were listed together on the National Register on August 25, 1970.

References

{{National Register of Historic Places in South Carolina Defunct schools in South Carolina Buildings and structures in Greenwood County, South Carolina Masonic educational institutions in the United States School buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in South Carolina School buildings completed in 1854 Masonic buildings in South Carolina National Register of Historic Places in Greenwood County, South Carolina Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in South Carolina History of women in South Carolina