Florida Southern College

City of Leesburg : sesquicentennial celebration
AuthorReed, Rick.
Publisher:Ford Press,
Pub date:2007.
The brick high school was constructed on the site of the Melon Patch Theater at the corner of 13th and Line streets. The school wasn't completed because the freeze in February 1886 wiped out the year's citrus crop and residents who pledged money for the building didn't have it. Instead of a high school, the
Methodist Florida Southern Conference received the property for its college – which eventually became Florida Southern College in Lakeland. The college opened in the fall of 1886 as Florida Conference College and remained in Leesburg until 1901. The following year it opened near Clearwater and eventually moved to its permanent home in Lakeland. But more on that later.

SECTION 3 – EDUCATION
LEESBURG LANDS A COLLEGE
Leesburg's first school

While the freezes hurt the growth of Leesburg, it did help Leesburg land a college more than 120 years ago. Leesburg became the home of Florida Southern College in 1886. At the time, the high school and college went by a different name – Florida Conference College. But it didn't stay long. Leesburg was just one of five stops before the school moved to its permanent home in Lakeland in 1922.

Florida Conference College left Leesburg after 15 years for greener pastures in Sutherland, near Clearwater in 1901. The developers of that community simply made the school a better offer than Leesburg or other cities. And the college reopened there in 1902.

"An early newspaper article said they were looking for a more picturesque place," said Jim Hill, a local history buff who has visited and studied the archives in
Lakeland. "I'm not exactly sure what they meant by that but it was a little slap to Leesburg when they moved to the Gulf Coast by Clearwater."

Hill made copies of old college catalogues while visiting the school archives and he has his own theory why Florida Conference College left Leesburg.
"Personally, I think after the freeze (1894-95) a lot of parents were having very tough times and probably couldn't afford it," he said. "The school probably lost a good portion of its student population. Some were from out of state but a good portion of students were local."

Florida Methodist Conference was organized Feb. 6, 1845 to help establish a school. The conference established two schools in 1853, one in Thomasville, Ga., known as Fletcher Institute, and the other in Micanopy was called East Florida Seminary. The folks in Micanopy had more enthusiasm than money and the doors of the Micanopy school were forced to close. The conference announced in 1879 the opening of two high schools, one in "Apopka City" and the other in Ocala. And in 1883, the Methodists established Wesleyan Institute in Orlando – which was the school that was moved to Leesburg.

The school wasn't to stay long in Orlando, either. Officials opened the bidding to other communities for their school. Leesburg answered the call with a bid of
$12,974.30. The school was to receive $2,466.64 in cash; $2,607.66 in notes and 7,800 in land and buildings. Since "it was commonly agreed at this time that Leesburg had a much brighter future than Orlando, the bid was accepted with great enthusiasm," according to centennial edition of the Florida Southern College annual in 1985.

A freeze was a setback for Leesburg's educational system but it led to the arrival of the college. The new Florida constitution of 1885 had given cities the ability to levy taxes for education. Leesburg soon began construction of a red brick building on the corner of 13th and Line streets – the present site of the Melon Patch Theater. The record freeze of 1886 put a halt to those plans and the building wasn't completed because of a lack of funds. Instead, the land and building were used to lure the college to Leesburg. A wooden dormitory was also built on the site.

About 1887 the Florida Conference College, now Southerland and located at Lakeland, was located in Leesburg and was kept open until about 1901. Its first building was on Thirteenth Street but was later moved to the Heights. The present Heights Apartment-hotel is a portion of the old buildings.

A marker has been thoughtfully placed there to commemorate this school. With the election of J.H. Fulks as principal, two assistants and two grade school teachers, the first High School was begun in the K. of P. building and moved to the newly acquired building as soon as it was made ready. To quote from an article written by Mrs. Roach and published in the Leesburg Commercial of 1894, “This marked the most important era in our public school history. Under Prof. Fulks the school flourished greatly and attained a splendid reputation." Classes were taught in arithmetic, higher algebra, grammar, rhetoric, literature, physiology, history physics. botany, logic, zoology, Latin and astronomy,

Auditorium

In 1889 Leesburg voted to levy a tax of three mills for five years for the purpose of having a better school. The town authorities issued bonds to pay for the purchase of a brick building from the Methodist Conference College, paying $4000. Leesburg eventually purchased back the red brick building for $4,000 in 1892 after the college moved its campus west in Leesburg. Ten years later the town also purchased a wooden building for $1,000.

The school was first named The High School and College of the Florida Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Could you imagine those initials on a letter sweater? Fortunately they shortened it to Florida Conference College. And the college was up and running in the fall of 1886.

The campus was modest, consisting of the red brick classroom building and the boys' dormitory, which was a smaller wooden structure. Since the college was coeducational, and there was no dormitory for the girls, they were boarded out "with carefully selected people in the town," according to Daily Commercial writer Norma Hendricks. That the church-endowed school was coed raised eyebrows, according to Hendricks. Liberal school authorities also allowed the girls and boys to eat together in the same dining room.

The administration defended its stand on coeducation in the school's 1893-94 catalogue stating: "Ours is a mixed school. We think this better. We think it better for the boys and better for the girls. There is no more effectual way of refuting the old and still prevalent idea of woman's intellectual inferiority. Many a wife and mother has lost her influence over husband or son under this false impression. The husband condescends to accommodate his wife in her weakness,
but knows if she had intellectual ability to grapple with great questions, she would not be weak and whimsical, especially on the subject of religion.

"The boys say, ‘Oh, my mother is a woman, but then she does not know, and cannot know, what I do.' The sharp contact of recitation will remove all illusions. Let a boy wither at the blackboard a few times before the intellectual acumen of the girls in his class, and he will learn to respect their ability; and he will learn, too, that if he is to have a wife who is his intellectual inferior, he will have to go out of school and find her.

"It inspires girls with more self-confidence. They will learn to be more steadfast when they plead for truth and righteousness."

While the school might have been considered liberal by standards of the days, it also didn't allow students to read or circulate novels, newspapers or literature of any kind without the approval of the president. And on a more practical note, students were advised to "leave no money in your room, keep your trunk locked and the key on your person." No explanation was given for the precaution.

Education cost far less 120 years ago. Tuition for students in the academic department was $45 a year and $50 in the college department. That bargain didn't include board, which was $15 a month with boarding students required to furnish one pair of sheets, one pair of pillowcases, two blankets and several towels.

A report given December 1887 expressed confidence that the "infant" school would afford a "golden opportunity for the promotion of Christian education for our state." The faculty consisted of "four faithful and competent teachers" and the school had an enrollment of "75 scholars." The physical plant was estimated to be worth $13,000. But it was soon became too small and the school looked for a new campus site in Leesburg in 1889.

It was found at the 1500 block of High Street. A two-story wooden administration building with a tower, classrooms and an auditorium was constructed there. And the girls finally got their own dormitory, one with 30 bedrooms. That old girls' dormitory stands today as the Colonial Apartments. The dormitory also contained faculty quarters, a parlor sitting room, a kitchen, five porticos, eight halls, and several closets. And the College Building was described as "one of the handsomest in the state," according to story written by Elisabeth Geiger in the Daily Commercial.

The school's first class of seven women graduated in 1890. They were: Miss Addie W Abney, Miss Henrietta Abney, Miss Hannah W. Hopson, Mrs. J. A. Hendry, Miss Linnie E. Sessions, Mrs. G. C. Warner and Mrs. E. K. Whidden. 1891 class were Mrs. J. G. Stewart, who won first honors, 2nd homors Miss S. Annie Lee and Rev. Willima Clarence Norton. A year later there were only two students in the graduating class, The Rev. Josephus P. Durrance and Rev. Harry W. Penny. This is the roll for 1891-1892 preparatory department. Loulie Barnett, Doak Barnett, Gretchen Bartlett, Lily Cochran, Ruby Geiger, Edmonia Hopson, Preston Hopson, Gordon Hopson, Bertie Lee, Maggie Lee, Fannie Lee, George McKee, John Noble, Edward Partridge, Grace Partridge, Mortie Partridge, Joe Randolph, Harry Steinmever, Maud Steinmeyer, Carrie Watts, and George Miller. An 1891 report stated, "Florida Conference College seems to have entered upon a new era of prosperity." That year, enrollment hit 150 students and the faculty had grown to seven teachers. But the era of prosperity didn't last long – at least not in Leesburg.

While one freeze helped bring the college to Leesburg, the back-to-back freezes of 1894-95 that rocked Florida's citrus belt also rocked the college campus. Less enrollment meant budget reductions. And that resulted in the president and faculty resigning en masse on May 15, 1895. Somehow the school survived but the prevailing thought was the future of the college might be better served somewhere else.

That thought led to action as a resolution was passed by the Board of Trustees to look for a better location. That location was Sutherland after the Sutherland Land and Improvement Company promised the school $5,000, two buildings and 440 acres of land valued at $2,000. It was less than Leesburg offered in 1885 but more than Leesburg could muster in 1901. Thus Leesburg became the former home of what would become Florida Southern College.

The old school on Thirteenth Street was condemned in 1914.

Florida Southern College

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