Whitworth Female College was a Methodist women's college in Brookhaven, Mississippi, founded in 1858 by Milton Whitworth. It is a Mississippi Landmark.
The college was founded in 1858 by Milton J. Whitworth,[1] opened in 1859,[2] and disestablished in 1984.[3] It was associated with the Mississippi Methodist Conference until 1938.[4]
During the Civil War the college was used as a Confederate hospital and managed to reopen after the war's end.[1]
In August 1878, local freemasons laid the cornerstone for a new brick building at the college, into which a time capsule was placed. Both U.S. Senator from Mississippi Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar II and Jefferson Davis were expected to attend the ceremony but were "unavoidably absent."[5]
In 1925 the College was first accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.[4] In 1928 the College began operation as a two-year institution associated with Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi.[4] In 1938, because of financial difficulties, the board of trustees of the College voted to cease operations and merge the school with Millsaps College.[4] The city of Brookhaven bought the campus and leased it out to various short-lived colleges between 1941 and 1984, when all educational operations at the location ceased.[4]
In 2003 the state of Mississippi opened the Mississippi School of the Arts on the grounds of the former college.[6]
During his term as Governor of Mississippi (1904-1908), white supremacist politician James Kimble Vardaman, known as the "Great White Chief," spoke at the college and was presented with a bouquet and the following poem:
TO THE "WHITE CHIEFTAIN."
White flowers to our chieftain white,
Brookhaven's daughters send;
To welcome him with glad delight
The Southland's truest friend.
Be not afraid! Thou white man's chief,
The Anglo-Saxon Race
Has yet to bend its neck beneath
A victor's cruel mace.
The blood is yours on land and sea
Uphold thro' its supremacy.[7]