Temperance Industrial & Collegiate Institute

K-331

On 12 Oct. 1892, Dr. John Jefferson Smallwood, born enslaved in 1863 in Rich Square, North Carolina, founded the Temperance Industrial & Collegiate Institute nearby with fewer than ten students. Sprawled over sixty-five acres on the James River in Claremont, his school provided a high level of education for African American boys and girls from Virginia and other states. After Smallwood's untimely death on 29 Sept. 1912, his school underwent several mergers and name changes. By the time the school closed in 1928, more than two thousand students had attended.

Department of Historic Resources, 2010

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References/Bibliographic Citation:

“Smallwood Papers.” Dr. John J. Smallwood to Rev. Dr. H. B. Frissell, Principal of the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, 26 December 1903. Hampton University Archives, Hampton, VA. The Monthly Advocate, semi-monthly campus newspaper of the Temperance, Industrial & Collegiate Institute. Surry County Historical Society, Surry, VA. J. D. Kornwolf. The Surry County, Virginia 1776 Bicentennial Committee Guide to the Buildings of Surry and the American Revolution. Surry County, VA: Surry County 1776 Bicentennial Committee, 1976), 144. E. S. Gregory. Claremont Manor: A History. Petersburg, VA: Ann and Lewis Kirby and Plummer, 1990. Surry County, VA. Surry County Deeds. Deed Book 39, 399-424. L. F. Russell. Black Baptist Secondary Schools in Virginia, 1887-1957: A Study in Black History. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow, 1901. Virginia Union University Archives, Richmond, VA.