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"B" is for Barhamville Academy

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"B" is for Barhamville Academy. Founded in 1828 by Dr. Elias Marks, Barhamville Academy was the common name for the South Carolina Female Collegiate Institute, an institution for higher education that was located outside Columbia. The school was located on property Dr.Marks named in honor of his late wife Jane Barham, a teacher who shared his commitment to women's education.  Barahamville had a rigorous four-year classical curriculum and was considered to be one of the best such schools in the South. Among its notable graduates were Ann Pamela Cunningham who led the effort to preserve Mount Vernon and Martha Bulloch Roosevelt—the mother of Teddy Roosevelt. The institution closed after the Civil War. The buildings were destroyed by fire in 1869. A historic marker on Two Notch Road in northeast Columbia marks the location of Barhamville Academy.

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Dr. Walter Edgar has two programs on South Carolina Public Radio: Walter Edgar's Journal, and South Carolina from A to Z. Dr. Edgar received his B.A. degree from Davidson College in 1965 and his Ph.D. from the University of South Carolina in 1969. After two years in the army (including a tour of duty in Vietnam), he returned to USC as a post-doctoral fellow of the National Archives, assigned to the Papers of Henry Laurens.