An Upcountry school of outstanding opportunity…..
The Yorkville Enquirer reported on April 28, 1870 – “The Episcopal Church building at Willington in Abbeville Co., (Now McCormick), was totally consumed by fire on April 15. The parish is under the charge of Rev. O.D. Porcher.”
City Directories and History: “Willington was chartered on November 25, 1897; the charter was dissolved on February 24, 1933. Academy is the location of the original Willington Presbyterian Church. The latter was destroyed by a storm and only its cemetery remains. The church was rebuilt in the town of Willington, where it stands today. Several churches also served the area. St. Stephen’s Episcopal
Courtesy of the New York J.H. Colton and Company, 1856; from Colton’s Atlas of the World
Church, (see location on map left), which was destroyed by lightning about fifteen years ago, 1950’s (its cemetery remains), and Willington Baptist Church were built near each other on the east side of SC-81. Saint Stephen’s Episcopal was a design by it’s rector, the Rev. John DeWitt McCollough in ca. 1883, on LeRoy Road, in the progressive town of Willington. Morris Chapel (Presbyterian) was to the west, near the bend of County Road 135. Several interesting country homes are located in and near Willington. The largest is the house built by Edwin Calhoun just to the west of the C&WC Railroad. It was later owned by Dr. Link and then by Albert Gilbert, who added the second story and the back wing. It is presently owned by the family of A. L. Morse, a well-known black resident of the community. The Captain McBride House is close by, and also the George Hemminger House. Farther west is the old McBride House, owned in later years by Archie Andrews. The Hemminger and Andrews houses are log construction, at least in part, but have been faced with plank siding in later years. ”
Willington Academy—Willington—Opened in 1804 and continued until 1819 by Dr. Moses Waddell. He was undoubtedly a teacher of much merit. He was modem in discipline—a contrast to the general practice in schools of that day. Dr. Waddell gave instruction to many who became distinguished in the affairs of the state among whom were John C. Calhoun and George McDuffie. His school increased to an enrollment of 180. He suffered from a stroke of paralysis in 1836 and died July 21, 1840.
Information from: Names in South Carolina by C.H. Neuffer, Published by the S.C. Dept. of English, USC
Probably the most memorable institution in the history of Abbeville District was Moses Waddel’s academy, which was in its heyday from 1804 to 1819. This famous school, which drew pupils from all parts of South Carolina and Georgia, was located at Willington, a village which grew up around the school. Moses Waddel, Presbyterian minister and rigorous master of the classics, was a living example of Emerson’s remark concerning the man and the mousetrap, for though Waddel’s school was buried in the woods, the world quickly beat a path to its door. Waddel had originally come from Iredell County, North Carolina, and he received his theological education at Hampden-Sydney College, Virginia. When his family moved to Greene County, Georgia, just across the Savannah from South Carolina, he started a school at Appling, Georgia, and rode fifty miles to the Colhoun settlement every week to conduct services there and also for the Huguenots at Liberty. He married Patrick Calhoun’s daughter Catherine, who died about a year later, and gave her brother John his first real taste of books. Waddel opened the Willington Academy in 1804, and, according to one of his pupils, A.B. Longstreet, it soon gained a reputation for “plain dressing, plain eating, hard working, close studying, close watching— and, when needful, good whipping. In this unusual school the boys studied in little huts grouped around a large log house which served as a recitation and assembly room. The high standards which set the customary assignment at “as long a lesson as they could get” made the laziest boy study twice as hard as he ever had before.” A minimum preparation was a hundred and fifty lines of Virgil, and George McDuffe, the poor boy who was befriended by the Calhouns and later became one of South Carolina’s eminent senators, learned his Latin grammar in ten days and broke all records with 1212 lines of Horace for one recitation. A kind of student government was enforced by monitors, who maintained order and saw that the students kept at their books. They reported all infractions of rules to Dr. Waddel, who dispensed justice at the regular Monday morning “court” sessions. THE NEGLECTED THREAD by Bobby F. Edmonds – 2006
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R&R HISTORY LINK: Catherine Evans – Kennedy of Chester, S.C. attended the Waddell Academy.
R&R HISTORY LINK: Saint Stephen’s Church – Too
R&R HISTORY LINK: the SC Encyclopedia on McCollough
R&R HISTORY LINK: the Report on St. Stephen’s Church Willington, S.C.
R&R HISTORY LINK: the Union Episcopal Church of Nativity….
CONNECTING THE DOTS – CHESTER’S F.W. DAVIE ATTENDS SCHOOL HERE
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