Chamberlain-Hunt Academy | |
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Address | |
124 McComb Ave Port Gibson , Claiborne , MS 39150 | |
Coordinates | 31°56′45″N90°59′10″W / 31.94583°N 90.98611°W |
Information | |
School type | Private Boarding |
Motto | Knowledge and Wisdom in Submission to God |
Religious affiliation(s) | Christian |
Established | 1879 |
Closed | 2014 |
President | Jim Montgomery |
Dean | Wesley McClure |
Headmaster | Keith Fraley |
Teaching staff | 8 |
Grades | 7–12 |
Gender | Male (coeducational until 2002) |
Enrollment | 4 (2014) |
Average class size | 5 |
Language | English |
Campus size | 174 acres (70 ha) |
Athletics conference | MAIS |
Sports | Soccer, Basketball, Track, Cross-Country, Golf, and Tennis |
Team name | Wildcats |
Accreditation | SACS, MAIS |
Website | www |
Chamberlain-Hunt Academy was a boarding school in Port Gibson, Mississippi. The school was founded in 1830 as Oakland College and closed in 2014.
The campus, with its buildings in brick Georgian Revival style, is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. [2]
Oakland College was founded in Lorman, Mississippi in 1830 by the Reverend Jeremiah Chamberlain and the Presbyterian Church in Mississippi. Oakland closed during the Civil War but was reborn nearby in 1879 in historic Port Gibson, Mississippi as Chamberlain-Hunt Academy .
When the "new" school was founded in Port Gibson in 1879, funds for the new beginning came from both the sale of the Oakland campus and donors. The State of Mississippi paid $40,000 for the campus in order to create Alcorn A&M College, the first land-grant college for African Americans in American history. Alcorn State University thrives in its original location. [3]
The new foundation was named for the Founder of Oakland, the Reverend Dr. Jeremiah Chamberlain (1794-1851) and Mr. David Hunt (1779-1861), a prominent plantation owner in the Antebellum South who had been a generous patron of Oakland over the years. [4] Since he and his family owned 1,700 African-American slaves at one time, it is fitting that the fine old Oakland campus David Hunt did so much to adorn became the locus where freedmen and the sons of freedmen were able to gain higher education supported by the State of Mississippi. Alcorn State thrives today as one legacy of Chamberlain and Hunt.
Several of Chamberlain-Hunt Academy's early faculty hailed from Davidson College, a Presbyterian foundation in North Carolina. The curriculum was traditional college prep.
In 1915, CHA transitioned to the military discipline and was a traditional boys military prep school until 1971, when females were admitted and the military routine greatly relaxed. CHA was transitioning in a way similar to Baylor and McCallie Schools in Tennessee, which became wholly civilian prep schools. CHA retained a Corps of Cadets. In 1996, when persons associated with French Camp Academy in north Mississippi purchased CHA, the trustees returned the school to its all-male, all military, and mostly boarding-student situation. The new owners of the school had a good thing going and put several millions of dollars into the physical plant.
Chamberlain-Hunt was what is termed a regional boarding school. While students always came from far away and overseas, the majority of patrons were families living up and down the Mississippi River, from Memphis to New Orleans. Not a few of the students over the years came from agricultural families living in the Mississippi and Arkansas Deltas, the black-land region around Columbus, Aberdeen, and Starkville, and other fertile farm country in both states and Louisiana. Many students have come from Claiborne County and the River Counties of Mississippi, and River Parishes of Louisiana. Heirs of the original founders of Oakland were attending the school in the 1970s.
The faculty of CHA were prepared to welcome students of different gifts and intellectual levels, successfully preparing boys (and later girls) for the most selective colleges in the United States but giving less talented students a first-class education addressing the whole person. The diversity of the school was limited until the late 1980s, when African Americans matriculated for the first time. For all of its years, Chamberlain-Hunt trained and produced leaders.
In 1971, the school began accepting female students, likely driven by the racial desegregation of public schools. [5] CHA stopped accepting female boarding students in 2002. [6] However, they did allow female students to attend as day students until 2005, after which they stopped accepting additional girls to the school. 2004-05 had a total of 8 female cadets.
The school went into a decline in the 1990s, when enrollment fell to just 22 students [7] ref. One observer remarked that, while McComb Hall had serious deferred maintenance, the Senior Speeches and college admission profile of the Class of 1990 were as impressive as always. In 1996 it was saved from closure by being taken over by French Camp Academy, another Christian (but not military) boarding school in northern Mississippi. [8] However, CHA continued to operate autonomously. At the time, it had approximately 40% ethnic minority enrollment. [9]
On its 125th birthday in 2004, CHA held a Founders' Day Convocation at nearby Alcorn State University (whose premises are on the Academy's original pre-1900 site) with special guest, US Senator Trent Lott. [10]
The school was sold in 2014 to a private individual and did not open for the 2014–2015 session. The buildings have been repurposed into housing for students at Alcorn State University. An attempt to raise funds to purchase the school from the Trustees, rename it "Oakland Collegiate School," and proceed as a co-ed college preparatory boarding school did not materialize. [11]
Chamberlain-Hunt was a member of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS), the Mississippi Association of Independent Schools (MAIS), the Association of Christian Schools International (ACSI), the Association of Military Colleges and Schools of the United States (AMCSUS), [12] and the Association of Classical Christian Schools.
Port Gibson is a city in Claiborne County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 1,567 at the 2010 census. Port Gibson is the county seat of Claiborne County, which is bordered on the west by the Mississippi River. It is the site of the Claiborne County Courthouse.
Alcorn State University is a public historically black land-grant university adjacent to Lorman, Mississippi. It was founded in 1871 and was the first black land grant college established in the United States. The university is a member-school of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund.
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Tougaloo College is a private historically black college in the Tougaloo area of Jackson, Mississippi, United States. It is affiliated with the United Church of Christ and Christian Church. It was originally established in 1869 by New York–based Christian missionaries for the education of freed slaves and their offspring. From 1871 until 1892 the college served as a teachers' training school funded by the state of Mississippi. In 1998, the buildings of the old campus were added to the National Register of Historic Places. Tougaloo College has a rich history of civic and social activism, including the Tougaloo Nine.
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The Claiborne County School District is a public school district based in Port Gibson, Mississippi (USA). The district's boundaries parallel that of Claiborne County. They include the employee residences of Alcorn State University.
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Oakland Memorial Chapel is a historic church and academic building on the campus of Alcorn State University in rural southwestern Claiborne County, Mississippi. Built in 1838 as part of Oakland College, it is one of the oldest surviving buildings at Alcorn State, which took over that defunct school's campus after the American Civil War. Alcorn State was the first land grant university established specifically for the education of African Americans. The chapel was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1976, and was designated a Mississippi Landmark in 1985.
Jeremiah Chamberlain (1794–1851) was an American Presbyterian minister, educator and college administrator. Educated at Dickinson College and Princeton Theological Seminary, he served as the president of Centre College in Kentucky from 1822 to 1825.
David Hunt was an American planter based in the Natchez District of Mississippi. He controlled 25 plantations, thousands of acres, and enslaved about 1,700 people in the antebellum era. From New Jersey, he joined his uncle in Mississippi business. He became a major philanthropist in the South, contributing to educational institutions in Mississippi, as well as the American Colonization Society and Mississippi Colonization Society, the latter of which he was a founding member.
Oakland College was a private college near Rodney, Mississippi. Founded by Dr. Jeremiah Chamberlain in 1830, the school was affiliated with the Presbyterian Church. It closed during Reconstruction, and some of its former campus is now part of the Alcorn State University Historic District.
Emmett J. Hull was an American architect. He designed many buildings in Mississippi, especially houses in his hometown of Jackson, many of which are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. He also designed buildings on the campuses of Copiah–Lincoln Community College, Tougaloo College, Chamberlain-Hunt Academy in Port Gibson, and Mississippi State University.
Port Gibson High School is a public high school in unincorporated Claiborne County, Mississippi, with a Port Gibson. It opened in 1924. It is part of the Claiborne County School District. The student body is 99 percent African American. The old Port Gibson High School campus is now used by Port Gibson Middle School and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
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