The school had suffered fires in 1924 and 1926; newspapers reported that the Ku Klux Klan was suspected, as it had become active in the western part of the state. Holland and his wife operated the related summer camp at the facility from 1938 until 1974.
History
The school was founded by Reverend William S. Holland, who was educated at Virginia Union University. Deeply interested in education for black youth, Holland founded the Watchman Industrial School at 140 Codding Street, in Providence in 1908.[1][2] He hoped to duplicate the success of the educational program of Booker T. Washington,[3] as operating at the Hampton Institute and the Tuskegee Institute, historically black colleges.[4] He trained black youths in vocational trades in addition to academic subjects, hence the name "industrial school," which was a popular model at the time for lower-class youths.[5] Educators believed that young people needed to be taught skills for the workplace. Holland often took custody of young persons in trouble with the authorities, in lieu of seeing them enter Rhode Island's reform school or prison systems.[2]
The Watchman Industrial School was incorporated in Rhode Island by 1910.[6] In 1917, the Watchman School was described in the report of the Phelps-Stokes Fund as "a small elementary school of very doubtful management. The industrial work is negligible." The Fund was managing a study of black education and surveyed private as well as public schools.[7]
North Scituate
The Pentecostal Collegiate Institute in North Scituate, 1905.
The school had two suspicious fires in 1924 and 1926, and a former student reported seeing a cross being burned on the school lawn in the 1930s.[10] Newspapers reported in the 1920s incidents that the local Ku Klux Klan chapter was suspected, as the KKK had become active in western Rhode Island after World War I, chiefly out of anti-immigration sentiment.[10] No one was ever arrested or charged in the incidents.
After closing the school, Holland continued to operate the summer camp until his death in 1958. After his death, his second wife and widow Viola Grant Holland (1901–1986) took over operation of the camp. She ran it until 1974, when it was forced to close for financial reasons.[2] By 1969, the principal of the camp was Edward T. Duncan.[11]
In 1978 the complex was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.[12] The buildings were renovated in the 1970s and converted into apartments known as Scituate Commons.[13] In 1985 the site was designated by Rhode Island as an African-American historic site.[3]
William S. Holland
Early life and education
William S. Holland was born in October 1866 in Virginia to former slaves. He likely attended local black schools. He graduated from Virginia Union University of Richmond, Virginia, in 1897.[14]
Marriage and family
After college, in 1899 Holland married Evalina (also known as Evelyn) Brown. She was born September 1875 in Virginia. They had one son, William F.B. Holland (born March 1900 in Rhode Island).[15][16]
After Evalina's death, Holland married Viola E. Holland (born 1901 in Worcester, Massachusetts; died 14 October 1986 in Rhode Island).[17] She survived him and operated the summer camp for years.
Notes and references
↑ Federal Writers' Project, Rhode Island: A Guide to the Smallest State, 453.
↑ Rhode Island, Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Assembly of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations (Henry Ward, Secretary, 1910):570.
↑ Phelps-Stokes Fund, Negro Education: A Study of the Private and Higher Schools for Colored People in the United States, Vol. 2 (Govt. Print. Off., 1917):694, 697.
↑ Federal Writers' Project, Rhode Island: A Guide to the Smallest State (US History Publishers, 1977):124, 453.
↑ "William S. Holland", The Afro-American (10 June 1939):8
↑ 1900 US Federal Census; Census Place: Providence Ward 8, Providence, Rhode Island; Roll T623_1508; Page: 15B; Enumeration District: 71
↑ 1920 US Federal Census ;Census Place: Providence Ward 7, Providence, Rhode Island; Roll T625_1677; Page: 14A; Enumeration District: 251; Image: 768
↑ Viola E. Holland", Providence Journal (15 October 1986):C-10.
Further reading
Forty-Third Anniversary of the Watchman Industrial School and Camp, North Scituate, Rhode Island [and] Watchman Community Center Day Nursery. Providence, Rhode Island, s.n., 1951.
The Ku Klux Klan, commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is the name of several historical and current American white supremacist, far-right terrorist organizations and hate groups. The Klan was "the first organized terror movement in American history." Their primary targets are African Americans, Hispanics, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, Italian Americans, Irish Americans, and Catholics, as well as immigrants, leftists, homosexuals, Muslims, atheists, and abortion providers.
Rhode Island is a state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area and the seventh-least populous, with slightly fewer than 1.1 million residents as of 2020; but Rhode Island has grown at every decennial count since 1790 and is the second-most densely populated state, after New Jersey. The state takes its name from the eponymous island, though nearly all its land area is on the mainland. Rhode Island borders Connecticut to its west; Massachusetts to its north and east; and the Atlantic Ocean to its south via Rhode Island Sound and Block Island Sound; and shares a small maritime border with New York, east of Long Island. Providence is its capital and most populous city.
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Alma Bridwell White was the founder and a bishop of the Pillar of Fire Church. In 1918, she became the first woman bishop of Pillar of Fire in the United States. She was a proponent of feminism. She also associated herself with the Ku Klux Klan and was involved in anti-Catholicism, antisemitism, anti-Pentecostalism, racism, and hostility to immigrants. By the time of her death at age 84, she had expanded the sect to "4,000 followers, 61 churches, seven schools, ten periodicals and two broadcasting stations."
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The Smithville Seminary was a Freewill Baptist institution established in 1839 on what is now Institute Lane in Smithville-North Scituate, Rhode Island. Renamed the Lapham Institute in 1863, it closed in 1876. The site was then used as the campus of the Pentecostal Collegiate Institute and later the Watchman Institute, and is now the Scituate Commons apartments. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.
The history of Rhode Island is an overview of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations and the state of Rhode Island from pre-colonial times to the present.
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North Scituate is a village in the town of Scituate, Rhode Island. Since 1967, the village has been home to the Scituate Art Festival.
The State Arsenal, originally the Providence Marine Corps of Artillery Arsenal, and commonly called the Benefit Street Arsenal is a historic armory building located at 176 Benefit Street in the College Hill neighborhood of Providence, Rhode Island. It was built in 1839, was designed by Russell Warren in the Gothic Revival style, and was built by Tallman & Bucklin.
The Pentecostal Collegiate Institute was a short-lived co-educational collegiate institute operated initially by the Association of Pentecostal Churches of America at Saratoga Springs, New York from September 1900 to May 1902, and from then by Lyman C. Pettit until its closure in February 1903. It is considered an antecedent institution of the Pentecostal Collegiate Institute and also Eastern Nazarene College.
The Pentecostal Collegiate Institute was a co-educational interdenominational collegiate institute located at North Scituate, Rhode Island from September 1902 to 1918. PCI was incorporated in Rhode Island and operated by its own board in association with the Association of Pentecostal Churches of America. The Church of the Nazarene operated it after 1915. It is considered a predecessor to Eastern Nazarene College.
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