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SE Biology, Vol. 61, No. 1, January, 2014 
the Methodist Church of my native state.” It proved to be one of the largest 
financial contributions made to American higher education prior to the Civil 
War. Mr. Wofford’s will was approved in solemn form on March 14, 1851, and 
the college charter from the South Carolina General Assembly is dated 
December 16, 1851. 
Trustees quickly acquired the necessary land and retained one of the South’s 
leading architects, Edward C. Jones of Charleston, to lay out the campus. 
Although landscaping plans were never fully developed in the 19th century, 
sketches exist to show that the early trustees envisioned a formal network of 
pathways, lawns and gardens that would have left an impression quite similar 
to the present National Historic District. The original structures included a 
president’s home (demolished early in the 20th century); four faculty homes 
(still in use today for various purposes); and the magnificent Main Building. 
Known as simply as “The College” for many years, the latter structure 
remains one of the nation’s outstanding examples of “Italianate” or “Tuscan 
Villa” architecture. 
In the autumn of 1854, three faculty members and 
seven students took up their work. Admission was 
selective. Prospective students were tested on their knowledge of English, 
arithmetic, algebra and geography. They were also expected to demonstrate 
a knowledge of Latin and Greek classics, including Cicero, Caesar, the 
Aeneid, and Xenophon’s Anabasis. The first Wofford degree was awarded in 
1856 to Samuel Dibble, a future United States Congressman. 
Construction finally began in the summer of 1852 under 
the supervision of Ephraim Clayton of Asheville, NC. 
Skilled African-American carpenters executed uniquely 
beautiful woodwork, including a pulpit and pews for the 
chapel. The college bell arrived from the Meneely 
Foundry in West Troy, New York, and, from the west 
tower of “Old Main,” it continues to sing out as the 
“voice of Wofford.” The exterior of the building today is 
true to the original design, but the interior has been 
modernized and renovated three times — in the early 
1900s, in the 1960s, and in 2007. 
After an administration that was highly successful both educationally and 
financially, President Wightman resigned in 1859 to launch yet another 
Methodist college, Birmingham-Southern in Alabama. He was replaced by 
the Rev. Albert M. Shipp, a respected scholar who was immediately 
confronted with a devastating Civil War. Many students and young alumni, 
including two sons of faculty members, were killed in the great Virginia 
battles of 1862. Then, as Sherman approached Atlanta in 1864, the trustees 
invested their endowment funds in soon-to-be-worthless Confederate bonds 
and securities. (The college still has them in its vault.) The situation was 
