Powhatan College was a woman’s college that was open from 1899 to 1914. The building which housed Powhatan College was built in 1899, in what is now Ranson, for a cost of $70,000 (roughly $2.6 million in today’s money). The college was mostly the brainchild of Col. R. P. Chew who had a desire to establish a first-rate college for women’s education in the town of Charles Town.
The college housed a number of departments and degree programs, with the primary aim of preparing its female students for a career in teaching. They included a Common School program that was a yearlong program that provided a systematic review of all the common school branches to prepare for teaching in public schools. And more in depth three- and four-year programs that were supplemented by lessons in the classics, music, art, and elocution.
The college folded in 1914 and the building was occupied by St. Hilda’s Hall for Girls from 1915 to the early 1930s when it closed due to financial constraints brought on by the Great Depression. The building was destroyed by fire in 1937.
