Centenary Institute was a school in Summerfield, Alabama

Summerfield, Alabama

Summerfield is an unincorporated community in Dallas County, Alabama. Summerfield has one historic district included on the National Register of Historic Places, the Summerfield District. Most of the community was annexed into Valley Grande following its incorporation as a city in...

 operated by the Methodist Episcopal Church, South

Methodist Episcopal Church, South

The Methodist Episcopal Church, South, or Methodist Episcopal Church South, was the so-called "Southern Methodist Church" resulting from the split over the issue of slavery in the Methodist Episcopal Church which had been brewing over several years until it came out into the open at a conference...

 from 1829 until the 1880s. The Centenary Institute was founded in 1829 as Valley Creek Academy, a local school, but was turned over to the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1838. In celebration of the centennial of Methodism

Methodism

Methodism is a movement of Protestant Christianity represented by a number of denominations and organizations, claiming a total of approximately seventy million adherents worldwide. The movement traces its roots to John Wesley's evangelistic revival movement within Anglicanism. His younger brother...

, the school was renamed the "Centenary Institute". A. H. Mitchell served as president of the Institute from 1843 until 1856. In 1845, the school was conferred the power to grant degrees

Academic degree

An academic degree is a position and title within a college or university that is usually awarded in recognition of the recipient having either satisfactorily completed a prescribed course of study or having conducted a scholarly endeavour deemed worthy of his or her admission to the degree...

, and graduated its first class that same year. For the next two decades, the school was the largest in central Alabama, enrolling approximately 500 students. J. N. Montgomery was president from 1856 until the Civil War; he was followed by Richard H. Rivers

Richard H. Rivers

Richard H. Rivers was a nineteenth century educator. He was president of Centenary College of Louisiana from 1849 to 1853 and president of La Grange College in Florence, Alabama after that...

, J. W. Vaughn, and R. K. Hargrove

Robert Kennon Hargrove

Robert Kennon Hargrove was an American bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, elected in 1882....

. The Institute saw its fortunes decline precipitously during the war; by 1865 buildings were in need of repair, and in 1867 the school saw but three graduates. The Panic of 1873

Panic of 1873

The Panic of 1873 triggered a severe international economic depression in both Europe and the United States that lasted until 1879, and even longer in some countries. The depression was known as the Great Depression until the 1930s, but is now known as the Long Depression...

impacted the school further, driving enrollment to fifty by 1874-75. In 1880, the Methodists ceased supporting the school, and the Institute began to act solely as a local school. The Institute was abandoned by 1885, and its buildings were used as an orphan asylum.

Further reading

• Lynda F. Worley, "A History of Centenary Institute, Selma, Alabama," Wesleyan Quarterly Review, February 1965.