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The land for Feasterville Academy was given by JOHN FEASTER, son of the Revolutionary soldier, ANDREW FEASTER. He also gave the land and built the Boarding House, adjacent to the Academy, and gave the land and built the Liberty Universalist Church, which is just across Highway 215 from the old Academy.
We, the descendants of JOHN FEASTER, have always been told the following: That the school and Boarding House were built the same year. In my mother's home, at Shelton, hangs the portrait of JOHN FEASTER, painted by Mr. LADD. We have always been told that when Mr. LADD was painting this picture, Mrs. LADD accompanied him, and during one of the sittings, she asked JOHN FEASTER why he didn't build a school here. In reply, he asked: "If I built one, would you come up and teach in it?" She promptly replied that she would, and he built it, and she was the first teacher. The Boarding House was built for those students who lived too far away to come and go each day. Hence, the name, "The Boarding House."
While teaching there, Mrs. LADD lived in the Boarding House. She went from there to Winnsboro to live, and was in Winnsboro when Sherman came through from Columbia.
In Reverand. D. B. CLAYTON's book, Forty-Seven Years in the Universalist Ministry, he states that he taught in the Academy from 1864 to the end of 1865. We know that Mrs. LADD taught there in 1848, as Mrs. MARY COLEMAN FAUCETTE's mother,
Mrs. J. A. F. COLEMAN, stated often that she went to school there in 1848, and boarded with Mrs. LADD in the Boarding House. Also, Mrs. FAUCETTE and Mrs. NANCY STEVENSON ESTES attended the school the same year, riding horseback from their homes. Miss MARGARET NARCISSA FEASTER taught in the Academy in 1860-61.
Mr. FEASTER LYLES and his sister, ISABELLE, taught there after the war.
In his will, dated November 25, 1847, JOHN FEASTER states: "My will is that the lot of land on which the Female Academy and Boarding House stand at Feasterville, containing five and one half acres, I give and bequeath to my three sons, JACOB FEASTER and ANDREW FEASTER and JOHN U. FEASTER, in trust and for the benefit of Feasterville Male & Female Academy, and I hereby appoint and constitute them trustees of the same." From then on down to the present time, as a trustee died or moved from the community, another trustee was selected by the other trustees, and these trustees govern the property.
Mrs. ROSSEN has (1942) the original of the following documents:
ARTICLE OF AGREEMENT, entered into this 22d day of December, 1841, between JACOB FEASTER, JR., H. J. COLEMAN, ANDREW FEASTER and HENRY A. COLEMAN, Trustees of Feasterville Academy, of the one part, and LEWIS F. W. ANDREWS, of the other part.
WITNESSETH, that the said L. F. W. ANDREWS doth agree to take charge of the Feasterville Academy, for the year of our Lord 1842, and to teach or have taught the usual English and classical Branches to any Number of pupils, not exceeding forty, on the following terms:
The male and female pupils to be united in one school -- the Scholastic year to be divided into two sessions of five months each -- the 1st Session to commence on the last Monday of January of said year, school to be taught five days in each week and six hours each day, all lost time on the part of the Principal to be fully made up by him.
The undersigned Trustees on their part agree to pay, or guarantee the payment of, the sum of eight hundred dollars to said L. F. W. ANDREWS, as teacher and principal aforesaid, for the term of one scholastic year of 10 months, said payment to be made on or before the 25th day of December, 1842 -- and do further agree to provide suitable writing benches for the Academy prior to the commencement of school, also to furnish firewood for the same -- and a pair of 12-inch globes -- and to pay for the advertising of the Seminary.
IN TESTIMONY, whereof, we the parties, have hereunto signed our names respectively, the day and date above mentioned.
(Signed:)
L. F. W. ANDREWS -- Principal, --JACOB FEASTER, HENRY J. COLEMAN, H. A. COLEMAN, A. FEASTER, Trustees.
The exact connection of Mrs. LADD with the Feasterville Academy is not clear, but it seems to have been certain.
DR. W. W. BALL, editor of The News and Courier, is authority for the statement that in 1848, when NEWTON PINCKNEY WALKER, who had been a Baptist preacher and teacher, but who had become a Universalist in belief, proposed to establish a school for the deaf and blind among the sites offered "was a generous offer, at Feasterville, Fairfield County." * * *"The people of Feasterville were of his belief in these things" (Universalist). But the choice went to Cedar Springs because of an abandoned summer resort hotel, and out buildings.
This sketch of the early schools of Fairfield may be closed with the reflection that Mount Zion, ante-dating the South Carolina University by about a quarter of a century might have been developed into that institution; Furman Institute three miles from Winnsboro might have been developed into Furman University, and Feasterville Academy might have had as an adjunct the State School for the Deaf and Blind."
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