McCrady Hall; a dormitory dedicated to John McCrady
Item
- Legacies Classification
- Memorial Type
- Memorial Context
- Memorialized Subject
- Title
- Background and Context
- Physical Description
- Memorial Inscription
- Creator/Participating Person(s)
- Date created, installed or dedicated
- Location: Institution, City, State
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Memorial Structure
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Named Building
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McCrady, John
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McCrady Hall; a dormitory dedicated to John McCrady
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A dormitory for undergraduate students of the University of the South, McCrady Hall was opened in 1964 and named in honor of John McCrady (1831-1881), who established the biology department at Sewanee. The Vice-Chancellor of the University at the time, Edward McCrady, was the grandson of John McCrady.
John McCrady was a distinguished naturalist in Charleston, South Carolina, in the 1840s and 1850s. He also was an ardent secessionist and proponent of scientific racism, contending (as did his mentor Louis Agassiz of Harvard) that the white and black races were separate species, created by God as two acts instead of one. Supporters of slavery sometimes cited this unorthodox theory of polygenesis in defense of the peculiar institution. McCrady served in the Confederate Army and, after the Civil War, taught at Harvard University until he ran afoul of the leadership there. He moved his family to Sewanee in 1877 to teach at the University.
The McCrady family lived in a house on the present site of Walsh Ellett Hall. After his death in 1881, his wife Sarah Dismukes McCrady moved to Charleston, but returned to Sewanee and built a boarding house. This structure was called “McCrady Hall.” The family remained in the house until 1960, when they gave it to the University, which built the dormitory in its place and dedicated it as a memorial to John McCrady.
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A two-story dormitory structure clad in local sandstone and housing approximately 90 students.
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This Building Honors
John McCrady
1831-1881
Charleston Naturalist, Mathematician,
Engineer, Polymath, and Churchman
Founder of the Biology Department in 1877
In 1885, his widow
Sarah Dislikes McCrady
Built the first McCrady Hall on this site,
A boarding house for family and students.
In 1962 it was replaced by the current residence hall.
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1964
Position: 1481 (51 views)