Fertile ground for learning - Former school site now home of Manassas Museum

It seems the Manassas Museum property was destined to be fertile ground for learning. Because before the museum opened at its current site in 1991, the property was home to Swavely School, a prep school for boys from 1924 to 1935. But even before Swavely, another school occupied the site.

Ann Walser Harrover Thomas, a life-long Manassas resident who grew up on Grant Avenue, donated the Swavely navy blue and white banner (circa 1925) that is now in a glass display case in the Manassas Museum. Her father was R. Jackson Ratcliffe, author of a well-known book on county history, “This Was Prince William.”

According to “Manassas: A Place of Passages,” between 1909 and 1935 at the current site of the Manassas Museum, two colleges and a college prep school operated out of buildings south of the railroad tracks. It was on Isaac Baldwin’s property where in 1909, Eastern College, a four-year school opened, offering degrees in a variety of fields.

The college built two brick buildings to accommodate students: East Hall (men’s dormitory) and Vorhees Hall (women’s dormitory). It attracted students from the Manassas area, Virginia and 21 other states. Similar to most schools, in addition to academics, Eastern College offered a range of activities and athletics. The long white sidewalk in the middle of the lawn leading to the Manassas Museum follows the same walkway of the school.

“Manassas: A Place of Passages” shows pictures of the old Baldwin House. The caption of a photo states, “In 1890, the Manassas Institute founded by Fannie and Eugenia Osbourn, opened for business in the Baldwin House, south of the railroad tracks. The Baldwin House, seen here in the 1910s, was the seat of every effort at private white education in Manassas. Built by Isaac Baldwin in the 1880s, the structure went on to house seven schools including the Manassas Institute [which closed 1906], Eastern College, and Swavely School.”

In the fall of 1906, Manassas Institute and the public high school merged–creating one school. Sisters Fannie Osbourn Metz and Eugenia Osbourn continued teaching the youth of Manassas at the newly-formed Manassas High School, which became Osbourn High School.

Helen Graves, a Manassas Museum volunteer for 20+ years, is a Nokesville native and remembers her parents talking about Swavely School. “I remember football games at Swavely field. And I know Ann who donated the Swavely banner. We both graduated in 1954; she went to Osbourn High School here in Manassas and I graduated from Brentsville.”

Graves also remembers her mother talking about Eastern College, which prospered, but after World War I (1914-1918), its debts were too high and the school was forced to close.

For a short time, a girls’ school, the Eastern College-Conservatory, occupied the buildings, but it, too, failed. Then, Eli Swavely of Washington, D.C. ran a college preparatory school for boys on the site from 1924 to 1935.

Swavely was known to have excellent faculty and its curriculum was rigorous–preparing boys for service academies at West Point and Annapolis. Due to the Great Depression, the school was hard hit; and it had accumulated such large debts it was forced to close in 1935.

Prince William County took over the property and planned to make it a vocational school called Manassas State Vocational School. But this endeavor did not succeed. Because the abandoned buildings were a safety hazard, the county razed them in 1966 to create Baldwin Park.

In 1991, the Manassas Museum opened on the site in a new building.

Previously, from 1974 until 1990, the museum was in a small brick building on Main Street, which was the first banking establishment in Manassas - the Manassas National Bank - dating to 1896.
 
Helene Deramond of Arlington visited the museum on a recent Sunday afternoon with her husband, Ted. She said, “I like to visit museums when we visit new places; you learn about the area that way.”

During Swavely’s day, young people received an education. Today, the museum continues to be a seat of learning where visitors of all ages can gain knowledge about the past and appreciate the history preserved within its walls.