My Great-Great Grandmother and Great Grandmother's Home owned the home at 1800 Vermont Ave NW until the late 1990's. This is my family's home and I have very fond memories of spending time with my great-great grandmother and great grandmother's home. Summer's spent in the beautiful yard and picking apricot's from the huge tree (that is no longer standing) that stood in the center of the yard. I had no idea as a little girl that I was walking around on historic grounds.

The property was the former Frelinghuysen University in Washington, D.C., "devoted in perpetuo to Education of Colored Adults". It aimed to meet some of the educational needs and demands of colored working folk who are past the age of public school advantages and unable for obvious reasons to meet the requirements of a full day-time college or university.Its classes met outside of business hours; it offered "part-time adult schooling".

Freylinghuysen was in no way a university; the name was given because it was a collection of "schools". The level of education was not fixed; the majority of the instruction was at the high school level, and a "Collegiate" track prepared students for college. However, the school also awarded B.A. degrees. There was some discussion of whether it met the standards for a junior college.

Its programs were held in private homes and businesses throughout Washington until 1921. The Goodwin House served as the University's first permanent building from 1921 to 1927. In 1927 it moved to a larger building at 601 M Street NW. The University found the mortgage payments to be unsustainable, and it moved to the home of its president, Anna J. Cooper, at 201 T Street NW. She donated her equity in her home, almost free of mortgage, to the University. The school was accredited starting in 1927 and conferred degrees from then until 1937. After that time Frelinghuysen lost its accreditation, and changed its name to the Frelinghuysen Group of Schools for Colored Working People. The school started to decline until it was dissolved in the 1950s.

Community Curation

Denise Patterson