Built in 1854, home of the Masonic Female College of South Carolina, under supervison of the Freemasons, Bascomb Lodge No. 80. The school was unusual for its time in providing an education for young women.
The three-story Greek Revival style building has a bell tower and four square columns that extend from the ground level to the pediment. The first floor contained four student recitation rooms and four music rooms, there was a chapel on the second floor, and the third floor housed a Masonic Lodge headquarters.
Thoroughly Methodist, the village was first called Mount Ariel. The name was changed to Cokesbury in 1834 to honor Thomas Coke and Francis Asbury, first two Methodist bishops in the United States. The school building and adjacent village of Old Cokesbury were listed together on the National Register on August 25, 1970.
Restoration plans for the school building and lots more information and pictures on historic Cokesbury HERE
~photos 6 May 2011 - playing tourist in rural South Carolina
