1890

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1890 in Clemson History

Events that occurred in 1890:

  • The Chemistry Building is erected with funds from the fertilizer tax, and is completed as the first classroom building on campus. It will later be named Hardin Hall.
  • William C. Whitner establishes a waterworks for the town of Anderson, and, using steam power, provides 750 incandescent lamps to light the town, the first electricity in that community.
  • January 20: The trustees meet at Wright's Hotel, Columbia, (Bryan, Wright, "Clemson: An Informal History of the University 1889-1979", The R. L. Bryan Company, Columbia, South Carolina, 1979, ISBN 0-934870-01-2, page 31) and form an executive committee that begins advertising for bids, receives architectural proposals, selects building sites, and arranges for timber cutting.
  • April 17: P. H. E. Sloan is hired to serve as secretary and treasurer of Clemson Agricultural College for $40 per month.
  • May: P. H. E. Sloan's pay as secretary and treasurer of Clemson Agricultural College is raised to $60 per month.
  • June 11: The first death of a board of trustee member, Benjamin Wheeler Edwards, occurs less than six months after the board first meets. "As a state senator he had been a strong advocate of establishing an agricultural college. When he died he was completing reports as chairman of two major board committees." (Bryan, Wright, "Clemson: An Informal History of the University 1889-1979", The R. L. Bryan Company, Columbia, South Carolina, 1979, ISBN 0-934870-01-2, page 36.)
  • July 16: Focal point of the campus is fixed for all time when the board of trustees "resolved that the college building be located at the top of the hill near Calhoun residence as heretofore agreed upon by the executive committee." Legend has it that Anna Calhoun Clemson had selected this site. (Bryan, Wright, "Clemson: An Informal History of the University 1889-1979", The R. L. Bryan Company, Columbia, South Carolina, 1979, ISBN 0-934870-01-2, page 34.)
  • July 19: Dr. Henry Aubrey Strode of the University of Mississippi interviews for, and is awarded, the office as first President of Clemson Agricultural College by the board of trustees.
  • August: Dr. Henry Aubrey Strode arrives at Clemson from the University of Mississippi.
  • August 30: A second bill from the United States Congress is passed, supplementing a first appropriation of July 2, 1862, for "the endowment, support and maintenance of at least one college where the leading object shall be, without excluding other scientific and classical studies, and including military tactics, to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts, in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes, in the several pursuits and professions of life." From these funds Clemson College receives annually from the Federal Government the sum of $17,754. ("Historical Sketch of Clemson College", The Clemsonian, 1901, page 29.)
  • October: Mark Bernard Hardin arrives from Virginia Military Institute to serve as the school's first Professor of Chemistry.
  • December 1: P. H. E. Sloan's salary as secretary and treasurer of Clemson Agricultural College, is raised to $100 per month.
  • December 4: Benjamin Ryan Tillman is inaugurated as governor of South Carolina.(Lander, Jr., Ernest McPherson, "A History of South Carolina, 1865-1960", The University Of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1960, page 35.)
  • December 24: "1890 STATUTES AT LARGE OF SOUTH CAROLINA, No. 526: Whereas, the public road leading from Fort Hill, the site of the Clemson College, to the Town of Pendleton, the nearest station on the Blue Ridge Railroad to said College, is so hilly and so badly located as to very seriously interfere with the comfort and convenience of persons visiting said college and hauling of freights and material for the same, and it has been ascertained that a new road can be constructed which will practically avoid all the steep grades on the present road, but, owing to the fact that the said new road will run through the Counties of Anderson and Pickens and the corporate limits of the Town of Pendlton (sic), and it is difficult to get the several "parties in authority to agree,
"SECTION 1. Be it resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of South Carolina, now met and sitting in General Assembly, and by the authority of the same, That Prof. H. A. Strode, of Clemson College, J. C. Stribling, of Pickens County, P. H. E. Sloan, of Anderson County, be, and they are hereby authorized and directed to at once survey out and construct a public road from the said Town of Pendleton to the Clemson Agricultural College upon the best and nearest route practicable.
"SECTION 2. Whenever the said proposed road has been laid out and graded, it shall then become a public highway, and the County Commissioners of the several Counties through which it shall run forever afterwards keep it in good conditions and repair.
"SECTION 3. That in laying out and constructing the road provided for by this Act, the said Commissioners shall proceed in the manner provided by law in respect to notices, appointment of assessors and the assessment of damages that may be sustained by reason of the opening of said road, with the right of appeal now reserved by law to the owners of lands through which the road may run.
"Approved December 24th, A.D. 1890."
This will be known as Pendleton Road.
  • Winter: Applications to the new college top 600 in number.


1889 The 1890's 1891