VA-UL4 Old Randolph-Macon College

Marker text: OLD RANDOLPH-MACON COLLEGE

This is the original campus of Randolph-Macon College, the oldest Methodist-affiliated college still operating in the United States. Chartered by the Virginia General Assembly in 1830 and named for Congressman John Randolph of Roanoke, Charlotte County, Virginia, and Nathaniel Macon, of Warren County, North Carolina, the college opened on 9 October 1832. Dabney Cosby, a builder employed by Thomas Jefferson at the University of Virginia was a contractor. In 1868, largely due to economic difficulties caused by the Civil War, the college was moved to Ashland, where it continues in operation. The vacated buildings later housed a freedmen's school, as well as the Boydton Academic and Bible Institute, which operated until the mid-1930s.

Department of Historic Resources, 1994.