Maryland on Stamps
Richard D. L. Fulton
St. John’s College’s 300th
The United States Postal Service (USPS) issued a 20-cent postal card commemorating the 300th Anniversary of the founding of Saint John’s College, located at 60 College Avenue, in Annapolis on June 1, 1998.
The postal cards were appropriately postmarked at the Annapolis Post Office and depicted McDowell Hall.
Postal cards differ from postcards. Postal cards are printed by the USPS, including the depiction of a stamp, and are issued to be used as mail or as a souvenir of the issuance of the stamp represented. Post cards are privately printed, usually depicting places of interest, and to which a stamp must be added by the purchaser, in order for the card to be sent within the mail system.
McDowell Hall
McDowell Hall was originally designed to serve as the “Colonial Governor’s Mansion,” also known as the “Colonial Governor’s House,” for Colonial Governor Thomas Bladen, but the structure was ultimately abandoned for nearly 50 years, as the result of a lack of funds to complete it.
According to annapolisarchitectureguide.com, “Thomas Jefferson in 1766 observed that in Annapolis, ‘They have no public building worth mentioning, except a Governor’s House, the hull of which after being nearly finished, they have suffered to go to ruin.’”
According to Annapolis Home Magazine, in an article entitled Grandeur & Demolished Grace | Governor’s House, “After the Revolutionary War, the ruins and property were confiscated from the British.” Saint John’s College acquired the building in 1784, and the building was completed in 1788.
Following restoration, McDowell Hall was used as a classroom, dormitory, and administrative college building.
During 1909, the hall was gutted in a fire and then damaged once again by a smaller fire in 1952. Regarding the final restoration work, Saint John’s College website states, “Out of the ashes and ruins has arisen a new and greater McDowell, thoroughly modern, a credit to the college, and a monument not only to the old structure, but to the loyalty of the alumni, who have contributed so liberally to the reconstruction funds.”
Saint John’s College
Saint John’s College itself traces its roots back to 1696, when the educational institution was established as King William’s School, by a Masonic Order. The Library of Congress states that the school was located at 10 Francis Street, Annapolis, and remains as, “perhaps one of the oldest extant buildings (in Annapolis).”
Although one online source stated that a school had not been built until 1715, documental evidence suggests otherwise. According to Charlotte Fletcher, writing for The St. John’s Review (Volume XL, Number Two 1990-91), the Reverend Thomas Bray, the bishop of London’s Commissary for Maryland, noted in 1700, “the free school already started in Annapolis was also teaching ‘arithmetic, navigation, and all useful learning’.”
King William’s School was billed as having been a “free school,” but Fletcher also noted that the period use of the term “free” did not mean “without charge” to the students. It referred to schools of enlightenment (freeing the students from a lack of education).
The state of Maryland chartered Saint John’s College in 1784, thereby merging it with King William’s School in the process.
Some notable events that have occurred over time involving Saint John’s College (as per sjc.edu) include:
During 1863 and the Great Rebellion, the U.S. Army Medical Corps occupied Saint John’s College buildings for hospital use, which was dubbed as the College Green Hospital.
During 1950, Alumni Jac Holzman and Paul Rickolt established the highly successful and acclaimed Elektra Records in Holzman’s dorm room.
During 1951, Saint John’s College admitted its first class of women into the student body.
In 1964, Saint John’s College opened its Santa Fe (New Mexico) campus, with 81 students in the first freshman class.
For more noteworthy events in the college’s history, visit the college website at sjc.edu.
Today, the liberal arts-focused Saint John’s College occupies a 36-acre campus and has instructed students from virtually all of the United States’ states and territories, and 14 other nations/countries.
First Day of Issue postal card of St. John’s College 300th Anniversary.
