26 attendance during the winter and spring terms of 1874-1875, as reported

18

in Freedmen‘s Aid Society records, was 75. Parkinson said that an

average of about 60 students had been enrolled for the spring term of 1875.19

The name Bennett Seminary was chosen for the school in honor of Mr. Lyman Bennett of Troy, New York, the school‘s "benevolent found» er.“20 Generous donations from Mr. Bennett made possible the purchase of land for a permanent campus during Parkinson's administration, and

the erection of the first school building,21

under the next principal. The plot of land for the permanent campus, contained twenty acres and

was purchased at a cost of $2,156.37. C. N. McAdoo of Guilford County

18

Freedmen's Aid Society, Eighth Annual Report, 1875, p. 86.

lgGreensboro New North State, May 28, 1875.

20Freedmen's Aid Society, Tenth Annual Report, 1877, p. 37. In the evidence examined, the name appears for the first time in an article dated May 28, 1875 (Greensboro New North State).

Although most secondary—sources attribute the name of the school to Lyman Bennett, one secondary source written in 1931 says that the school takes its name from Alfred Bennett, a Greensboro citizen who pur- chased in 1878 the property which became the permanent school campus. ”Bennett Has An Interesting History,u Bulletin of Bennett College for Women, VII (October, 1931), 3. Subsequent information in the text and footnotes will show reasons to the contrary.

At this point it is also interesting to speculate about Mr. Bennett's motives. The writer of a modern account says that Mr. Ben= nett had talked with Abraham Lincoln ab0ut the problem of the education of Negroes. Bennett College Looks Ahead to 1974: Profile of 1954 to 1974 (Greensboro: Bennett College, n.d.):_p. 1. An intervTEw with- Mrs. David D. Jones (5 August 1969) tends to corroborate this account.

2‘lFreedmen's Aid Society, Tenth Annual Report, 1877, p. 37.