#72: The Massie Heritage Center on Calhoun Square

“It is harder to preserve than to obtain liberty.”

—John C. Calhoun

The Massie Heritage Center on Calhoun Square

When he died in 1840, Peter Massie, a wealthy plantation owner, left $5,000 in his will for Savannah to establish a free school to educate the city’s poor.

The city and Massie’s heirs ended up in court for several years. But eventually, the city of Savannah received the gift from Massie’s Estate and put it to work to build this atypical school for the poor white children in Savannah that I have painted en Plein air here.

The city engaged busy architect John S. Norris in 1855 to build the school. Norris was one of the most prolific architects in Savannah between the mid-1840s through the 1850s. I have painted several of his designs, including the Mercer-Williams House (PFS #1) and the Green-Meldrim House (PFS #61). I hope to paint soon the initial commission that brought Norris to town: The United States Customs House.

The Massie School opened in the fall of 1856. Boys and girls attended together, which made the mark of any school being ‘progressive’ at that period in southern American history.

When William Tecumseh Sherman occupied the city toward the end of the Civil War in December 1864, the Massie building was deployed as a Union Army hospital and then briefly used as a school for Savannah’s Black children. The Massie School later became the foundation of the Savannah Public School System. Incredibly, this building continued in use as a public school until 1974.

The building was soon after repurposed to become The Massie Heritage Center. This engaging, interactive educational exhibition space includes a fabulous three-dimensional model of the Savannah Historic District, documenting the hundreds of buildings preserved throughout downtown Savannah.

A local activist named Emma Adler was critical in the restoration of the Massie Heritage Center. Adler formed The Friends of Massie to raise the necessary funds for the building’s restoration. The Massie Heritage Center on Calhoun Square was included in the National Register of Historic Places in 1977.

The Massie school was built on Calhoun Square soon after the Square was laid out in 1851. It was named to honor John C. Calhoun, the infamous (and perhaps notorious) Senator from South Carolina who emphatically dominated Southern politics between The War of 1812 through The Compromise of 1850.

John Calhoun, representing the Southern States, together with Henry Clay, who represented the interests of the Western States, and Daniel Webster, who represented the Northern States, were the primary heirs to the Founding Father generation of American political leaders.

An excellent history by H.W. Brands — Heirs of the Founders: The Epic Rivalry of Henry Clay, John Calhoun and Daniel Webster, the Second Generation of American Giants — tells the four-decade tale of how these three consequential politicians hammered out several political compromises to hold the Union together. They were called the ‘Great Triumvirate,’ and their moment in history came in 1850.

As Brands wrote: “Clay would save the Union, if he could. Calhoun would wreck the Union, if that’s what it cost to preserve slavery and states’ rights [and to fulfill his ambition] Daniel Webster might have to go back to the devil for a second mortgage on his soul.” It tells an epic drama of thrilling American history.