When someone talks about Steubenville landmarks, we generally have specific places in mind. You will always have on the list Fort Steuben, Steubenville High School, Beatty Park, the Fort Steuben Mall, Jefferson County Courthouse, etc. Naturally, in the past there were other places that were special to our residents as well.

Sometimes places that are gone still hold a big place in our collective memory.

A typical example is the Hub. People talk so fondly of that store and what it meant to visit in its heyday. I was never so lucky to get there, but it certainly was a big part of growing up here. When my article came out several years ago about the Hub, my son, who was about 7 at the time, listened intently and said, “Dad, that store sounds wonderful, let’s go!” Imagine his disappointment when I told him that the Hub was long gone.

For me, growing up learning the history of our area, one place stuck out as being a place that always was in the background to life in Steubenville.

The place was called the Steubenville Female Seminary, and through its years of operation, it witnessed so much of our community’s history. The school was founded in 1829 by Charles Clinton Beatty and his wife, Hetty. Really, it was the wish of Hetty to establish a female seminary in Steubenville. At this time in our nation’s history, there was a strong national movement to provide more educational opportunities for women called the Female Seminary Movement. According to Laura Donnaway, who wrote an article in the Student Historical Journal 1984-85 called “Women’s Rights Before the Civil War,” “The seminary movement proved that women had minds capable of serious study and opened the way for women to teach and manage institutions. This was an important, although small, step toward equality for women.”

The term “seminary” is sort of a misnomer because it really wasn’t an institution to prepare women for life in the ministry. It was a private school where women could be educated on a variety of subjects and courses.

Helen Horowitz, in her book “Alma Mater: Design and Experience in the Women’s Colleges from their Nineteenth-Century Beginnings to the 1930s,” writes that “the word seminary began to replace the word academy. The new word connoted a certain seriousness. The seminary saw its task primarily as professional preparation. The male seminary prepared men for the ministry; the female seminary took as its earnest job the training of women for teaching and for Republican motherhood.”

In Steubenville, Hetty was in charge of education at the seminary.

Hetty was born in Pittsburgh on Halloween in 1802 on a farm that would eventually become Allegheny Cemetery. Her father died young, and when she was 11, their family removed to Lexington, Ky., where her mother remarried. Hetty received a good education and hallmarks of her studies included music, French, painting, English grammar and Latin. While in school, she was friends with a daughter of Henry Clay, Kentucky statesman and founder of the Whig Party. He said of Hetty that, “She was one of the most elegant young ladies he had ever met.”

In September 1822, Hetty became a member of the Presbyterian church, and that was a monumental moment in her life. In 1827, she married the Rev. Charles Beatty, who was a Presbyterian pastor in Steubenville, and remained here the rest of her life. She excelled in the role of pastor’s wife and, along with her husband, worked tirelessly in their ministry.

In 1829, she persuaded her husband to agree to let her begin a school. Before the school opened, Hetty and her husband traveled around to various other schools specifically geared toward women, to glean as much of the curriculum as possible. They desired to take the best of those schools to give the best possible education they could in Steubenville.

The first year, there were only seven students, but by 1846, it regularly educated 150 students a year. Typically, the school would accept students age 12 years or older, and the program was broken up into four years of study, primary, middle, junior and senior. Later in its history, the school had a preparatory school, which housed a kindergarten.

The school was located on High Street bounded by Adams, Water and North streets. The buildings were commodious and the grounds, surrounded by tall stone walls, conveyed a park-like setting by the 1880s.

According to a description of the time, “The grounds are laid off in tasteful style, and leafy trees and falling waters of the fountain make the place one of cooling delight, especially on a warm summer’s afternoon. The buildings themselves are roomy and comfortable, and the school room is airy, light and pleasant.”

A large library of more than 3,000 books was on site with reading rooms in addition to a gymnasium. The seminary hall boasted spacious school rooms, recitation rooms and between that and the boarding house, there were galleries, lecture rooms and musical apartments. The boarding experience at the seminary was not unlike dorms of today. Typical rooms accommodated two students, but other larger rooms could house four students at a time. If you came from a more affluent family and the enrollment was on the low side, one could have a private room for an extra 50 cents. Rooms were lit by gas and heated by furnaces or fireplaces.

The curriculum varied during the years, but in 1883 they were offering courses in reading; writing; spelling; geography; the history of England, the United States, Rome and Greece; arithmetic, mental and written; algebra; biblical antiquities; bookkeeping; natural philosophy; astronomy; ecclesiastical history; rhetoric; logic; and English literature. with parsing in Milton, or other poets, once a week in the higher classes. Vocal and instrumental music were offered in addition to drawing and painting being optional.

Ancient or modern languages, especially French, were not required, but heavily encouraged. There was no dress code, but students were to dress simply without jewelry or expensive articles of dress. Students also were to bring towels and table napkins in addition to a teaspoon, knife and fork to keep in their room.

Visitors and acquaintances of the students were allowed, but were dissuaded from coming to call during their lessons.

The cost to attend the school in 1883 would vary depending on which grade or course the student was in.

Room and board for 20 weeks was $7.50 in addition the tuition: $12 for the primary course, $14 middle, $16 for junior and $18 for senior. Students were reminded to not forget to include $1.50 to pay for their seat in the Presbyterian church, although all denominations were accepted into the school.

The Beattys operated the school from its founding, with Charles as the superintendent and Hetty as principal. In 1866, the entire enterprise was turned over to A.M. Reid and his wife. In 1886, he turned the school over to the Rev. J.W. Wightman, and he to others until 1898, when it closed. The school, in its long history had graduated more than 5,000 young women who went on to great careers around the globe as teachers, missionaries and other worthy professions. Another whole article could be devoted to its graduates.

In 1873 there was a massive reunion of pupils from the seminary. It is estimated that more than 700 past students came back to Steubenville to see Beatty and Hetty, known then as Mother Beatty. A great banquet was held and letters of congratulations were read from poet William Cullen Bryant; owner of the New-York Tribune, Whitelaw Reid; and writer Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, among others. For many this would be the last time they would see Hetty, as she died in 1876.

Today there is nothing left of the seminary. The buildings, gardens and fountain are all gone now. Today, as you pass the fort going south on state Route 7, you are driving right on top of where the seminary once stood.

In Union Cemetery, there is a section reserved for teachers of the Steubenville Female Seminary, and not too far away are the graves of Charles and Hetty Beatty.

Although the institution closed in 1898, it still holds a high place in the memory of those from Steubenville.