Throughout its early decades and relocations, Furman weathered financial straits and low enrollment. Its doors were kept open by donations from the Baptist faithful across South Carolina, a state dominated by the slave economy. Nearly all the university’s largest donors and trustees were slaveholders, and many of them were planters (a designation given to those who held twenty or more slaves). It would take four relocations before formally becoming Furman University in the 1850s. "...In other words, much of Furman’s history of movement and fundraising was racially motivated, and nearly half of its antebellum wealth derived from slave labor—wealth that continues to build capacity for exploration and decision-making today." And yet, in the antebellum years, Furman teetered on the brink of closure and was sustained financially only by toil of the enslaved
This notebook records the receipt of payments for labor and building supplies, with their recipients’ signatures, and was used during the construction of Old Main. Along with the loose paper slips in this case, these documents provide a window into the large network of laborers and suppliers used to construct the first major building on The Furman University’s campus. Suppliers of hired slave labor for the construction include E. A. Besseller, James N. Benson, L. B. Cline, P. C. Edwards, Dorcas Gleeson, T. W. Kiniman, J. Mauldin, Vardry McBee, O. A. Pickle, Margaret A. Rice, Hugh Thompson, and James Thornburg
(Need to find a way to hide this paragraph and make it appear after clicking on "read more") Dr. H. W. Paslay, who supervised the construction, noted in a report to the Board of Trustees....
Photograph of Richard Furman Hall and the bell tower. Completed in 1854 on the Furman old campus in downtown Greenville, S.C., the building was originally known as the Main Building or 'Old Main.' It was renamed Richard Furman Hall in 1921. Built, in part, utilizing slave labor, after the trustees voted in 1850 to move the school from Winnsboro, S.C., to Greenville, S.C..