Athenaeum (Tennessee)

The Athenaeum Rectory is a historic building in Columbia, Tennessee that features both Gothic and Moorish architectural elements. Completed in 1837, the building originally served as the rectory for The Columbia Female Institute and as the residence of the school's first president, the Reverend Franklin Gillette Smith. The structure was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.HistoryThe structure, later to be known as the Athenaeum Rectory, was originally intended to be the residence of Samuel Polk Walker, nephew of President James K. Polk. Construction commenced in 1835.Rectory of the Columbia Female InstituteBy the time construction was completed in 1837, the intended resident had been changed to the Reverend Franklin Gillette Smith who came to Tennessee to serve as the president of The Columbia Female Institute, an Episcopal school for female students.In 1851, the Rev. Smith resigned from the Columbia Female Institute due to alleged improprieties with a student. The authority who asked for his resignation was the Institute's co-founder, Rt. Rev. James Hervey Otey, the first Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Tennessee. Stung by a general backlash from Smith's local supporters, Bishop Otey moved his family and his administrative base to Memphis, Tennessee, which continued as the seat of Tennessee's bishops, informally and formally, until 1982, when the Episcopal Diocese of West Tennessee was created.