About

The seeds that would lead to Ferrum College were sown in the early 1900s. In 1909, the Virginia Conference Woman's Home Missionary Society (VCWHMS) of the United Methodist Church wrote Dr. Benjamin Beckham to report the VCWHMS had $1,200 for starting "a school for mountain boys and girls, in a remote place, yet accessible, where the need seemed the greatest." Many young people in the Blue Ridge had no practical access to public education, and even where rural schools did exist, attendance was often poor. In 1929 – 16 years after Ferrum's founding – an estimated 17,000 school-age children were still not attending school in the five-county area around Ferrum.