Patapsco Female Institute collection

The Patapsco Female Institute was a finishing school for women which operated from 1837 to 1891. The school was the second of its kind in the country. The land for the school was donated by the founders of Ellicott's Mills (later renamed Ellicott City), John, Andrew and Joseph Ellicott.

The 57-room granite building was designed by Baltimore architect Robert Cary Long, Jr. and built by Charles Timanus. The building cost slightly more than $12,000 to complete. Initially, the Institute was financed by a combination of state grants and private funding. When the school began operating, it was paid $800 a year by the state of Maryland for eight full scholarships for students training to be teachers. The state of Maryland established a scholarship program in 1824 that required all educational institutions receiving money from the state to financially support one student in poverty for each $100 the institution received.

Students at the school ranged in age from 12 to 18 and were instructed in many academic topics, including chemistry and foreign languages. The Institute was the first school to teach mathematics to girls. Students came from both the North and the South to be educated at the Institute. At its peak, the school educated 150 students.

The first head of the school was Reverend J. H. Tyng. Initially the Institute had a limited curriculum of English, the classics, foreign languages, and science. Mary Norris became the principal of the school in 1838 and expanded the course of study to include arts, modern history, and chemistry. Celebrated educator Almira Hart Lincoln Phelps was headmistress of the Institute from 1841 to 1856, raising the reputation of the school. Prior to working at the school, Phelps was a teacher at the Troy Academy in New York, where she had written Lincoln's Botany and popular textbooks.

In 1856, a chapel wing designed by N.G. Starkwether was added to the building. An increase in students also led to the addition of dormers over the portico to enlarge the dormitory area.

Enrollment suffered during the Civil War and the school even closed for a period. After the war, the student body never fully recovered in numbers and the school closed in 1891. The building has since served as a hotel, private house, hospital for wounded World War I veterans, and summer theatre (the Hilltop Theatre). In the 1960s, the building was deemed a fire hazard and all wooden materials were removed, leaving only the exterior intact. The Howard County Commissioners bought the building in 1966. The ruins were stabilized between 1993 and 1995 with funding from the Maryland Historical Trust. The Patapsco Female Institute site is now a historic park, administered by the Recreation and Parks department of Howard County, Maryland.

Famous people associated with the Institute include principal Almira Hart Lincoln Phelps; Jefferson Davis' daughter, Winne Davis, who was an alumna; Sally Randolph, great granddaughter of Thomas Jefferson, who was a headmistress of the school; and former Maryland governor Thomas Watkins Ligon, who was the school's president after leaving politics in 1857.