Haven Institute and Conservatory of Music

Haven Institute and Conservatory of Music was a private historically black Methodist college in Meridian, Mississippi founded in 1865 by Moses Austin, a pastor of the Saint Paul Methodist Episcopal Church of Meridian and an ex-slave.[1] Originally called Meridian Academy and located at 27th Avenue and 13th Street, the name was changed in 1914 when Haven Academy of Waynesboro, Georgia merged with Clark University of Atlanta, Georgia.[2]

The school's growth was hampered for lack of adequate room for expansion for classrooms and dormitories, forcing it to turn down applicants. To remedy this, in 1921 the Board of Education for Negroes of the Methodist Episcopal Church (originally the Freedmen's Aid Society) purchased the 100-acre campus of the defunct Meridian Female College a mile outside of the city. A large conservatory of music was included, with a pipe organ, numerous pianos and other musical equipment, and the school opened the Haven Conservatory of Music, directed by the Rev. William A. Sykes.[3][4] The original building was sold to the church.[5]

The school closed in the early 1930s because of financial pressures caused by the Great Depression.[6]

References
  1. Jay S. Stowell, Methodist Adventures in Negro Education, (The Methodist Book Concern, 1922), pp. 129-33.
  2. Saint Paul Methodist Episcopal Church, History, accessed 21 September 2019; Levi Gilbert (ed.), Western Christian Advocate 80:14 (The Methodist Book Concern, 18 November 1914), "Annual Meeting Freedman’s Aid Society", p. 14.
  3. Stowell, p. 132.
  4. Daily Press, (Newport News, Virginia, 22 June 1924), "Piano Recital Monday Missionary Church," p. 20.
  5. Stowell p. 132, History
  6. Larry G. Murphy, Larry G., J. Gordon Melton and Gary L. Ward, eds. Encyclopedia of African American Religions (Routledge, 2013) p. 331.

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