Forgotten Folks: Agnes McClung, Mary Baldwin's friend, was crucial to school's survival
Editor's Note: History stories often highlight well-known movers and shakers in Staunton's history. But it was the ordinary citizen who most consistently contributed to the town, its development and its unique character. The Forgotten Folks series provides glimpses of some of these men and women who have disappeared into the mists of time. This is the eighth in the series.
The circa 1870s photograph shows a woman with what appears to be ice cold eyes; her razor-thin mouth is set grimly in an altogether uncompromising face. From the tightly drawn hair to the buttoned-up-to-the-chin clothing, everything about her portrait — captured for the ages by a Staunton photographer — suggests a hard and perhaps even frightening personality.
But there is wisdom in the age-old admonition to never judge a book by its cover, for Agnes McClung — she of the stern photograph — was one of the most respected women in Staunton, especially by a generation of young women who benefitted from her guidance, support and protection.
McClung has been overshadowed in history by her closest friend and professional cohort, Mary Julia Baldwin. Although both were co-principals of Augusta Female Seminary, it was Baldwin who was considered head of the school and who subsequently garnered most of the attention. Indeed, the school she and McClung took control of in 1863 was eventually named for Baldwin, while McClung's name is most associated with a dormitory that bears her name.
McClung, however, was no less important to the survival of the seminary than Baldwin. While Baldwin managed the educational end of things, McClung was in charge of the domestic department, which meant it was she with whom the students had the most contact and to whom they most often turned for assistance.
McClung was born in 1808, the third of seven children born to Henry McClung and the former Elizabeth Alexander. Her uncle was Dr. Archibald Alexander, founder of Princeton Theological Seminary, who was attached by marriage to a prominent Staunton family.
Most of the details of the first 55 years of Agnes McClung's life have been lost to history. We know that her mother, with whom she was very close, successively presided over two hotels in Staunton, and that Miss Agnes, as she was called, helped her. She never married and lived at home, although it is reported that she desired to branch out and manage a boarding house of her own. She never did, though; the sweep of historical events would push her in other, more significant directions.
By early 1862, Staunton was deeply immersed in the Civil War as a key Confederate stronghold, and was already experiencing some of the hardships associated with the war. In April of that year, the financially strapped McClung and her mother, Elizabeth, termporarily gave up their home and moved in with the family of their good friend, Joseph Waddell.
Waddell — former owner and editor of the Staunton Spectator — was an elder in the First Presbyterian Church and secretary of the board of trustees for Augusta Female Seminary. More than that, he was family to the McClungs; his sister married Miss Agnes' uncle, the founder of Princeton Theological. Waddell and his wife hosted the McClungs until the summer of 1863.
By that time, the 21-year-old Augusta Female Seminary was struggling to survive in Staunton's heavily militarized, supply-starved environment. Trustee Waddell knew that only a bold, creative move would keep the doors of the school open.
In September, Waddell visited the McClungs and laid before Miss Agnes a business proposition. He wanted McClung and her young friend, Mary Julia Baldwin, to take charge of the struggling school. Baldwin would be head of the seminary and McClung would be matron, but they would be appointed as equals. He also proposed that McClung's mother live at the school, as well, in a support capacity.
McClung readily agreed to the proposition. She had been friends with Baldwin, who was two decades her junior, since the 1850s, and was preparing to help her open a private school when Waddell made his proposition.
Because the seminary was broke, the trustees offered McClung and Baldwin no salary and made no provision for maintenance of the school. Rather, the women were authorized to use the building and to make their own financial arrangements. Baldwin sunk her entire personal fortune of $4,000 into the school, and it was from this beginning that she and McClung equipped the seminary and financed its increasing needs.
The co-principals spent their first night in the seminary on Sept. 23, 1863. Elizabeth McClung arrived the next day. The new leadership wasted no time bolstering the school's enrollment.
"Miss Agnes and Mary J. Baldwin are succeeding beyond all expectations at the Seminary," Waddell wrote in his diary on Oct. 13. "More than eighty pupils, and 22 or 23 of them are boarders."
Tuition was paid in flour ($25 a barrel), bacon ($1 a pound), corn, meal, beef, potatoes, sorghum molasses and wood.
As the Civil War continued and intensified, McClung and Baldwin found themselves hard-pressed to keep the seminary supplied and open, but they did – even when, in June 1864, they found conquering Union soldiers on their doorstep. Cunning and audacity on the part of the women foiled Yankee attempts to find and appropriate their hard-gained provisions.
The presence of Union forces in and around Staunton proved stressful to the young students of the seminary; they found solace in the room of McClung's mother, Elizabeth — "Grandmother" McClung, the students called her — where they frequently spread their cots to sleep.
McClung's financial management not only played a significant part in keeping the seminary open during the Civil War – it was one of the few private schools in the South to do so – but it helped put the seminary on a firm financial footing after the war, as well.
McClung's mother died in 1869 at the age of 87, and Agnes McClung herself died 11 years later, on Aug. 10, 1880, following a brief illness. Her passing caused widespread grief among all her acquaintances. Most acutely affected was Mary Baldwin.
"To Miss Baldwin she had been a sympathetic and safe counsellor, and so unerring was her judgment that Miss Baldwin asserted that she had never failed to follow her advice that she did not regret it," wrote Waddell. "The boarding pupils with whom, chiefly, Miss Agnes had to do, were won by her kindness and unselfish efforts to promote their welfare and happiness. Yet she was a rigid disciplinarian, encouraging no insubordination or deception. Her influence in the Seminary was most beneficent."
McClung left most of her financial interests to Baldwin and the seminary's endowment. The seminary proposed creating a memorial window for McClung, but it never came to fruition.
Agnes McClung is buried in Thornrose Cemetery.
Contact Charles Culbertson at email@example.com