504 Watts St
Durham, NC, USA

National Register of Historic Places - Crowell House

Statement of Significance:

Associated with this house at 504 Watts Street is John Franklin Crowell born Nov. 1, 1857. An educator, economist and journalist, Crowell was President of Trinity College from 1887 to 1894 and directed its move in 1892 from Randolph County, to Durham. He was born in York, Pennsylvania, attended Dartmouth College for a year, then transferred to Yale where he graduated with a B. A. degree in 1883.

"After serving as principal of Schuykill Seminary at Reading, Pennsylvania, in 1883- 1884, he returned to Yale for a year in the Divinity School and another year in the Graduate School as Larned Scholar in philosophy. He returned to Schuykill Seminary for the year 1886-87, but meanwhile it had been moved from Reading to Fredericksburg. This moves from an urban environment to a rural one Crowell considered detrimental to the school. The reverse of this action, he was later to achieve for Trinity College. "

Crowell's first wife Laura Kistler Getz died in 1887 one year after their marriage. "In 1891 he married Carolina Haas Pascoe, but no children were born of either marriage. An inheritance from his first wife largely financed the construction in her memory of the Crowell Science Hall on the Trinity campus in Durham. "

There was some initial opposition to Crowell's Presidential appointment at Trinity because he was from the North and of the Evangelical, rather than Methodist faith. "When Crowell reached Trinity College and saw how meager its resources where he was tempted to resign at once.