Watchman Institute

The Watchman Industrial School and Camp, known to some as the Watchman Institute, was founded 1908 by Reverend William S. Holland in Providence, Rhode Island. It moved to North Scituate in 1923 and closed in 1938, although Holland's summer camp operated there until 1974.

Providence

William Holland, the son of a former Virginia slave, founded the Watchman Industrial School in Providence in 1908. The educational program there was inspired by Booker T. Washington and based on the programs at both the Hampton Institute and the Tuskeegee Institute. It focused on training black youths in vocational trades in addition to academic subjects, hence the name "industrial school," although it did not produce a commercial product. In lieu of seeing them enter Rhode Island's reform school or prison systems, Holland often took custody of young persons in trouble with the authorities.

North Scituate

In 1920, Holland acquired the former North Scituate campus of the Pentecostal Collegiate Institute, which had moved to Wollaston in Quincy, Massachusetts the year before, and moved his own school there in 1923.

The site was originally designed for the Smithville Seminary in 1839 by Russell Warren, the leading Greek Revival architect in New England in the 20th century, and became part of the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. The buildings were renovated in the 1970s and converted into apartments known as Scituate Commons, on Institute Lane.

The school was struck by a series of fires took place throughout the 1920s and 1930s, however, and closed its doors in 1938. It is suspected that these fires, in 1924, 1926, and 1934, were set by the local Ku Klux Klan, although no one was ever arrested.

After the closure of the school, Holland continued to operate the summer camp until his death in 1958. His second wife, Viola Grant Holland, then took over operation of the camp until 1974 when it was forced to close for financial reasons.

Notes and references