The Ghosts of the Past

The Ghosts of the Past

This article was written by Brandon Inabinet and originally published on July 23, 2017.

One of the hats I wear at Furman is the advisor to a club named Quaternion. Its the oldest and most prestigious male honor society at Furman, started in 1903 (around the same time this picture was taken). The group was tasked with taking this dilapidated building and ensuring it was kept up. At Furman we call it “Old College,” and it’s the oldest surviving building–the first school room used in Greenville, built in 1850. James C. Furman taught in one half along with one other professor. It was the entire faculty of the university at the time. A wood stove in the middle gave heat to both classrooms (where the chimney still stands today).

Over 100 years later, I worked through the summer, sanding and painting the floors and buying some things to spruce it up. As I did, I wondered who built it, what labor went into it, and why I kept hearing strange noises (there are fun rumors about both this building and the Cherrydale house being haunted).

A decade ago, I had started down the path of knowing more about Furman’s past. I wrote and published an essay on the notorious Richard Furman pro-slavery letter, but it bothered me that my field (of rhetorical studies) sets its eyes only on those historical figures whose voices we have recorded. What if those walls could really talk? What essay would I write then?

So I’m on the Task Force to hopefully recover lost voices, assist in the “unfinished task” to see how they speak to us today, especially when the words are lost, about how we might be a more inclusive and equal community that accounts for its past.