Established as a school for young women in Saratoga: 
In 1855 the Rev. Luther F. Beecher went into business with Mr. Carter, principal of the Saratoga Female Seminary, to establish a school for young women. They constructed a new building designed to house a boarding school during the winter and a hotel in the summer and called it the Saratoga Female Seminary at Temple Grove. By 1860 Mr. Carter was no longer with the school. Beecher continued as its principal for a few years, changing the name to Temple Grove Institute but the school closed. 

Dr. Charles F. Dowd (1825 – 1904), principal 1868 to 1898:
Charles F. Dowd came to Saratoga Springs to purchase and re-open the Temple Grove school in 1868. Dowd improved the Temple Grove building with new plumbing, steam heat (an innovation in its time for the city), a gymnasium and laboratories. Dowd was a graduate of Yale College (1853). He later completed a Ph.D. in theology from the University of New York. He is known for having originated and promoted the System of Standard Time. Dowd was principal from 1868 to 1898 with his wife, Harriet M. Dowd, (Mount Holyoke, class of 1851). The Temple Grove charter was made permanent in 1879. 

Dowd retired in 1898. The school continued under his son Franklin D. Dowd until 1900. In 1903 the Seminary building and grounds were purchased by Mrs. Lucy Scribner. 

Site of the downtown campus of Skidmore College:
Lucy Skidmore Scribner purchased the building and grounds of Temple Grove in April, 1903 for the newly formed Young Women's Industrial Club. In 1911 the Club was re-named the Skidmore School of Arts and in 1922 was chartered as Skidmore College, a four-year liberal arts college. By 1922, the site of Temple Grove had evolved into the center of the downtown campus of Skidmore College. The Temple Grove Seminary building still exists in Saratoga Springs on the corner of Circular and Spring Street. 

Temple Grove Alumnae Association:
The alumnae association of Temple Grove Seminary adopted a constitution on June 14, 1887 to, “...promote further growth and development and establish friendly relations among the graduates of N. G. L. S. [North Granville Ladies Seminary] and T. G. S. [Temple Grove Seminary] ...” The alumna planned to meet annually during Anniversary Week. The first officers were Mrs. M. J. Francisco, president, Mrs. O. J. Travers, vice-president, Miss. A. Louise Strong, secretary and Miss Bertha N. Dowd, treasurer. The Association published a series of directories listing graduates from both institutions. In honor of their teacher, Helen North, the alumnae raised money for a scholarship and a book fund in her name at Skidmore School of Arts. 

(Sources:The Alumnae of Temple Grove, 1887, Quinquennial Catalogueof 1885, Lester Brothers publication titled, Temple Grove, Durkee’sReminiscences of Saratoga, and The Saratoga Union, Dec. 25,1889).  
 
 

Scope and Content 

The collection is a resource for those researching the history of Saratoga Springs, the history of education for women in the second half of the 19th century, and for genealogists.  

While the majority of the documents concern Temple Grove Seminary (owned and operated by Charles F. Dowd from the period 1868 to 1900), there are some catalogs and ephemera about the Saratoga Ladies Seminary and the North Granville Ladies Seminary, a school located north of Saratoga Springs owned by Charles Dowd before he bought Temple Grove. The Saratoga Ladies Seminary became the physcial grounds for Temple Grove; the North Granville school was the model Dowd used for his new school in Saratoga Springs. The collection contains little on these early schools, but does contain several Saratoga Ladies Seminary catalogs and North Granville's end-of-year programs and literary journal, the North Granville Quarterly (1867 and 1868).  

The bulk of the collection concerns Temple Grove Seminary while the Dowd family was in charge. Documents in the collection are arranged by subject and by type of document, including catalogs, programs, photographs, as well as files on key individuals and standard time. 

The catalogs for Temple Grove Seminary (1868 – 1897) contain a wealth of information about the school’s mission, curriculum, cost of enrollment, as well as information on enrolled students, instructors and alumnae. The institution was modeled after a Christian home where girls and young women took courses to develop the mind and train for society. There is no mention of preparing the pupils for any one occupation-- the emphasis was on educating them to be “better women.” The instruction at Temple Grove in physical sciences, psychology, economics and the emphasis on physical education for women was considered by some contemporaries to be unusual in its day. By 1895 the school offered “university preparatory courses.”  

In addition to annual catalogs, single-sheet programs describe school musical events and the Anniversary and Graduating Exercises. There is biographical information about Charles Dowd and some notes written by Helen North. Information on Mrs. Harriet Dowd is absent and may be part of the Harriet Dowd papers in the archives at Mount Holyoke College. The files of the Temple Grove Alumnae Association along with identified photographs and student compositions provide some insight into student life at the school. The student compositions are by Mary E. Fish, North Granville Ladies Seminary graduate of 1863 and by Agnes Isabel Ritchie, 1883 graduate of Temple Grove. These are valuable examples of handwritten student work. The small cartes de visite photos and larger cabinet portraits are in good condition and many are identified and dated. Also of significant research value are the scrapbooks containing programs, news clippings and the minutes of the Temple Grove Board, which chronicles some of the business of financing the school with the support of prominent local families. Temple Grove Alumnae Association was active well into the 1920’s and lent its support to the young Skidmore College through a fund raising campaign for the Helen North scholarship. 

TEMPLE GROVE SEMINARY– Box and File Folder List 

Founded 1855 – closed 1902 
3.5 c.f. 
records date from 1855 to 1930 

Box 1 – T.G.S. and North Granville Ladies Seminary 

Anniversary & Graduating Exercises, 1869 – 1894, 1897 - 1898 

Announcements & Circulars 

Catalogs & Yearbooks, 1871 – 1873, 1880 – 1882 

Catalogs & Yearbooks, 1885 – 1892, 1895 - 1897  

Class Day Exercises, 1880-86 

Class Day Exercises, 1887-98 

Deeds 

Charles F. Dowd 

Dowd’s Standard Time 

Music Programs 

Box 2 – T.G.S. and Saratoga Female Seminary 

Newspaper Clippings, 1880 - 1928 

Helen W. North 

North Granville Ladies Seminary, 1862 – 1868 

Photographs 

Printed Images 

Saratoga Female Seminary (at Temple Grove), 1856 – 1860 

Student Compositions (Mary E. Fish) 

Summer Hotel 

Theatrical Performance – Program, 1889, 1894 & undated 

Box 3 - Temple Grove Association 

Alma Maters & Alumnae Song 

Constitutions 

Newspaper Clippings, 1880s – 1930s 

Reunion Announcements  

Scholarship Fund 

Reunion Programs & Menus 

Exercises, 1927 Speech 

Student Lists, Correspondence 

Duplicates 

Box 4 

Photographs – 81 Cartes de visite, 4.5 “ x 2.5” 

Box 5 

Photographs – 75 Cabinet Cards, 7” x 5” 

Box 6 

Scrapbook, “Temple Grove Seminary, 1887 – 90” containing programs and news clippings about music recitals and social events at T.G.S. 

Box 7 

Trustee Minutes, 1869 – 1903 

(Containing a copy of the application to the Board of Regents, 1869 and describing property transactions between the Board, Dowd and the Presbyterian Church, concluding with a final meeting to finalize the sale of the property on April 3, 1903 to Mrs. Scribner.) 

“Register of Families” 

(Scrapbook of Carrie Carr, graduate of Temple Grove, 1881.) 

Box 8 

Diplomas: 1871, 1876, 1885 

Mortgages, 1886, 1888 

Loose item:  

The Poetical Works of Percy Shelley, 1856 

a volume owned by Mary Fish, graduate of Saratoga Female Seminary at Temple Grove, 1857.