The Levi D. Jarrard House stands as a 1868 brownstone villa. It was constructed using the standard local sandstone of New Brunswick. The original occupant was Levi D. Jarrard, a man who served as a New Jersey State Senator, Middlesex County Collector, and Postmaster. In 1883, he was found to have embezzled approximately $20,000 and fled to Canada with the funds.
Jarrard's family failed to maintain the payments on the house once he fled. John N. Carpender eventually secured the property and leased it to the New Jersey College for Women. By 1918, this structure served as the sole base of operations for the school. In this space, 54 girls ate, slept, and studied together. This occurred only three years after the state of New Jersey voted against women's suffrage.
Despite the negative legacy of the real estate, Mabel Smith Douglass led the college to provide women with the same educational access as men for the first time in the state. The house remains largely unchanged from its 19th-century state except for one enclosed porch. It is now officially part of the Rutgers University campus.
Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons
Written by Kyle McLonely
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