The girls' school flourished for over 30 years in the antebellum period, pioneering in higher education for young women.

His parents, Humphrey and Frances[2] Marks, had come from Lancashire, England[3] in 1783[4] and worshipped at Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim Synagogue in Charleston.

The Marks family was in a group of Jews "invited to Carolina by the indigo and rice planters ... to invest money in mortgages on plantations along the seaboard.

[a] Marks converted to Christianity early in life, after being inspired by the Methodist faith of his African American nurse.

Born in Lincolnshire England,[12] she was a Christian and "a teacher who shared his commitment to the development of women's intellectual abilities.

Many Jews, including ... educator Dr. Elias Marks ... were viewed by their neighbors as important people with powerful connections.

"[28] He makes a Christian argument that female education is necessary for "enlarging and strengthening the moral and intellectual faculty" of women.

[7] In 1829, Marks announced that the Institute had hired Mrs. Julia Ann Pierpont Warne (1793–1878), principal of a girls' school at Sparta, Georgia.

[g] Marks published various educational materials, such as his "Questions Analytically Adapted",[32] which was written as a supplement to Samuel Whelpley's history textbook.

Marks selected a location with over 500 acres two miles outside of Columbia for his new school and named it "Barhamville" after his deceased first wife Jane.

"The house was situated on an elevated knoll in the pine woods, surrounded by a beautiful drive and gardens in a state of high cultivation.

Marks and his wife lived in the central building, which had an entrance hall complete with African American butler and "a broad, circular stairway with mahogany balustrades.

[37] The students ordinarily wore "hoop skirts, kid slippers with flat heels, long tightly laced corsets, and cotton dresses.

[40][43] Ann Pamela Cunningham, another student, founded the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association, which rescued George Washington's home.

The classes included mathematics (arithmetic, algebra, geometry), sciences (botany, mineralogy, chemistry, astronomy), history (ancient and modern), philosophy (natural, intellectual, and moral) and literature.

"Don't read light fiction, he (Marks) warned his hearers; cultivate your literary taste; nurse your spiritual welfare.

"[7] Around 1847, the school published several issues of the Barhamville Register, "perhaps the earliest literary publications by an educational institution for women.

On one occasion, Marks had to use his shotgun to chase away disruptive students who arrived at Barhamville from a nearby male college.

[55] Marks grew mulberry trees on the Barhamville property for the Southern silkworm industry during the M. multicaulis craze of the 1830s.

[34][56] The insignia of the South Carolina Female Collegiate Institute (SCFCI) combined a six-pointed star and a triangle.

[59] "Except in religion, the Jews differed very little from other white residents of the city.”[60] "On the critical issue of slavery, they were supporters ..."[19] Marks wrote lyrics for music dedicated to the "patriotic ladies of the Southern Confederated States".

Marks in Columbia worked with Sosnowski in Barhamville to get the last group of female students sent Upcountry before the Union Army arrived.

The exhausted guards made little effort except for one diligent Union soldier, a Tennessean who found that he had a mutual acquaintance with Sosnowski.

[68] On the last night, a passing unit of "warm hearted"[69] Irish American soldiers assisted Sosnowski in protecting the school from marauders.

"One-fourth of the Confederate army was killed by war or disease; the basis of wealth, slaves, was eliminated by emancipation.

Marks and his family lived on the property from 1865 to 1867 while the school was operated by Angela Torriani, a refugee from the destruction of Charleston.

[72] Marks attended a 1867 Columbia meeting where Governor Orr and Union officers talked with the newly freed African Americans about their participation in governance.

[77][o] The prominent Southern writer William Gilmore Simms "seems to have regarded Marks highly as a poet", but there is no evidence of them meeting personally.

[80][81] The largest poem in the collection, "Elfreide of Guldal", is a "bland enough narrative of heroic doings amongst the Norsemen.”[78] The eponymous maiden loyally chooses to protect her community rather than accept the queenship of the invaders.

"[78] Other poems in the book are "short mediocre verse of an autobiographic nature and lame expressions of assorted noble sentiments.