St. Agnes Hospital (Raleigh, North Carolina)

Originally operating out of a former home on St, Augustine's campus, the hospital moved to a new four-story stone building in 1909.

In 1867, Reverend Aaron Burris Hunter and his wife Sarah moved to Raleigh, North Carolina, to teach at St. Augustine's College, an Episcopal institution created for black freedmen and women in the aftermath of the American Civil War.

Over the following decades as the school grew, the Hunters became increasingly concerned about the lack of medical care for black patients in the city.

[1] Funding for the creation of a hospital was provided by two donors, the Episcopal Church Women and I. L. Collins, who supplied $1,100 after an appeal from the Hunters.

[1] Sarah Hunter acted as the hospital's first superintendent, while Dr. Lawson A. Scruggs, a Shaw graduate, served as the first attending physician.

[7] On February 1, 1909, the third story of the original hospital building caught fire due to a defective stove, causing an estimated $1,000 worth in damage.

Rendered uninhabitable, patients were relocated to McCauley Private Hospital while a fundraising campaign was conducted to restore the building.

[16] The hospital struggled with acquiring funding for its operations throughout much of its history, especially due to the high frequency of charity patients.

[2] The Great Depression led donations and enrollments at the nursing school to decline, and patients who could not pay their own medical fees increased.

[20] The institution was backed by Raleigh's white community; during one 1922 funding drive, it received contributions from the local rotary club, newspaper publisher Josephus Daniels, and members of a Ku Klux Klan chapter, who entered a fundraising committee meeting in their robes to hand over their donation.

[24] In 1959 a hired consultant determined "under no conception can it be imagined that this hospital can be renovated or expanded, using the basic structure that now exists".

[26] Upon the hospital's closure, its eight-acre site and four buildings were transferred to St. Augustine's College, which began using one nurse dormitory as housing for women students.