The children were taught to read and write, and the girls to knit and sew. School rules instructed Wager to lead the students “in a decent & orderly Manner to Church.”

Archival photographs from the 19th century show the former schoolhouse, a two-story, four-room wooden cottage, framed by a pair of chimneys.

The Digges house fell into disrepair by 1801. It was later converted into a dormitory, expanded and moved.

Meyers found what he believes is the home in 2004; someone told him it was on a list for demolition. Its Colonial origins were mostly hidden beneath a jumble of misplaced windows and mismatched doors.

The chimneys are still there, along with an old, Hobbit-sized door, half hidden behind a poster. The building houses ROTC training rooms.

“This is 18th century, we’re pretty sure of that,” Meyers said, patting an oak banister inside the dwelling on a recent day. “And that’s pretty much all.”

Although Meyers has no proof the building is the old schoolhouse, historians support his claims.

Meyers would like to see the ground excavated at the original Digges address. Historians agree that some testing should be done to determine the age of the structure.

Robert Engs, a retired University of Pennsylvania historian who has advised the college on how to address slavery, said the identity of the structure matters less than the story behind it.

“What’s impressive was that the people who created this school believed that African Americans had immortal souls, just like White people,”‘ Engs said, “and that they needed salvation.”

Meyers’ work helped spawn a campuswide initiative called the Lemon Project, after a slaved named Lemon who was owned by the college. A 2009 resolution from the college’s governing board recognized the school’s exploitation of slave labor and urged a long-term commitment “to better understand, chronicle, and preserve the history of Blacks,” at the school.