in 1901 by Indiana Fletcher Williams in memory of her deceased daughter, Daisy. The college formally opened its doors in 1906 and granted the B.A. degree for the first time in 1910. It nearly closed in 2015 but was saved by donations and legal actions by alumnae.
Sweet Briar is known for its campus with its historic Georgian Revival architecture by Ralph Adams Cram and its 3,250 acres (13.2 km2) of hills, forests, and fields.
== History ==
=== Sweet Briar plantation ===
The college is named after the former plantation of Elijah Fletcher and his descendants. Fletcher was a 19th-century teacher, businessman and mayor of Lynchburg, Virginia. He married Maria Antoinette Crawford in 1813 and purchased the Sweet Briar plantation property from her aunt and uncle where he used slave labor to run the plantation and his household. The plantation was initially known as Locust Ridge; Crawford supposedly renamed it "Sweet Briar" after the roses which grew on the land. Their daughter, Indiana Fletcher, was born in 1828 …
