William Milton Tryon

William Milton Tryon (1809 – 1847) was an early Texas resident. His parents were William Tryon (1784 – 1820) and Jane Phillips Tryon (1790 – 1830). William Milton Tryon was born in New York to the couple and was the oldest of six children, three boys and three girls. William, the father, is sometimes said to be a descendant of the Loyalist (loyal to the Crown of England) Governor William Tryon (1723 – 1788). The Loyalist Tryon had served England as governor both of North Carolina and New York during the years 1765 to 1780. His title primarily had military responsibilities and he was actively engaged on behalf of the British during the Revolutionary War. The governor was born and died in England. Given the relative closeness of the ages the governor and the known ancestors of the Texas Tryon family, it is possible to determine that the father William Tryon does not appear to have been descended from the governor, though they may have had common ancestors back in England. The father’s ancestors are reasonably well identified in online genealogy sources and they had resided in America as far back as around 1700.

William, the father, died when William Milton was only eleven years old. Most biographical sketches have young William Milton learning a trade and working as a tailor to help support the family until around 1831 or so. By then, his mother had died, as had his next two younger sisters. William Milton had joined the Baptist Church as a youth, and it seemed to influence the direction of his life from that time forward.

William Milton moved to Georgia in 1832 where he attended Mercer Institute (now Mercer University) for the next several years. While there, he served as an instructor as well as being a student. Also during this time he was licensed to preach. He went to work for the state Baptist convention of Georgia after which he was ordained as a minister (the second step to becoming a pastor) in 1837. Tryon then served as pastor of at least two churches there in Georgia. He married the former Louisa J. Higgins in 1840.

Tryon and one other individual, James Huckins, were sent as missionaries to the Republic of Texas by the American Baptist Home Mission Society. Huckins was assigned to Galveston and Tryon was sent to Washington County. Tryon and his wife arrived mid January, 1841, settling around Washington-on-the-Brazos. He preached at other area churches as he worked to build up the church at Washington-on-the-Brazos. Tryon was a contemporary of Z. N. Morrell (also an early Texas missionary who was formerly associated with the church at Washington-on-the-Brazos), Huckins and Judge R. E. B. Baylor. The Union Baptist Association had given rise to the Texas Baptist Education society of which Tryon served five terms as president. Tryon, Huckins and Baylor are credited for the movement to establish an educational institution in Texas with Baylor giving the credit to Tryon for the concept.

In late 1844, Baylor and Tryon drafted the charter to be submitted to the Texas Congress, allowing for establishment of a college. The charter was granted in early 1845. Judge Baylor desired for it to be named for Tryon, but Tryon demurred and suggested instead that it be named for his friend Baylor.

Another nearby town to Washington-on-the-Brazos was Independence and an early church was also founded there. Independence seems to have been a bit more robust as a community, and was selected as the site of the new college. The September 1, 1927 issue of the Bryan Weekly Eagle, Bryan, Texas, reported on the previous week’s homecoming celebration of the Independence church. The article stated that this church had been established in 1839 and noted that some of its members included the family of Sam Houston. Houston is known to have been baptized there. It also recounted that the church bell that was rung that day had been donated by Mrs. Lea, the mother in law of Sam Houston.

As an aside, the 1927 newspaper article discussed where the Houston family might have lived while they resided in Washington County. It was once thought that they had a home in Independence, but mentioning Mrs. Lea again, the article suggested that she had bought a residence in Independence, but that it was purchased for one of the daughters of Sam and Margaret Houston. The article said that that the Houston family instead resided in Washington, some fourteen miles to the east. It continued to state that their home in Washington-on-the-Brazos was a log structure that was torn down by a later owner to be used in a barn, some time after the Houston family had sold the property and moved to the Huntsville area.

Concerning the new school, after the charter was granted in 1845, the first board of trustees included Baylor, Huckins, Tryon and about fourteen other individuals. Different area congregations had donated cash, a section of land, a building, livestock and other assets for the institution to be located in Independence. The school remained in Independence for many years until a movement began to relocate it to Waco and consolidate it with another school there called Waco University.

Tryon served as pastor of churches in Texas and in numerous capacities for denominational entities. He also found time to serve as chaplain of the Texas Congress. In 1845, he accepted a call to serve as the pastor of First Baptist Church of Houston, following his friend Huckins who had served about two years there following its founding around 1841. Early church history mentions cholera and yellow fever outbreaks that affected its congregation.

Outbreaks of yellow fever, in particular, did not just occur near the Gulf Coast. They were common in many coastal states along the Atlantic coast as well. The disease was once thought to be contracted from unclean water supplies. Boiling drinking water was once believed to be a way to prevent them. It took many years before the connection was made to yellow fever having been spread by mosquitos, that it followed their life cycle and that the outbreaks ended after the first good freeze. Then it took a number of years after that before appropriate environmental changes were recommended and implemented.

William Tryon was pastor of First Baptist Church of Houston when the first small church building was completed in the summer of 1847. That same year, he introduced a resolution inviting Baptists from area congregations to form a state organization, which they did the following year. At the age of 38, he contracted yellow fever from which he died on November 16, 1847.

Tryon was buried in Glenwood Cemetery in Houston. His wife, Louisa survived him another thirty-nine years. Their union produced two sons and a daughter: Dr. William Armstead Tryon, Ella Tryon Clark and Joseph Milton Tryon. Though she later remarried a local judge, former Mrs. Tryon and all three children are interred in the family plot at Glenwood Cemetery.

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