Austin College was founded by Presbyterian minister Daniel Sumner Baker on August 13, 1849. While it is one of the oldest colleges in Texas, the fact that it operates under its original name and charter makes it the oldest institution of higher learning in the state to do so.
Daniel Baker was born in Georgia in 1791. He attended college at Hampden-Sidney in Virginia and finished at Princeton University where he graduated in 1815. He and Elizabeth McRobert were married in 1816, the same year he was licensed to preach. Rev. Baker served at churches in Virginia for about five years before moving to Washington, D. C. where he would serve for about seven years until 1828. He served briefly in the south until he became a denominational evangelist. He was known as an effective preacher and traveled extensively. It is not precisely known when he settled in Texas with his family, but Rev. Baker is credited by the denomination as having established the first “presbytery” in Texas around 1840. Briefly, the presbytery is often defined at the congregational level as a form of organizational governance in churches involving the deacons and elders who serve their individual congregations. Here it is applied to the organization above the congregations, the goal of which is to develop ministry in its area. As the decade progressed Rev. Baker became focused on promoting education by establishing a college, leading to the creation of Austin College. Its charter was granted by the Texas government in 1849. Rev. Baker continued to be involved with the institution until his death in 1857.
Rev. Baker posted a long article promoting the college in the July 17, 1850 issue of The Daily Republic, a periodical out of Washington, D. C. in which he gives some of the early history of the school. The following comments are taken from that article. The new school was under the umbrella of the Brazos Presbytery and located in Huntsville, Texas. He describes the town as a beautiful village and a favorable place to locate. Baker continued that Texas had ample territory with rich soil and he hoped that the college would soon become a credit to the new state. He appealed to his fellow Protestants to come and settle in the state, citing the recent end of the (Mexican-American) war.
Baker went on to note that Huntsville was close to the Trinity River and steamboat navigation. He mentions “Professor McKinney” (Samuel McKinney), as having taken charge of the Male Institute, which seems to have been set up to offer preparatory studies to admission to the college. Baker also said that the Board of Trustees (not named in the article) consisted of “some of the most prominent men in Texas,” including two former Presidents of the late Republic (Sam Houston and Anson Jones) and a Judge of the Supreme Court of Texas. He concluded his article with an appeal for money, books and minerals to help the infant institution grow and flourish. Contributions could be made on behalf of the college to members of the Texas Delegation or to any pastor or elder of a Presbyterian Church of Washington, D. C.
The school was named by Baker in honor of Stephen Fuller Austin and the original site was on land donated by members of Austin’s family. Its first President was Dr. Samuel McKinney who also served a second time from 1862 to 1871. Dr. Samuel McKinney is sometimes said to have been born in Ireland in 1807 and coming to the United States with his family, but in all the federal census records, he listed his place of birth as Pennsylvania. McKinney was educated at the University of Pennsylvania where he began to study medicine but graduated with a degree in theology. From the early 1830s until he came to Texas he served first as an evangelist to the Indian tribes and in settled areas where there were no churches before serving as a pastor and later a teacher in Tennessee and Mississippi. He is believed to have become acquainted with Rev. Baker in the latter’s travels in the south. Baker persuaded him to come to Texas and assist him with the creation of Austin College.
The college began operations and admitted the first class one year after its founding. It remained in operation in Huntsville for twenty-six years until it relocated to Sherman, Texas in 1876. Various reasons were given for the move to North Texas including the economic decline of the area after the end of the Civil War, Reconstruction, the availability of free college educational alternatives after the founding of state colleges, among others. At one time soon after the move, the student body amounted to twenty students. It took several more years before the first buildings could be completed.
The institution suffered a devastating fire on January 21, 1913. At that time, the student body numbered around 200. The fire was discovered at 7:30 P. M. that evening and it quickly spread to destroy the entire building which was called Old Main. The next day, newspapers all over the state reported the extent of the destruction. The Waco Times-Herald noted that the building was undergoing an extensive renovation and expansion. It stated that the old building had been completed at a cost of $75,000 and that the new addition was to have been done at a cost of $30,000. The loss was estimated at $100,000 and quoted the president, T. S. Clyce as saying, “To the Alumni and Friends of Austin College: The main building of the school, which we were remodeling and was nearing completion, was completely destroyed by fire tonight. I can not express my grief and sorrow. It is a great calamity, and we instinctively turn to our friends in time of sorrow. The building must be replaced at once. We arranged to go right forward with the school work and ask our friends and patrons to stand by us.”
The loss was believed to be adequately covered by insurance and the citizens of Sherman also raised money to assist in the rebuilding effort. Throughout the next few months, discussions were held among those of the denominational leadership about the future of the school. That winter, a group of them convened in Palestine, Texas as to whether the college should remain in Sherman or relocate once more. On November 15, 1913, ten months after the fire, the Houston Post reported that the executive committee on schools and colleges had met to decide on the matter. The article continued to reference that the Presbyterian Synod’s committee had received an offer of 500 acres of land near Houston with the condition that the denomination would expend $250,000 in buildings and improvements within two years of acceptance of the offer. The City of Houston made an equal cash offer of $250,000. Per an article the next day in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, that after consideration of the offer the delegates were polled. By a majority of seventy to forty-seven votes, they declined the Houston offer and decided to invest $200,000 and allow the school to remain in Sherman.
The college was rebuilt and has continued to flourish over the next one hundred plus years. It has remained relatively small. Is student body lately numbered around 1,300.
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