Wesleyan Drive as memory place
A street named for one of the root colleges, which itself was named for John Wesley, the founder of Methodism.
Wesleyan Drive is the longest and most utilized of the three other streets which are named after Southwestern University’s root institutions. It is perpendicular to Maple Street and McKenzie Drive. Wesleyan Drive also intersects Southwestern Boulevard. Along this street one will find many of Southwestern University’s dormitories, including Ruter Hall, the Moody-Shearn and Herman Brown residence halls, the Charline Hamblin McCombs Residential Center, and the Grogan & Betty Lord Residence Hall. The street is named in remembrance of Wesleyan College. Wesleyan College itself, like the many other Wesleyan Colleges throughout the U.S,. was named for John Wesley, the founder of Methodism in America.
Wesleyan College was an early Methodist institution in San Augustine Texas, a town on the far east side of the state. According to To Survive and Excel: The Story of Southwestern University, 1840-2000, the beginning of Wesleyan College is accredited to a man named Daniel Poe, who was an Ohio-based Methodist missionary. Poe was recruited along with a few other missionaries to relocate to the Republic of Texas in the winter of 1842. When he arrived, Poe was shocked by the lack of education and teachers in the Republic; he became motivated to change this. To do so, Poe briefly returned to Ohio to recruit teachers to come with him to Texas. His goal was ultimately to establish a Methodist university in Texas.
Daniel Poe laid the foundations for Wesleyan College. In 1843 construction of a university building had begun, and on January 16th 1844, Texas Congress granted a charter for the Wesleyan Male and Female College of San Augustine. Unfortunately, however, before Poe could see his college materialize, he passed away at the age of 33 due to an illness referred to as “congestive fever.”
Luckily, however, an early frontier preacher named Francis Wilson took on Poe’s project. Wilson was very passionate about Wesleyan College, traveling all over the Northern and Eastern regions of the United States to inform people about the college in hopes of securing funding for the school. Wilson gave several speeches and lectures across the country about the future of Texas and education, collecting donations for Wesleyan College whenever possible. He was successful in raising funds; the money was used to construct a three story campus building.
Wesleyan College was the shortest lived of the root institutions, existing for only three years from 1844 to 1847. To Survive and Excel: The Story of Southwestern University, 1840-2000 suggests that the central reason for its short existence was the religious rivalry between the two colleges in the small town of San Augustine at the time: Methodist Wesleyan College and the Presbyterian University of San Augustine. There were even two rival newspapers in the town tied to the different colleges: The Red Lander and The San Augustine Shield. Reverend Russell, president of the University of San Augustine, was the editor of The Red Lander. At the same time, president of Wesleyan College, Foster H. Blades, was the editor of The San Augustine Shield. Russell and Blades frequently published opposing religious viewpoints.
The downfall of both institutions would occur simultaneously when on August 7th of 1847, a man named Henry Kendal replaced Blades as editor of the paper. Only two days later, on August 9th, tensions came to a boiling point when Russell published a remark in the paper implying that Kendal’s sister was a “loose woman.” Kendal decided to settle this in an old western style and announced a duel. The men fired their guns at each other twice but both missed. The next day, Kendal caught Russell leaving his office and this time he didn’t miss. Russell’s murder had an almost immediate effect on the two institutions as they both closed their doors that same year.
My main takeaway from learning about Wesleyan College is that its history is quite different from that of Soule University and McKenzie College (two other root institutions, I have not researched Rutersville College yet). The downfall of these two institutions largely was caused by the end of the Civil War. Both financially relied on the “free” labor of enslaved people; therefore, when slavery became illegal, they could no longer support themselves. In the sources I read on Wesleyan, I did not come across any mentions of slavery.
Another key difference between these institutions is that Wesleyan’s history has much more of a frontier or Wild West feeling to it. It is apparent that living in Texas at this time was extremely rustic. These difficulties are reflected in the many challenges Wesleyan faced in establishing itself and ultimately what caused its demise after only three years.
In the end, I find it ironic that the shortest lived of the four root institutions has the longest and most utilized street named after it on the Southwestern campus. I also find it interesting that Southwestern University adopted Wesleyan College as one of our root institutions at all. While it makes sense because it was one of the earliest Methodist institutions of higher learning in Texas, in my eyes, Wesleyan College overall was a massive failure. Additionally, it seems to have existed in a “vacuum” compared to the other root institutions. McKenzie College and Soule University’s histories had prominent figures tied to what is now Southwestern University. Wesleyan College on the other hand had very few.
