Rutersville Drive as memory place
This street is named after Southwestern University’s earliest root institution and the first university chartered in Texas.
Much of the historical information on Rutersville College and Martin Ruter in this entry comes from To Survive and Excel: The Story of Southwestern University, 1840-2000 and The Texas State Historical Association. The beginnings of Rutersville College, the earliest of Southwestern University’s root institutions and therefore the beginnings of Southwestern University as we know it today, can be traced back to 1837. It was during this year that Methodist delegate of the Pittsburgh Annual Conference Martin Ruter volunteered to come to Texas as a missionary. He left his home in Cincinnati, Ohio, and arrived later that year with two of his Methodist colleagues Robert Alexander and Littleton Fowler.
Dr. Martin Ruter entered Texas from the Eastern border and shortly after arrived in the town of San Augustine. He would spend the next several months traveling the state by horseback averaging 15 miles a day. During his travels Dr. Martin Ruter preached and gave sermons while also communicating the need for education in Texas. His main goal was to establish a center of Methodism in the new Republic of Texas by establishing a central Methodist University.
Martin Ruter did not live very long after arriving in Texas, however. His travels took a physical toll on his health because of how much ground he covered on a daily basis, rarely taking a break to rest. In April of 1838 Ruter reported in his journal that he had contracted a fever. His health, according to his later journal entries, only got worse over time. Ruter eventually died the following month on May 16th, 1838.
He never lived to see his dream of starting a Methodist university in Texas, but he laid the groundwork to do so by selecting a location where it would be built and drafting a charter which would be approved by the Texas Congress in 1840. Robert Alexander strongly believed in Ruter’s vision, and decided to move forward with establishing the college. Along with other pioneer Methodists, Alexander decided to honor Ruter by naming the town Rutersville and the university Rutersville College. As I am writing this in 2023, this small community still exists by this name, although it is technically an unincorporated town, and one of the only attractions there is a set of historical markers noting where Rutersville College once was.
Rutersville College’s first academic year was 1840-1841. The college was successful for a few years. However, this success didn’t last long, as a series of events starting after 1845 would lead to the consolidation and therefore closure of the institution in 1856. According to the Texas State Historical Association, one of the main problems beginning in 1845 was a significant decline in student enrollment due to the departure of students for the Mexican War, the establishment of Baylor University, and the fact that many of these students volunteered to defend and avenge raids from local American Indians trying to prevent the permanent settlement of their lands. Another major problem the school faced was a lack of cash inflow. Rutersville College had very low tuition, which was ideal for students, but the most valuable asset the school had was a large amount of land granted to them by the Republic. When Rutersville needed to raise money for something, the Board of Trustees often sold portions of this land.
The fate of Rutersville College was not only intertwined with the colonial politics of Texas at the time but also a homegrown sex scandal. Rutersville College’s reputation took a huge blow in the early 1850’s when news of the “Applewhite affair” came out. A man named Isaac Applewhite was discovered to have had an extremely inappropriate sexual relationship with 16 year-old Ann S. Richardson, who was a Rutersville College student at the time. Isaac was a Methodist preacher in Rutersville and was connected with Rutersville College. In the 1850 census he was listed as a 38 year-old who was married and had eight children. This affair was detrimental not only because Ann was a minor and Isaac was married, but because Ann Richardson was the daughter of the first president of Rutersville, Chauncey Richardson. The church brought Isaac to trial in 1852, where he was charged with “unlawful and criminal intercourse.” He was convicted on these charges and expelled from the Methodist Order.
Rutersville College ceased operations only 4 years later in 1856 when Texan Methodists became interested in placing a center of Methodism elsewhere. Soule University, another Southwestern University root institution that was not too far from the site of Rutersville, became this new center. Soule university absorbed the male students of Rutersville and shortly after the site became the Texas Monumental and Military Institute.
On July 10th, 2023, I decided to drive to the site of Rutersville College after learning that it was not far from Southwestern University. I also saw online that the former site and immediate area surrounding it had several historical markers on display. On the east side of Old College Road, I saw the marker shown in fig. 2 which was the oldest monument I saw, erected in 1936 by the State of Texas. To the right of this plaque is a marker placing the site of the First Methodist Annual Conference in Texas, erected in 1990 (fig. 3).
As I drove north down Old College Road to head back to Southwestern, I saw another marker on the west side of the road. I parked my car again to see if this marker was also for Rutersville College and it was (fig. 5). This marker was erected in 1949 by the Southwest Conference of the Methodist Church. I was not expecting there to be historical markers for Rutersville in two separate areas and was slightly confused. I also did not expect to see the headstone for Reverend Chauncey Richardson (fig. 6), first president of Rutersville College. Although these two separate areas featuring plaques are quite close to each other, I am still unsure which of the areas is more accurately placed on the site of Rutersville College.
When I got back in my car to drive back to campus again, I noticed a third set of historical markers after turning left onto state highway 159 from Old College Road. I stopped to look at these as well. Fig. 7 is a historical marker for the town of Rutersville and fig. 8 is a historical marker for a man named Asa Hill, father of John Christopher Columbus Hill. John Hill attended Rutersville College and was one of the students who participated in the expedition during the Mexican-American War to Mier, Mexico, at just 14, where he and another Rutersville student J. N. Thompson were taken prisoner among about 260 other men by the Mexican army. John Hill was not executed by the Mexican army. However, J. N. Thompson was not so lucky.
A Mexican general took note of Hill’s bravery in battle and was so intrigued by him that he took Hill to Mexican president Antonio López de Santa Ana. President Santa Ana asked Hill to stay in Mexico and he did. Hill attended the Colegio de Minería in Mexico City to specialize in mining and civil engineering and worked with both the Mexican and American governments. He adopted the name Juan Cristóbal Gil, which is a direct translation of his English name. Hill lived a successful life in Mexico and played a role in the modernization of Mexican infrastructure by applying his skills in mining and laying railway lines.
Prior to visiting Rutersville I was aware of John Hill’s life but was not expecting to see a marker memorializing him. What was even more unexpected was that the marker I did see was not even for John Hill, a notable alumni of Rutersville College and historically significant person, but rather the marker is in memory of John’s father, a man who, although is historically significant as well, I had not previously learned about. I am curious as to if the marker was attributed to John’s father Asa rather than John intentionally.
Overall the town of Rutersville and the various markers in the area suggest that Rutersville College and Martin Ruter are not only very important figures in Southwestern’s history, but that they are also important on a state level. Although I only talked about one of Rutersville’s alumni, several very interesting and important figures in Texas history attended the college.
Southwestern University seems to place more importance on Rutersville College than the other root institutions, presumably because its 1840 charter is the one that Southwestern claims in its origin story. This can be seen by the number of places on the Southwestern campus that carry the namesake of Martin Ruter compared to the number of places that carry the names McKenzie, Soule, or Wesleyan.
All four root institutions are physically remembered by street names, the Southwestern Seal, and the floor of the Henry M. Rockwell Historical Rotunda, which is a map of central Texas marking the original locations of these universities. Rutersville College is different from the other three, however, because it has more physical locations on campus tied to it. A main example of this is the Martin Ruter Dormitory, constructed in 1955, which adopted the name of the Methodist missionary Martin Ruter. Having an entire building dedicated to him posthumously illustrates that Southwestern places more importance on this root institution than the others. The naming of this building more than 100 years after Rutersville College was established shows that Southwestern has always emphasized the importance of the institution and Martin Ruter.
Southwestern’s willingness and action to remember Martin Ruter and Rutersville make a lot of sense when considering the claim Southwestern makes that it was the earliest university established in Texas. This claim is somewhat controversial. Baylor University for example, chartered in 1845, states that it is the oldest continually operating university in Texas while Southwestern states that it is in fact the oldest university in Texas, or sometimes phrases it as Texas’ first university. One argument that I have heard against Southwestern’s claim is that it has continually operated as we know it today only since 1873. The only reason Southwestern can claim its establishment in 1840 is because it adopted Rutersville College, chartered in 1840, as a root institution.
The fact that Southwestern even makes this claim to be the oldest and the first shows that Southwestern as an institution is invested in asserting that its longevity is one its prime values. We have been making this claim so long that few stop to think about it, and even fewer stop to think about how it might contradict other values, especially since for most of that long history, Southwestern has neither reckoned with the problematic legacies that come with the claim to longevity nor reconciled how asserting traditionalism might be in conflict with our other evolving values as an institution.
