Education on the La Bahia Road

Washington County was one of the religious and educational centers of early Texas by virtue of one of the capitals of the Republic's being located there. A failure to provide education facilities was one complaint Texas revolutionaries had against the Mexican government. But after independence, the government of the Republic, lacking money, did no better. Therefore the early responsibility for education fell to private and religious groups.  

The church denominations were interested in training ministers, as well as providing a general education. Dr. Frederick Eby, an education historian, calculated there were 19 educational institutions chartered by the Republic of Texas, including Baylor University and a forerunner of Southwestern University of Georgetown, the state's two oldest educational institutions.

Between annexation in 1845 and the Civil War, another 117 institutions were chartered, including seven universities, 30 colleges, 40 academies, 27 institutes, three high schools, two seminaries, an orphan asylum and a medical college. The leaders in the numbers of institutions organized were the Masons, Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, Roman Catholics, Lutherans and Episcopalians.

At Chappell Hill, the Methodists founded Soule University in 1856, one of the forerunners to Southwestern University.  Presbyterians had a coeducational school at nearby Gay Hill, and Baylor University was chartered in 1845 and opened in 1846 at Independence. 

In adjacent Fayette County, Methodists obtained a charter for Rutersvile College in 1840. In the interests of keeping church and state separate, the Texas Congress refused to charter a religious school, so Rutersville, another forerunner of Southwestern University, was established as a non-sectarian institution.