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INDEPENDENCE ACADEMY. On May 23, 1837, the inhabitants of Independence, Washington County, led by John P. Coles,qv presented a petition to the Congress of the Republic of Texasqv for the chartering of a seminary. The charter, granted on June 5, 1837, established Independence Academy as a nonsectarian, nonpolitical institution. The school was probably opened by Henry F. Gillette,qv who bought out Frances Trask's school (see THOMPSON, FRANCES J. S. T.). Hugh Wilsonqv was a member of the faculty. Contemporary advertisements indicate that by May 1839, Independence Female Academy, taught by a Miss McGuffin, had more than fifty students. In 1841 Edward Fontaineqv was teacher and had seventy-five students, boys and girls, ranging in age from six to twenty-five, the majority engaged in primary studies. C. W. Thomas was president of the academy in 1845, the last year of its existence. That year E. W. Taylor acquired the property at a sheriff's sale and donated it to the newly chartered Baylor University.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Eugene W. Baker, To Light the Ways
of Time: An Illustrated History of Baylor University, 1845-1986
(Waco: Baylor University Press, 1987). Truman Harrison Etheridge,
Education in the Republic of Texas (Ph.D. dissertation, University
of Texas, 1942). Arthur A. Grusendorf, The Social and Philosophical
Determinants of Education in Washington County, Texas, from 1835
to 1937 (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Texas, 1938). Carl
Bassett Wilson, History of Baptist Educational Efforts in Texas,
1829-1900 (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Texas, 1934).
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