Female Department of Baylor University

Henry Lee Graves was a mathematician before he was a preacher. Born in North Carolina in 1813, he taught math at Wake Forest, was ordained in 1837, and went to Augusta in 1845 as a Georgia delegate to the founding of the Southern Baptist Convention. At Independence he was Baylor's president and pastor of the church, and in 1848 he presided over the Texas Baptist State Convention. He resigned in 1851 for his health. He later led Fairfield Female Academy for ten years, then headed Baylor Female College in 1871-72. He died at Brenham in 1881.

What the plaque says

Female Department of Baylor University On this site stood the Female Department of Baylor University incorporated under the laws of the Republic of Texas, February 1, 1845; Henry L. Graves, first president, was elected January 12, 1846; Preparatory Department for Boys and Girls was opened May 18, 1846 with H. F. Gillett as teacher; Rufus C. Burleson became president in 1851; in 1886 when Baylor University moved to Waco and consolidated with Waco University; the Female Department moved to Belton and now bears the name of Mary Hardin-Baylor College

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Independence and Old Baylor Park — steps away
  A crossroads north of Brenham that was the richest town in Texas when it won Baylor University in 1845, refused the railroad, and lost the college to Waco and Belton in 1886.
• Washington-on-the-Brazos State Historic Site — 12 mi
  The townsite on the Brazos where delegates met in a cold, unfinished hall in March 1836 to declare Texas independent, with Independence Hall rebuilt and Anson Jones's Barrington farm worked as in 1850.
• Star of the Republic Museum — 12 mi
  A star-shaped museum of the Republic of Texas years, 1836 to 1846, built at Washington-on-the-Brazos after a Brenham campaign and opened on March 1, 1970.
• Navasota — 17 mi
  A railroad and cotton town where the La Bahia Road crossed the Navasota River, scarred by an 1865 explosion and yellow fever, and the home ground of the songster Mance Lipscomb.

More markers nearby

• Columns of a Building of Old Baylor University — steps away
• Dr. Horace G. Clark — steps away
• John Prince Coles — steps away
• Site of the Home of General Sam Houston and Family — steps away