Mantua

A June 1860 advertisement priced the seminary by the class: ten dollars for the primary grade, twenty for classics, with languages, embroidery, drawing and piano extra and boarding in private families. The Masonic hall that shared the early building was painted by Benjamin Gaffney, an artist from New York, with King Solomon's Temple on the walls and the planets on a blue ceiling. The war nearly emptied the school. Capt. James Greer, its principal from 1867, called the roll at an August 1903 reunion that drew twenty-five hundred people, and fifty of 310 names answered.

What the plaque says

Mantua On Februrary 23, 1854, William C. McKinney, James W. Throckmorton, John A. Throckmorton, and Joseph Wilcox set aside twenty-five acres for the town of Mantua, which was conceived as a site for Mantua Seminary. Proceeds from the sale of town lots provided funds for the school. The town plat consisted of forty-eight city blocks surrounding a town square. To help ensure a proper environment for the school, deeds for town lots prohibited gambling, horse racing, prostitution and the sale of alcohol. Mantua Lodge No. 209 A.F. & A.M. organized in 1857, and the Masons first met on the second story of Walcott's store. A post office was established in Mantua in 1858, and E.B. Rollins was appointed as the first postmaster. On October 21, 1858, McKinney, James W. Throckmorton and Wilcox met with Mantua citizens to establish rules for the co-educational Mantua Seminary, and a building was constructed just outside of town for the use of the seminary and the Masonic lodge. Classes were first held in 1860 and by 1868, eighty pupils were enrolled. Liberty Christian Church was established in 1846 and Methodist congregation was formed the next year. In 1872 the Houston and Texas Central Railroad laid tracks approximately 1.5 miles east of Mantua, and the new town of Van Alstyne was formed along the tracks. Almost immediately, the residents and businesses of Mantua relocated to the new town. Mantua's post office was closed in 1873, the Mantua Seminary last held classes during the early 1880s and the churches relocated to neighboring towns. Today, only Mantua Cemetery and Mantua Road remain as symbols of the vanished community. 175 Years of Texas Independence * 1836-2011

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Heard Natural Science Museum & Wildlife Sanctuary — 15 mi
  A 289-acre sanctuary in McKinney that Bessie Heard founded at the age of 80, with five habitats, a 50-acre wetland and 6.5 miles of trails.
• Sam Rayburn House State Historic Site — 24 mi
  The two-story farmhouse west of Bonham that the longtime Speaker of the House built in 1916 and kept as his home, left as he lived in it and open as a museum since 1975.

More markers nearby

• First Christian Church of Anna — 2.3 mi
• Public Education in Anna — 2.4 mi
• Fifrty Feet North to Grave of Collin McKinney — 2.9 mi
• First Christian Church — 3.0 mi