Site of Chapel Hill College

Chapel Hill College opened in February 1852 in a two-story frame building, with the Rev. William E. Beeson as president. About a month later it became the first Texas college to offer free education to people entering the Presbyterian ministry. The Texas Synod built a brick building in 1858. In 1860 Beeson dismissed the college classes for fear of a Union invasion, and in 1865 two instructors were still teaching, debt free. Beeson left in 1869 to lead Trinity University, but the Handbook says the school continued as a preparatory school into the early 1890s.

What the plaque says

Site of Chapel Hill College Chartered 1850. Opened 1852 in brick building on land donated by Allen Urquhart, Republic of Texas surveyor. Founded by Marshall Presbytery of Cumberland Presbyterian Church, to educate ministers. Also offered courses in medicine, law and liberal arts. Closed in 1869 for lack of students and funds. (1966)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Daingerfield State Park — 2.5 mi
  A pine-and-hardwood park built in 1935-39 by a white and a Black Civilian Conservation Corps company, with a dammed lake, Bass Lodge and a 2.4-mile loop trail around the water.
• Lake Bob Sandlin State Park — 22 mi
  A 1987 state park on a 9,000-acre reservoir, where a Republic of Texas stockade called Fort Sherman stood in 1838 and the Caddo lived from A.D. 800 to 1860, now with fishing piers, trails and cabins.
• Jefferson Historical Museum — 29 mi
  A four-floor museum in Jefferson's 1888-90 federal post office and courthouse, with rooms for African-American history, Jewish heritage, the Caddo and Diamond Bessie, bought by the historical society in 1965 for $8,100.
• Excelsior House Hotel — 29 mi
  A brick-and-timber hotel at 211 West Austin that began as a river captain's boarding house in 1858 and was revived by a garden club in 1959, and still takes guests with rosewood furniture.

More markers nearby

• Daingerfield, C. S. A. — steps away
• Morris County — steps away
• Rocky Branch — 5.6 mi
• Chalybeate Springs — 6.0 mi