AS TIME GOES BY
Wood County History
By LOU MALLORY —
Chairperson, Wood County Historical Commission
The early days of
Jarvis Christian College
2-3-07
In recognition of
Black History Month, the following is a
compendium of historical notes about some of the
personalities who were instrumental in the
establishment and early operation of Jarvis
Christian College.
Among the early
trailblazers was Mrs. Mary Alphin, who was born
in a log cabin near Murfreesboro, Tennessee on
July 10th,
1868. Her father, a former slave, was a farmer
who actively sought a better education for his
two daughters. The family eventually got to
Topeka, Kansas where Mary graduated from high
school. She taught school for 15 years. In 1906,
she married William Alphin who took his new
bride to Waco, Texas, where he pastured the Clay
Street Christian Church. Two years later, Mary
was elected State president of the Womens
Missionary Society.
A goal of $3,000
was set to build a school for African-American
students in Texas but it proved to be a
difficult goal to reach. Eventually Elder C.C.
Smith who was at the time the superintendent of
Negro Missions out of Fort Worth, heard that
Major and Mrs. Ida V. Jarvis, who were members
of the Christian Church in Fort Worth, were
considering deeding some land in east Texas near
Hawkins, as an aid to the Texas school effort.
Further contact by Elder Smith, Mrs. Alphin and
Mrs. Anna Atwater persuaded the Major and his
wife to make the gift of 456 acres in 1910. The
land was valued at over $3,000.
Shortly after the
land was donated, the Negro Disciples of Christ
in Texas, largely through the efforts of the
church women, completed the fund-raising
campaign. The $1,000 collected by the churches
was augmented with $10,000 donated by the
Women’s Board of Missions.
According to an
account by C.A. Berry, the school opened in
January 1913 with 13 students. The building,
according to Berry, contained 12 rooms which
included classrooms, a chapel, the dining hall,
a kitchen, the girl’s dormitory and rooms for
the family of Prof. T.B. Frost, the head of the
school.
Berry, a teacher,
arrived early on to help with construction. In
an account likely written in the mid to late
1940s, Berry states, “It has been my privilege
to observe the constant growth of Jarvis from a
one-teacher, thirteen pupils, unclassified,
one-building remote school in the woods to a
senior college, nationally known, with modern
buildings and an excellent faculty of 20 or more
teachers and a spacious campus with 20 or more
buildings overlooked by 16 oil wells.”
Today, Jarvis
Christian College has a division of arts and
sciences offering programs in science and math,
religion, biology, chemistry, criminal justice,
English, the Fine Arts, history, literature and
languages, music, social science and sociology.
The college also has an education division for
future educators and a division of business
administration. An honors program is also
available and Upward Bound.
In the words of
President Sebetha Jenkins, Jarvis is now known
as “one of the best liberal arts institutions in
the country.”