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Intellectual and Cultural Influence Jefferson Military College Foundation
| General Information
Early History
After years
of initial financial difficulties, Jefferson College opened its doors
on In 1830 the college purchased the Methodist church building that had housed the 1817 Mississippi statehood convention, renovated it in 1832, and in 1839 completed construction of a new West Wing. |
At
Historic Jefferson College, the first educational institution of higher
learning in Mississippi, visitors can tour a restored dormitory room,
student dining room, kitchen buildings, and other historic sites. The
adjacent nature trail winds up and down through a wooded ravine, past
St. Catherine's Creek, over bridges, past Ellicott Springs, and a historic
cemetery, with plants and trees clearly identified along the way.
Jefferson
College, incorporated by an act of the first General Assembly of the
Mississippi Territory in 1802, was named in honor of Thomas Jefferson,
president of the United States and president of the American Philosophical
Society. Territorial governor William C. C. Claiborne served as president
of the college's first Board of Trustees. 
January
7, 1811, as a preparatory school, with fifteen students. Funds from
Congress, the Legislature, and private citizens led the way to new prosperity,
and by 1817 Jefferson College had become a full-fledged college; ten-year-old
Jefferson Davis attended in 1818. By 1819 a new building, the East Wing,
designed by prominent Natchez architect Levi Weeks, was complete. |