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Harvey Mitchell- Father of Brazos County and Texas A&M

by Betty Dunn
 
Tennessean Harvey Mitchell is often praised as the “Father of Brazos County,” but less often mentioned as the “Father of Texas A & M University”.

The U. S. Congress, in 1862, created the Morrill Act that enabled states to establish colleges where the leading object was to create educational colleges that would include scientific and classical studies as well as military tactics and branches of learning related to agriculture and mechanical arts.  The Morrill Act allowed public lands to be granted to be sold at auctions to establish permanent funding to support such schools. The Texas State Legislature, in addition, also allotted public lands for future colleges.

In 1871, when the Texas Legislature was searching for such a college location, Mitchell, this leader of rural low-populated Brazos County, saw an opportunity.  Despite the fact that several large cities were avidly seeking this prize college, Mitchell, along with his three man committee, reached out to grab this brass ring.  They donated nearly 2500 acres of Brazos County land to the State of Texas. The prize was theirs.

The Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas was established in what would become College Station by the state legislature on April 17, 1871 as the state’s 1st public institution of higher education.  The legislature also provided $75,000 for the construction of buildings as well as selling 180,000 acres of land secured under the Land-Grant College Act in gold frontier defense bonds, to create a permanent endowment for A & M. A little known side note is that Jefferson Davis, former President of the Confederate States, was offered the 1st
college presidency but declined.

Texas A & M officially opened with classes on October 4, 1876.   There were 40 students and 6 professors as well as freely roaming wild animals on this frontier campus.  By the end of the school year there were 106 students – all male who were required to participate in military training in the Corps of Cadets. It would be nearly 90 years later, in 1963, before women were admitted during the era of Major General James Earl Rudder’s 16th presidency of A & M. 

Mitchell, who was born in 1821 in Tennessee, came to Texas in 1839 at the age of eighteen.  He joined frontier forces to protect the area from the Trinity River to the Brazos River, and then set up his permanent home in Brazos County.  He served county in offices of Deputy Clerk, County Clerk, Surveyor, and Chief Justice between 1842 and 1853.  Mitchell also taught school, operated a store and farmed.  He was a leader in establishing churches and the county courthouses of 1846, 1853 and 1878.   During the Civil War he was the
assessor for Confederate state taxes.

Mitchell, obviously, left an indelible mark in Texas.   He married Arthuisa Foley and fathered five children.  He is buried beside his wife in the Boonsville cemetery west of Bryan where Brazos County’s 1st county seat was located.

Thank you.


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