DUANE
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Duane's take
The way the marker tells it, here's what happened on this very ground. Back in 1849, in the brand-new county courthouse that once stood right here at this site, the people of Woodville decided they wanted something more than the basics. They organized the Woodville Academy, and they were not thinking small.
The subjects on offer included astronomy, orthography, which is to say spelling, surveying, and logic. Astronomy and spelling, side by side. That right there tells you something about what folks expected of a young Texan mind.
Now, the Academy didn't stay put. In 1850 the school picked up and moved about fifteen hundred feet to the southeast. It carried on there for a few years, and then in 1856 it was sold.
That same year, 1856, two things happened at once: the town of Woodville was chartered, and Woodville College was chartered right along with it. A fresh start, a new name, a new home inside the old Masonic Lodge, sitting about twelve hundred feet to the west of where you're standing now. Woodville College ran for a few years, then closed.
Two schools, one town, and a lot of ambition packed into a short stretch of time. And here is the thing worth sitting with. Between 1845 and 1861, Texas chartered around forty higher schools.
Forty. Woodville had two of them. What was happening out here wasn't just local pride.
It was part of something bigger, a state-wide surge of interest in education, rolling across Texas like weather. These two schools, the Academy and the College, were right in the middle of that wave.
What the marker says
Organized in 1849 in the new county courthouse (formerly at this site), the Woodville Academy offered advanced courses of study. Some of the subjects were astronomy, orthography (spelling), surveying and logic. In 1850 the school moved (1,500 ft. SE); it was sold, 1856. That same year the town of Woodville and Woodville College were chartered. The school-- in the old Masonic Lodge (1,200 ft. W)-- closed after a few years. Among some 40 higher schools chartered in Texas 1845-1861, these two reflect a state-wide surge of interest in education.