![\"Baylor](\"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/gillette_henry_f.jpg\")
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On Jan.\u00a012, 1846, the original Baylor University Trustees met for the second time, just six months after\u00a0Republic of Texas President Anson Jones had signed the university’s charter. The Trustees had already chosen Baylor\u2019s first president, Henry Lee Graves; their next task was to determine who would have the honor of being the university\u2019s first teacher. One name came to the mind of many trustees: Henry Flavel Gillette<\/a>.<\/p>\n Gillette was an active Episcopalian — interestingly, not Baptist — who had taught for years in Texas and was well respected by both educational and religious leaders. Born in Connecticut, Gillette had attended Trinity College in Hartford, taught in Washington County, Texas, and served as superintendent at an\u00a0academy in Houston. By 1846, he was friends with such prominent Texans\u00a0as Anson Jones, Sam Houston, and Baylor co-founder William M. Tryon, who had officiated Gillette\u2019s wedding. With that kind of resume and such high-placed references, Baylor’s\u00a0Trustees believed he would bring prestige to the young school. When named Baylor\u2019s first teacher, he was just 30 years old.<\/p>\n Four months later —\u00a0May 18, 1846 — Baylor’s first bell rang out as 24 students filed into a two-story frame building for preparatory classes. Gillette taught\u00a0reading, writing and spelling, geography, grammar, philosophy, rhetoric, chemistry, mathematics, and Latin and Greek — and for\u00a0the first nine months of Baylor\u2019s operation, he also oversaw the school\u2019s day-to-day functions, until President Graves was able to make his way\u00a0to Independence.<\/p>\n Semesters lasted five to six months, from June to November. Each course cost between $8 and $15, and a year\u2019s tuition was a mere $46. The school\u2019s attendance policy was as strict as ever; in a time when doctors were few and yellow fever was rampant, illness was the only excusable absence. By the end of the year, 70 students had enrolled, and Graves had begun to split teaching responsibilities with Gillette.<\/p>\n After two years of teaching Baylor\u2019s first students, Gillette\u2019s contract with Baylor was up, and he decided he was ready to move on. In some of his letters, he noted a variety of reasons for leaving:\u00a0the young university\u2019s inability to collect enough tuition to afford him a raise; a hurricane that had destroyed his newly built home; the death of his wife\u2019s mother; a longing for his old friends outside of Texas; and a general sense that he was ready to resign from teaching the youth of Texas and \u201clet others endure the hardships that I have endured.\u201d<\/p>\n Saddened to part ways with such an impactful man, the Board of Trustees passed a resolution thanking Gillette for his \u201cwise and faithful service to our cherished institution during its infancy.\u201d They credited much of their initial success to his knowledge, judgment and tact as a teacher.<\/p>\n Gillette\u00a0never did leave Texas; after resigning from\u00a0Baylor, he taught for a few years in East Texas, then oversaw an orphanage in Houston for 15 years before retiring near Galveston, where he passed away in 1896. His time at Baylor may have been brief — but it has not been forgotten, and today, when we note that\u00a0Baylor is\u00a0the oldest continually operating university in Texas<\/a>, it’s worth honoring his contributions that\u00a0helped get us started.<\/p>\n Sic \u2019em, Henry F. Gillette!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On Jan.\u00a012, 1846, the original Baylor University Trustees met for the second time, just six months after\u00a0Republic of Texas President Anson Jones had signed the university’s charter. The Trustees had already chosen Baylor\u2019s first president, Henry Lee Graves; their next task was to determine who would have the honor of being the university\u2019s first teacher. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academics","category-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19611\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}