Dunlora Academy

O-25

In 1830, the newly formed Virginia Baptist Education Society sought to establish a “seminary of learning” to train ministers. The Rev. Edward Baptist, a founder of the Education Society, was appointed teacher and opened a provisional academy one mile northeast of here at Dunlora plantation, his residence. Ann Hickman, Dunlora’s owner and a relative of Baptist’s wife, Eliza, provided lodging and board to the students. The labor of enslaved African Americans sustained the plantation and thus supported the academy. The school led to the formation of Virginia Baptist Seminary in Henrico County in 1832, which became Richmond College in 1840 and evolved into the present-day University of Richmond.

Department of Historic Resources, 2022

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References/Bibliographic Citation:

Reuben E. Alley, History of the University of Richmond, 1830-1971 (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1977). Michael P. Gwaltney and W. Harrison Daniel, “Edward Baptist, the Virginia Years, 1790-1835,” The Virginia Baptist Register, no. 30 (1991): 1534-1546. “Edward Baptist: Educational and Organizational Pioneer Among Virginia Baptists,” Religious Herald, 27 Sept. or Dec. 1947. Beldale/Dunlora Academy Site, Architectural Survey Form (DHR 072-0096). George Braxton Taylor, Virginia Baptist Ministers (Lynchburg: J.P. Bell Co., 1912). Robert Ryland, “The Virginia Baptist Education Society” (Richmond College, 1891).