Trinity University has Grimes County connections
A Tennessean, John Boyd, who came to Texas in the fall of 1835 to become a Republic of Texas legislator, could be considered the father of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church’s Trinity University that is approaching its 150th anniversary at San Antonio.
Following the Civil War, Boyd gave 1,100 acres for the location of the now renowned Trinity University founded in 1869 at Tehuacana, Texas in Limestone County. Trinity is named for three Cumberland Presbyterian Church small colleges in Texas that lost enrollment during the Civil War - Ewing College at LaGrange, Chapel Hill College at Daingerfield, and Larissa College at Larissa in Cherokee County.
The Cumberland Presbyterian Church became an offshoot of the Presbyterian Church in what was called the Great Revival of 1800. The Cumberland group “believed the revival to be an extraordinary circumstance. It allowed exceptions to both educational requirements for ordination.”
Growing rapidly, “the Cumberland Presbytery became Cumberland Synod in 1813, and in 1829 it became the Cumberland Presbyterian denomination. It had a socially progressive tradition in that it admitted women to their educational institutions as well as ordained clergy.”
Preceding the founding of Trinity University, in October 1853, at Prairie Plains, located in the eastern most section of Grimes County, a group of 11 persons and a minister met to organize the Prairie Plains Congregation of the Cumberland Presbytery Church, according to a biography in the Grimes County Heritage and Progress History Book.
“Jesse Bookman, his two brothers and their widowed mother, Junema Rainey Bookman, were among” the 11 persons. The Bookmans donated five acres of their land for the building of the Prairie Plains Cumberland Presbyterian Church.” Prairie Plains, also historically known as Red Top, is now a Grimes County ghost town that was located just a few miles east of Shiro.
The Bookmans, as well as some of the other founding members that included Dr. Joseph Rush Edwards became benefactors of the Cumberland Trinity University at Tehuacana as well as when it was later located at Waxahachie, before making its final transition to San Antonio in 1942. In 1969, Trinity became a private, independent University.
The Bookmans arrived in Grimes County in 1845 when Samuel Bookman died in South Carolina in 1838. He was the son of Jacob, the earliest Bookman arriving in Philadelphia in 1744. Samuel married Junema Rainey of Virginia in 1788. They had built a grand plantation home with a second-floor ballroom as well as a church that was called the Bookman Church.
In 1845, widow Junema came to Grimes County with three grown sons and a daughter: Jesse, Daniel, Joseph, and Anna, settling at Prairie Plains. The eldest son, Jesse, would marry Martha Lucinda Isbell on Oct. 21, 1856. They had five children, three of whom died in infancy. The son Pickens Butler Bookman born in 1857 and his sister, Mattie J. Bookman, born in 1866, lived well into adulthood.
Both Pickens and Mattie attended Trinity University at Tehuacana. Their father, Jesse, was considered one of the “incorporators” of Trinity University. He donated $500 to Trinity with the University establishing the Jesse Bookman Scholarship.
Dr. Edwards, born in 1820 in Tennessee, came to Texas about the same time as the Bookmans. He was one of the first doctors in the Prairie Plains area. He strongly believed in the value of formal education and, according to the Grimes County Heritage and Progress book, started a small private school that led to being an original benefactor of Trinity University.
Dr. Edwards married Mary Ann Deshazo Zuber on April 22, 1847. They lived on the Zuber homestead and were the parents of seven surviving children. Two Edwards’ sons are listed as early Trinity students at Tehuacana.
The next Sandbar will further relate the family histories of the Bookmans and Edwards at Trinity.
Written by Betty Dunn, Two Rivers Heritage Foundation, See www. tworiversheritagefoundation.org for more information and membership.