Stephen F. Austin, Transylvania, and Constantine Rafinesque
Stephen Fuller Austin was born on November 3, 1793, he was the son of Moses and Maria Austin. He served three terms in the Missouri Legislature and was an editor for a newspaper in New Orleans. Austin was a Mason. Moses Austin received a grant for the purposes of colonizing Texas. 300 families would be brought to Texas. The younger Austin was not too psyched on the idea of going to Texas, actually, he was just cooperating with his father. He went on to become faithful to the Mexican laws and policies governing Texas at the time. Eventually, he was arrested by Santa Anna for attempting to set up a state government. Austin is credited with bringing Anglo colonization to Texas. He is also known for establishing the state as a populous, advanced place, despite fairly extreme geographic conditions. His detractors characterized him as weak because of his conciliatory efforts with Mexican officials. I recently learned that Stephen Austin graduated from Transylvania University in the early 1800’s. This is a small liberal arts college in Lexington and it is where my mom attended school. In its early years, it boasted of a medical school, law school, seminary, and college of arts and sciences, helping coin Lexington’s 19th century nickname as the “Athens of the West.” Today it is strictly a liberal arts college. I’m not sure why the school repositioned itself, but I seem to remember it was related to whether it would be secular or tied to a religious organization. Tranylvania’s most famous scholar is Constantine Rafinesque whose tomb is located in the Old Morrison building. Rafinesque put a curse on Transylvania and a fire later broke out that destroyed everything in the building except for his tomb. The Unitarian president of the school, Horace Helley, died shortly therafter. Rafinesque was despised by many and was known to have “loved no man or woman.” He is also credited with writing a 5,400 line poem discussing evolutionary theory–predating Darwin by 20 years.
June 29th, 2001
