Blum Male & Female College
Newton, Newton County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Chartered February 26, 1880, by 36 incorporators; named for Leon Blum, Galveston merchant, largest holder in $20,000 capital stock -- $5 per share. First directors were: R. J. Brailsford, H. J. Casey, W. W. Downs, W. A. Droddy, T. W. Ford, M. D. Hines; First president was Joseph Syler. Pupils ranged in age from 5 to 50 years; those under 12 met in downstairs of 2-story building; older pupils and adults met upstairs. Average enrollment per term was 100 resident and boarding pupils. School "took up" at 8 a.m.; closed at 4:30 p.m. Students entered and left school by lining up -- boys on one side and girls on the other -- a division which continued inside the school room. Lessons were recited on a recitation bench; all tests were oral, often an occasion for community gathering. Subjects offered besides the 3 R's were: philosophy, Latin, grammar, algebra, history, geometry, rhetoric, and geography. Friday afternoons were devoted to spelling matches, recitations. A well in school yard furnished water; most students brought lunch from home in a tin bucket which was covered with a lid ventilated by nail holes. Soon was called Burkeville School, and after expiration of College Charter on February 20, 1905, the building served that purpose until torn down in 1912.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Chartered in 1880 and named for Galveston merchant Leon Blum, this East Texas college gathered pupils ranging in age from 5 to 50 under one two-story roof. Students filed in by gender, recited lessons on a bench, took oral exams that doubled as community events, and studied everything from the three R's to Latin, algebra, and rhetoric. A yard well supplied water, and children carried lunch in ventilated tin buckets before the college charter lapsed in 1905.
Why it matters
It offers a vivid window into rural American education in the late nineteenth century, when a single subscription "college" served an entire community's learners of every age.
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Related people
- · Leon Blum
- · Joseph Syler
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Original Site, Burkeville Methodist Church
Burkeville, TX
In 1850 John and Mary Burke sold a dollar's worth of land for a Methodist church and cemetery in Burkeville, the town founded by the Roman Catholic Burke whose 1855 grave is the oldest known here. In an era served by circuit-riding preachers, the congregation included both black and white worshipers, and the simple frame church doubled as a schoolhouse in the 1870s and as a funeral chapel for all faiths. The building was removed from the site in 1948.
Shankleville Community
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Jim and Winnie Shankle, both born into slavery, became the first Black landowners and community leaders in Newton County after emancipation—but their story begins with an act of extraordinary devotion. Separated when Winnie and her children were sold to a Texan, Jim escaped his Mississippi owner and traveled 400 miles by night, swimming rivers, to find her. Freed and reunited, the couple and their allies eventually amassed over 4,000 acres, anchoring a thriving Black community of farms, churches, mills, and even McBride College (1883–1909).
Stephen Alexander McBride
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Born into slavery in Texas in 1834, Stephen McBride helped found Shankleville after emancipation, buying land in northern Newton County with Jim Shankle to build a self-sustaining African-American community of homes, churches, and businesses. McBride himself ran a cotton gin, store, blacksmith shop, and several mills. His most lasting gift was McBride College, opened in 1883 by a man who could neither read nor write yet prized education above all for the young.
Stringtown Schoolhouse
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