The Rev. Dr. John David Robnett
Brownwood, Brown County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Founder of Howard Payne University, John David Robnett (1845-1898) was born in Missouri, where he was educated at Westminster and William Jewell colleges and was ordained to the Baptist ministry. In 1883, Robnett was called to serve as pastor at the First Baptist Church of Brownwood, Texas. There he met pioneer missionary Noah Turner Byars (1808-1888) and embraced Byars' vision of a Baptist college in central Texas. Byars' dream was realized when the Pecan Valley Baptist Association, which he and Robnett helped found, agreed in 1889 to establish such a college. As a member of the first board of trustees of the school, Robnett visited his hometown of Fulton, Missouri, where he secured sizable pledges and funds with the aid of his brother-in-law, Edward Howard Payne. The trustees named the fledgling college in honor of Payne's generosity. Dr. Robnett continued as chief fund-raiser for Howard Payne College while serving as first board president and later as college president. He returned to the pulpit in 1896, as pastor of Gaston Avenue Baptist Church in Dallas, and continued there until his death two years later at the age of 53. Originally buried on the Howard Payne College campus near the Old Main building, John David Robnett was reinterred in Brownwood's Greenleaf Cemetery upon the death of his wife, Dollie, in 1911. (2001)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
John David Robnett, a Missouri-born Baptist minister, came to Brownwood in 1883 and took up a fellow pastor's dream of a Baptist college in central Texas. Working through the Pecan Valley Baptist Association, he helped found the school in 1889 and raised the funds—much of it from his Missouri hometown—that gave Howard Payne its name and its start. He served as the college's first board president and later its president before returning to the pulpit.
Why it matters
Denominational colleges like Howard Payne carried higher education across a still-young Texas, and Robnett's fundraising shows how faith communities built lasting institutions from scratch.
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Related people
- · John David Robnett
- · Noah Turner Byars
- · Edward Howard Payne
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
The Rev. Noah Turner Byars
Brownwood, TX
Noah T. Byars, a South Carolina–born blacksmith and gunsmith, set up shop at Washington-on-the-Brazos, where Texas delegates adopted their Declaration of Independence in 1836—after which he was named armorer of the Texas army. Ordained a Baptist preacher in 1841 and appointed the state convention's first missionary in 1848, he is credited with founding more than 60 churches across the Texas frontier. He helped organize Brownwood's First Baptist Church and championed the Baptist college that opened as Howard Payne in 1889, a year after his death.
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Howard Payne College grew out of an 1889 resolution by the Pecan Valley Baptist Association to found a college of its own, with Brownwood chosen as the site. Named for benefactor Edward Howard Payne, the school opened in September 1890—classes meeting in a hall as the cornerstone of its main building was laid the same day. It absorbed the neighboring Daniel Baker College in 1953 and reached university status in 1974.
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