McKenzie College (Texas)
McKenzie College, also called McKenzie's College, was a private college located on the plantation of Reverend John W. P. McKenzie, a Methodist minister, in Clarksville, Texas, United States. Starting in 1841, the school grew from 16 students educated in a log cabin to over 300 students and 9 faculty members occupying four large buildings in 1854. It was the largest institution of higher education in Texas during the 1850s and 1860s. Before the American Civil War began, it trained almost all of the new Methodist ministers in the state. Unable to retain financial support after the War, Rev. McKenzie closed the school in June, 1868. He served for a year as the first president of another Methodist school, Marvin College in Waxahachie, Texas, then completely retired from church-related work. He died in Clarksville on June 20, 1881. History John Witherspoon Pettigrew McKenzie (most often abbreviated to John W. P. McKenzie) was a native of North Carolina who was admitted to the Tennessee Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1836. He was soon transferred into the Arkansas Conference, which had been established on the Texas frontier. This conference assigned John and his wife Matilda as missionaries to the people of