Virginia Baptist Seminary

Members of the Education Society continued to pursue a permanent seminary, purchasing Spring Farm, a 241-acre property in what is now the Lakeside neighborhood of Henrico County, as the seminary’s first location in 1832. When Edward Baptist declined the seminary’s leadership position, James B. Taylor recruited Robert Ryland (1805-1899), a 27-year old Columbian College-educated pastor, teacher, and enslaver, to lead the new seminary. The educational priorities of the early institution were shaped by Ryland’s belief that the liberal arts should form the foundation of study for all students.

At Spring Farm and on its subsequent campus, the Columbia estate, the seminary provided ministerial preparation and also emphasized liberal arts education. Those preparing for a life in the ministry were referred to as “beneficiaries” or “ministerials” and did not pay tuition. Tuition paying liberal arts (or “literary”) students were enrolled with with no denominational restriction.⁷ The literary students quickly outnumbered the ministerials, and both cohorts were educated in ancient languages, mathematics, literature, and other standard subjects.

The two-year location of the seminary on the farm was part of the institution’s initial philosophical and financial model. The Education Society had envisioned a manual labor requirement through which student labor would help support the institution, repay the costs of their board, and encourage humility.⁸ The idea was phased out in 1833 due to a number of factors, including students’ failure to participate.⁹ Throughout the seminary’s existence, the labor needs fell largely to a growing number of enslaved people bound to the seminary through “slave hire” lease agreements in which the institution paid enslavers for the labor of those they enslaved. Institutional reliance on the labor of enslaved people began when the farm was being prepared for student arrival and Ryland, acting as principal, superintendent, and steward, secured servants, including enslaved persons, and also leased out to the institution a child he enslaved. That child, Sam (d. 1849), was to be available for the shared use of the small group of students and faculty who would live at the farm. Reliance on enslaved labor, including additional enslaved persons leased from Ryland, continued after the formation of Richmond College in 1840 through the institution’s temporary closure during the U.S. Civil War. 

In 1835, diminished enthusiasm for a farm-based seminary led to the purchase of the Columbia estate and adjacent acreage closer to the city of Richmond. Located at what is now the corner of Grace and Lombardy streets in the city’s Fan District, the Columbia property would be the core of the institution’s expanding campus for close to 80 years. The move to the attractive estate communicated permanence to Virginia Baptists and the larger community. The new campus, an expanding student body, and the promise of additional funding set the stage for the eventual charter of Richmond College in 1840.

For more information on the formation and operation of Virginia Baptist Seminary, see “The Institution Recently Established.” For details on the enslaved labor force on the two seminary campuses, see Enslavement in the Early Years (1832-1840).