Advertisement by Daniel Poe offering to board young women at Wesleyan College, 1843 or 1844.
Although women did not serve as ministers or missionaries in the church during the antebellum era, they were welcomed as students at Wesleyan College in San Augustine, Texas. Founded in 1842 to train young men for the ministry, the Methodist institution offered primary, secondary, and collegiate instruction. Girls and young women attended a separate Female Department. One of at least three Methodist-related schools started in Texas in the 1840s, Wesleyan failed to attract enough students and closed in 1847.
