Mossy Creek Baptist Seminary
Mossy Creek Baptist Seminary was chartered in December, 1851
Mossy Creek Baptist College
SECTION 1 Be it enacted by the General Assembly of State of Tennessee
That the name of the Mossy Creek Missionary Baptist Seminary in the County of Jefferson be and the same is hereby changed to the name of Mossy Greek Baptist College with all the powers rights and privileges and immunities confered by an act of the General Assembly of the State of Tennessee passed December 5, 1851, entitled.
An act to incorporate the Trustees of the Mossy Creek Missionary Baptist Seminary in the County of Jefferson and for other purposes.
SEC 2 Be it enacted That the Trustees of the said Mossy Creek Missionary Baptist Seminary and their successors inptfice be and they are hereby constituted the Trustees ofthe Mossy Creek Baptist College and the right and title to all the property both real and personal which now belongs to them as Trustees of the said Mossy Creek Missionary Baptist Seminary shall be and the same is hereby fully vested in them and their successors in office as Trustees of the Mossy Creek Baptist College.
NEILL S BROWN
Speaker of the House of
Representatives
EDWARD S CHEATHAM
Speaker of the Senate Passed February
29, 1856 (Source: Tennessee, 1856, p. 476)
Civil War
During the Civil war the large brick buildings of the college, three in number, were dismantled and the institution almost ruined. For this loss no indemnity was ever received from the Federal Government. (Source:Higher Education in Tennessee, Volume 378, Lucius Salisbury Merriam, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1893, p. 237). Other sources say that the school was also used as a hospital.
Carson Newman
CHAPTER 210 AN ACT to amend an Act to incorporate the trustees of Mossy Creek Missionary Baptist Seminary in the County of Jefferson and for other purposes passed Decembers 1851 and to amend an Act entitled An Act to change the name of the Missionary Mossy Creek Baptist Seminary to the name of the Mossy Creek Baptist College passed February 29, 1856, so as to change the name of the Mossy Creek Baptist College to the name of Carson and Newman, and to increase the number of trustees and to regulate their election term of office and for other purposes.
Section 1: Be it enacted by the General Assembly of State of Tennessee: That the Act entitled An Act to incorporate the trustees of the Mossy Creek Missionary Baptist Seminary in the county of Jefferson and for other purposes passed December 5, 1851, and an Act entitled An Act to change the name of the Mossy Creek Missionary Baptist Seminary in Jefferson County to the name of Mossy Creek Baptist College passed February 29, 1856, be and the same are hereby amended as hereinafter provided that is to say the name of the said Mossy Creek Baptist College having been changed to that of Carson College and afterwards to that of Carson and Newman College by a resolution of the board of trustees of said college and having acquired property by one or both of said names, it is hereby declared that hereafter the corporate name of said Mossy Creek Baptist College shall be Carson and Newman College by which name it may sue and be sued, make and take hold and own personal and real property by purchase, gift devise or otherwise, and exercise all the rights powers franchises and privileges mentioned and conferred on said corporation by either of the Acts mentioned in the first section of this. Act Sec 2: Be it further enacted: That the trustees of said Carson and Newman College shall hereafter consist of thirty three members or trustees to be elected and hold office as hereinafter mentioned to wit: The present board of trustees shall at their annual commencement meeting in 1895, elect from their own body or otherwise thirty-three trustees of said Carson and Newman College, and said trustees shall be elected to hold office as follows: One third thereof to hold office for three years, one third thereof to hold office for two years, and one third thereof to hold office for one year, and annually thereafter th e then existing board of trustees shall elect trustees to fill the vacancies created by the annual expiration of office in said board, so as to make a self perpetuating body of thirty-three trustees of whom one third shall annually be elected to said office for the term of three years to fill vacancies as aforesaid.
Sec 3: Be it further enacted That after the reorganization of said board of trustees as provided in this Act, a legal quorum of said board of trustees shall consist of not less than eleven members, a majority of whom voting for or against any measure shall be sufficient to transact any business of said college at any regular or called meeting of said board of trustees.
Sec 4: Be it further enacted That said board of trustees at each annual commencement meeting shall appoint an executive committee of five members from their own body to act for the ensuing year and said executive committee may be vested with such power and authority in the detailed management of the college and its property and interests as the board of trustees may by by laws or resolutions direct and appoint.
Sec 5: Be it further enacted That this Act take effect from and after its passage the public welfare requiring it.
Passed May 14 1895
JOHN A TIPTON
Speaker of the House of Representatives
ERNEST PILLOW
Speaker of the Senate
Approved May 14 1895
P TURNEY Governor
Carson Newman
Following a ten-year effort of five early East Tennessee Baptists, the school was established as Mossy Creek Missionary Baptist Seminary in 1851, the school began by holding classes in a local Baptist church. Within a few years the institution became Mossy Creek Baptist College and occupied its own buildings on the site of the present campus.
In 1880, the University was named Carson College for James Harvey Carson (1801–1880), who left $15,000 of his estate to the school,.[3][4] For several years it existed alongside Newman College, a separate facility for the education of women named for William Cate Newman, who had donated money to the women's college. In 1889, the two colleges united as one of the first coeducational institutions in the South. The institution operated as Carson–Newman College until 2012 when the board of trustees voted to acknowledge recent organizational changes by changing the name to Carson–Newman University.[5]
In 1919, Carson-Newman became officially affiliated with the Tennessee Baptist Convention. The College was admitted to membership in the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools in 1927 and the Association of American Colleges in 1928.
During World War II, Carson-Newman was one of 131 colleges and universities nationally that took part in the V-12 Navy College Training Program which offered students a path to a Navy commission.[6]
During most of its history, Carson–Newman University has served as a residential four-year, liberal arts college with courses of study leading to the baccalaureate degree. (Source: Wikipedia)
