Mantua Seminary
Mantua Seminary by Joy Gough 2026
At one time Mantua was the second largest town in Collin County. It was located near the Collin/Grayson County line about 14 miles north of the county seat of McKinney. There was a school named Liberty in the Mantua area as early as 1848, making it the first school in Collin County. One record says that Collin McKinney was a great reader of the classics and suggested the town be called Mantua after the town of that name in Italy. (Courier Gazette (McKinney, Texas), July 3, 1986). Most people say they do not know where the town name came from.
The town of Mantua was conceived as a site for a college that was to be called the Mantua Seminary. The founders of Mantua Seminary were William C. McKinney, a son of Collin McKinney who was a signer of the Declaration of Independence from Mexico; James W. Throckmorton, who later became the governor of Texas; and Joe H. Wilcox, a very early county settler.
On February 23, 1854, the Seminary founders bought 200 acres of land from Wm. McKinney and donated it to the school trustees - James B. McBride, Dr. James L. Leslie and Josiah L. Kelly. It was specified that no liquor could be sold, no house of ill fame could be constructed, and no gambling or horse racing could be conducted within the Mantua town limits. The rules were strictly enforced. Breaking the rules meant losing ownership of the properties in the city.
The town was laid out in a square. Younger Scott McKinney, another one of Collin McKinney’s sons, was the surveyor. The proceeds from the sale of the lots were to be used for the building and furnishing of a school. The first lot was sold to Horatio Walcott for $60. He constructed a 2-story building on the property and had the first business in Mantua, a store and a lumber business. Dr. Wm. Dixon Lair built a home and had a small office in Mantua. Eventually he opened a drug store there.
On Feb. 7, 1857, the Mantua Masonic Lodge No. 209 AF & AM was organized on the second story of Walcott’s store. A year and a half later, on Aug. 7, 1858, the Masonic Lodge and the residents of the town of Mantua voted to begin construction of a 2-story building in which the school would be downstairs and the Masonic lodge would be upstairs.
Bro. John T. Echols of the Mantua Masonic Lodge was the architect of the building. Echols, along with J. L. Kelly, E. B. Rollins, and James Laf. Leslie, constructed the building with lumber hauled from Jefferson, Texas. The building was completed in late 1858 and the cornerstone laid in 1860.
When the Masonic Lodge building was finished, it was the largest building in town. In the Lodge’s Blue Book of 1907, Benjamin Gaffney was credited with painting and decorating the hall. Gaffney was called an “eccentric character,” who was an artist from New York. He adorned the walls with a representation of King Solomon’s Temple and decorated the blue ceiling with the planetary system. From the beginning this building proved to be too small for both the school and the Lodge. The school took over using both stories of the building while the Masonic Lodge met elsewhere.
A new site was chosen for the Mantua Seminary on the northeast corner of the town limits. Already $900 had been raised for building the school from lot sales and subscriptions.
Professor J. Myers was chosen to be the first superintendent of Mantua Seminary. In December 1858, J. Myers, A. M. and his wife Mrs. M. B. Myers, had been the principals of the Dallas Collegiate Institute, Male and Female. (Dallas Herald, Dec. 8, 1858, Portal to Texas
History, https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1566781/m1/4/.) Myers became the superintendent for the Mantua Seminary in 1860.
The Mantua Seminary was to be for males and females. It was to have two sessions annually at a fee of ten to twenty dollars a class per session.
McKinney Messenger advertisement, June 1, 1860
“Mantua Seminary
Male and Female
Mantua, Collin County, Texas
The second session of this Institution, will commence on the first Monday of August Next, (1860), under the superintendence of J. Myers, A. M. and lady, with a competent corps of assistants.
1st Class – Orthography, Reading, Writing, Primary Arithmetic and Geography - $10.00
2nd Class – English, Grammar, Arithmetic, Geography, History, Etc. - $12.00
3rd Class - The above continued with the higher English branches - $17.00
4th Class – Classics, Latin, Greek &c - $20.00
Modern Languages, Embroidery, Drawing and Painting and Music on the Piano Forte, The usual prices of the country.
Charge made from time of entrance to close of term – no deduction except for protracted illness.
Tuition bills due at the end of Term. N. B. Boarding can be had in private families on reasonable terms.
We, the undersigned, take pleasure in recommending the above-named institution to the public, as richly meriting patronage, not only on account of its liberal literary advantages, but also its moral and religious atmosphere; the place being well supplied with Churches, and the vending of spiritous liquors prohibited within the town limits. The health of the neighborhood is unexcelled.
Jas. Laf. Leslie, David C. Wilson, J. M. Douthet, J. S. Kelley, Wm. D. Lair, James S. Patte, E. B. Rollins, Wm. C. McKinney, June 1, 1860”
Classes were first held in the Mantua Seminary in January of 1861. The teaching staff consisted of Professor J. Myers, A.M. and his wife M. B. Myers, and 3 more teachers. One of the additional teachers was James R. (J. R.) Wilmeth. The information for the January 1861 session comes from the diaries of J. R. Wilmeth and his wife.
J. R. Wilmeth was a son of early Collin County settler, J. B. Wilmeth. He graduated from Bethany College in Virginia in 1858. When he returned to Texas, he built a school called Beacon Grove on his property north of McKinney. He taught there in 1860.
In 1861 Wilmeth signed on to teach for the Mantua Seminary. He lived 11 miles south of Mantua near McKinney. He would leave his home on Sunday afternoons to go to Mantua; he taught spelling, reading, and writing essays during the week; and he would return home on Friday nights to be with his family for the weekend.
The 1861 school session at the Seminary started on January 21 with 23 students. Throughout the session new students were added, reaching a total of 30 by the middle of April. In February of that year Carroll McKinney and his family donated a blackboard to the school. J. R. Wilmeth’s wife Maria joined him in March to help teach his classes. The closing day for the session was on May 16, 1861.
Civil War
On April 15, 1861, three days after the attack on Fort Sumter, President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation calling for 75,000 militiamen to suppress the Southern rebellion and repossess federal property. This act officially signaled the beginning of the Civil War for many, prompting several states to secede.
The residents of Collin and surrounding counties voted against secession from the United States. They thought it would be better to stay in the Union and try to negotiate issues than to secede and go to war. However, when the state of Texas voted to secede, the residents readily volunteered. The Mantua Company of Mounted Volunteers was formed on June 8, 1861. It became part of Company D, 6th Regiment, Texas Cavalry Brigade. It was sometimes referred to as the Mantua Guard.
The Seminary was almost depleted of students during the war. When the war ended, Seminary trustees threatened to sue the Masonic Lodge for not completing its contract to construct a new school building. Construction of the second Seminary building got underway.
The new school house was a 2-story building with 16 rooms. Burem Henderson Moore, wife of Dr. S. D. Moore, recalled that on top of the Seminary’s second story there was an observatory, which offered quite a view of the countryside.
Capt. James L. Greer was named the principal of the Mantua Seminary in 1867. He had moved to Collin County in 1867 and had been a Captain in the Confederate Army. The Seminary grew after the War with a top enrollment in 1868 of 80 pupils and a staff of eight teachers. Greer taught at the Mantua Seminary for 4 years before it was moved to Van Alstyne. He eventually moved to McKinney and served on the school board there for many years. The North Ward School in McKinney was renamed the James L. Greer School.
Railroad
In 1870 the town of Mantua had a population of about 50. The voting precinct consisted of about 1620 residents. The Houston and Texas Central Railroad came through the area in 1872 connecting Houston with the Oklahoma border. It bypassed Mantua to the east, creating the several towns along the way, including Van Alstyne and Anna. Most of the residents and businesses of Mantua moved to the new towns within a few of years. The Seminary was moved to Van Alstyne in 1872, and Capt. Greer taught there one year.
The Mantua Seminary building was torn down and the materials reused in the construction of Mantua School, Collin County District #57, a one-story building that was erected on the site of the old school. The Mantua School District #57 lasted into the 1940s. There are no remnants of Mantua today, except a small cemetery.
Reunion
A Mantua Seminary Reunion of the former pupils and teachers of the school was held in August 1903 in Mantua. Twenty-five hundred people attended the event. At 1:30 in the afternoon the former students assembled on the rostrum. Greer called the roll, which contained 310 names. Of this number, fifty answered - many of them were prominent men from different parts of the state, who testified that they attributed their success in life to the early training received from Capt. Greer at Mantua Seminary.
At one time Mantua was the second largest town in Collin County. It was located near the Collin/Grayson County line about 14 miles north of the county seat of McKinney. There was a school named Liberty in the Mantua area as early as 1848, making it the first school in Collin County. One record says that Collin McKinney was a great reader of the classics and suggested the town be called Mantua after the town of that name in Italy. (Courier Gazette (McKinney, Texas), July 3, 1986). Most people say they do not know where the town name came from.
The town of Mantua was conceived as a site for a college that was to be called the Mantua Seminary. The founders of Mantua Seminary were William C. McKinney, a son of Collin McKinney who was a signer of the Declaration of Independence from Mexico; James W. Throckmorton, who later became the governor of Texas; and Joe H. Wilcox, a very early county settler.
On February 23, 1854, the Seminary founders bought 200 acres of land from Wm. McKinney and donated it to the school trustees - James B. McBride, Dr. James L. Leslie and Josiah L. Kelly. It was specified that no liquor could be sold, no house of ill fame could be constructed, and no gambling or horse racing could be conducted within the Mantua town limits. The rules were strictly enforced. Breaking the rules meant losing ownership of the properties in the city.
The town was laid out in a square. Younger Scott McKinney, another one of Collin McKinney’s sons, was the surveyor. The proceeds from the sale of the lots were to be used for the building and furnishing of a school. The first lot was sold to Horatio Walcott for $60. He constructed a 2-story building on the property and had the first business in Mantua, a store and a lumber business. Dr. Wm. Dixon Lair built a home and had a small office in Mantua. Eventually he opened a drug store there.
On Feb. 7, 1857, the Mantua Masonic Lodge No. 209 AF & AM was organized on the second story of Walcott’s store. A year and a half later, on Aug. 7, 1858, the Masonic Lodge and the residents of the town of Mantua voted to begin construction of a 2-story building in which the school would be downstairs and the Masonic lodge would be upstairs.
Bro. John T. Echols of the Mantua Masonic Lodge was the architect of the building. Echols, along with J. L. Kelly, E. B. Rollins, and James Laf. Leslie, constructed the building with lumber hauled from Jefferson, Texas. The building was completed in late 1858 and the cornerstone laid in 1860.
When the Masonic Lodge building was finished, it was the largest building in town. In the Lodge’s Blue Book of 1907, Benjamin Gaffney was credited with painting and decorating the hall. Gaffney was called an “eccentric character,” who was an artist from New York. He adorned the walls with a representation of King Solomon’s Temple and decorated the blue ceiling with the planetary system. From the beginning this building proved to be too small for both the school and the Lodge. The school took over using both stories of the building while the Masonic Lodge met elsewhere.
A new site was chosen for the Mantua Seminary on the northeast corner of the town limits. Already $900 had been raised for building the school from lot sales and subscriptions.
Professor J. Myers was chosen to be the first superintendent of Mantua Seminary. In December 1858, J. Myers, A. M. and his wife Mrs. M. B. Myers, had been the principals of the Dallas Collegiate Institute, Male and Female. (Dallas Herald, Dec. 8, 1858, Portal to Texas
History, https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1566781/m1/4/.) Myers became the superintendent for the Mantua Seminary in 1860.
The Mantua Seminary was to be for males and females. It was to have two sessions annually at a fee of ten to twenty dollars a class per session.
McKinney Messenger advertisement, June 1, 1860
“Mantua Seminary
Male and Female
Mantua, Collin County, Texas
The second session of this Institution, will commence on the first Monday of August Next, (1860), under the superintendence of J. Myers, A. M. and lady, with a competent corps of assistants.
1st Class – Orthography, Reading, Writing, Primary Arithmetic and Geography - $10.00
2nd Class – English, Grammar, Arithmetic, Geography, History, Etc. - $12.00
3rd Class - The above continued with the higher English branches - $17.00
4th Class – Classics, Latin, Greek &c - $20.00
Modern Languages, Embroidery, Drawing and Painting and Music on the Piano Forte, The usual prices of the country.
Charge made from time of entrance to close of term – no deduction except for protracted illness.
Tuition bills due at the end of Term. N. B. Boarding can be had in private families on reasonable terms.
We, the undersigned, take pleasure in recommending the above-named institution to the public, as richly meriting patronage, not only on account of its liberal literary advantages, but also its moral and religious atmosphere; the place being well supplied with Churches, and the vending of spiritous liquors prohibited within the town limits. The health of the neighborhood is unexcelled.
Jas. Laf. Leslie, David C. Wilson, J. M. Douthet, J. S. Kelley, Wm. D. Lair, James S. Patte, E. B. Rollins, Wm. C. McKinney, June 1, 1860”
Classes were first held in the Mantua Seminary in January of 1861. The teaching staff consisted of Professor J. Myers, A.M. and his wife M. B. Myers, and 3 more teachers. One of the additional teachers was James R. (J. R.) Wilmeth. The information for the January 1861 session comes from the diaries of J. R. Wilmeth and his wife.
J. R. Wilmeth was a son of early Collin County settler, J. B. Wilmeth. He graduated from Bethany College in Virginia in 1858. When he returned to Texas, he built a school called Beacon Grove on his property north of McKinney. He taught there in 1860.
In 1861 Wilmeth signed on to teach for the Mantua Seminary. He lived 11 miles south of Mantua near McKinney. He would leave his home on Sunday afternoons to go to Mantua; he taught spelling, reading, and writing essays during the week; and he would return home on Friday nights to be with his family for the weekend.
The 1861 school session at the Seminary started on January 21 with 23 students. Throughout the session new students were added, reaching a total of 30 by the middle of April. In February of that year Carroll McKinney and his family donated a blackboard to the school. J. R. Wilmeth’s wife Maria joined him in March to help teach his classes. The closing day for the session was on May 16, 1861.
Civil War
On April 15, 1861, three days after the attack on Fort Sumter, President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation calling for 75,000 militiamen to suppress the Southern rebellion and repossess federal property. This act officially signaled the beginning of the Civil War for many, prompting several states to secede.
The residents of Collin and surrounding counties voted against secession from the United States. They thought it would be better to stay in the Union and try to negotiate issues than to secede and go to war. However, when the state of Texas voted to secede, the residents readily volunteered. The Mantua Company of Mounted Volunteers was formed on June 8, 1861. It became part of Company D, 6th Regiment, Texas Cavalry Brigade. It was sometimes referred to as the Mantua Guard.
The Seminary was almost depleted of students during the war. When the war ended, Seminary trustees threatened to sue the Masonic Lodge for not completing its contract to construct a new school building. Construction of the second Seminary building got underway.
The new school house was a 2-story building with 16 rooms. Burem Henderson Moore, wife of Dr. S. D. Moore, recalled that on top of the Seminary’s second story there was an observatory, which offered quite a view of the countryside.
Capt. James L. Greer was named the principal of the Mantua Seminary in 1867. He had moved to Collin County in 1867 and had been a Captain in the Confederate Army. The Seminary grew after the War with a top enrollment in 1868 of 80 pupils and a staff of eight teachers. Greer taught at the Mantua Seminary for 4 years before it was moved to Van Alstyne. He eventually moved to McKinney and served on the school board there for many years. The North Ward School in McKinney was renamed the James L. Greer School.
Railroad
In 1870 the town of Mantua had a population of about 50. The voting precinct consisted of about 1620 residents. The Houston and Texas Central Railroad came through the area in 1872 connecting Houston with the Oklahoma border. It bypassed Mantua to the east, creating the several towns along the way, including Van Alstyne and Anna. Most of the residents and businesses of Mantua moved to the new towns within a few of years. The Seminary was moved to Van Alstyne in 1872, and Capt. Greer taught there one year.
The Mantua Seminary building was torn down and the materials reused in the construction of Mantua School, Collin County District #57, a one-story building that was erected on the site of the old school. The Mantua School District #57 lasted into the 1940s. There are no remnants of Mantua today, except a small cemetery.
Reunion
A Mantua Seminary Reunion of the former pupils and teachers of the school was held in August 1903 in Mantua. Twenty-five hundred people attended the event. At 1:30 in the afternoon the former students assembled on the rostrum. Greer called the roll, which contained 310 names. Of this number, fifty answered - many of them were prominent men from different parts of the state, who testified that they attributed their success in life to the early training received from Capt. Greer at Mantua Seminary.
