On this day in Alabama history: Future Alabama politician R.E.B. Baylor was born
Lawyer and politician Robert Baylor (1793-1874) is best known as the founder of Baylor University in Waco, Texas. Prior to that, however, he served represented Alabama for one term in the U.S. Congress. This portrait, painted around 1877, is attributed to Henry A. McArdle. (From Encyclopedia of Alabama, Photo used by permission of the Texas Collection, Baylor University)
May 10, 1793
U.S. Rep. R.E.B. Baylor was born in Kentucky. Best known as the founder of Baylor University in Waco, Texas, Baylor moved to the newly created state of Alabama in 1820. He won election to the Alabama Legislature in 1824 and the U.S. House of Representatives in 1827. In 1836, he raised a regiment of Alabama volunteers and fought as a lieutenant colonel against the Creeks in the Second Creek War. A successful attorney and recently converted Baptist, Baylor relocated to the Republic of Texas in 1839, where he served as associate justice of the Texas Supreme Court and chartered Baylor University and the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor.
Read more at Encyclopedia of Alabama.
Baylor University, Waco, Texas, c. 1910. (Haines Photo Co., Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division)
For more on Alabama’s Bicentennial, visit Alabama 200.
