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At
the turn of the 19th century, the tiny hamlet of Pleasant
Valley in southwest Mississippi was little more than
a cluster of small farming families. Its first community
building was a Methodist Church. The second was a school.
Reuben Webster Millsaps
was born in Pleasant Valley on May 30, 1833, the second of nine
children. His father, a schoolteacher turned farmer, taught him
a lifelong love of learning and an unshakable respect for the value
of education.
 In
those days, his home state presented no opportunity for higher education,
so Reuben worked his way through college in Indiana and the Harvard
University Law School. Twice wounded during the Civil War, Reuben
attained the rank of Major, which he continued to wear throughout
his remarkable life.
Major Millsaps returned
home after the war to carve out an accomplished career in business,
finance and church leadership. His most enduring legacy, however,
was created in 1890, when he made a personal gift of $50,000,
matched
by contributions from Mississippi Methodists, toward the establishment
of "a Christian college within the borders of our state,"
a college that would bear his name.
The Major devoted the
rest of his life to enthusiastic support of Millsaps College
and
its mission. Yet, even he could not have envisioned the academic
and cultural achievements of this nationally respected institution
during its first century and beyond.
This historical volume
is an attempt to digitally catalogue the history of the College
created over 100 ago by Reuben Webster Millsaps—Millsaps
College.
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