Founded as Augusta Female Seminary in 1842 by Rufus W. Bailey, Mary Baldwin College is the oldest institution of higher education for women in the nation affiliated with the Presbyterian Church. Among its first students, totaling 57 young women (paying as much as $60 per semester to attend), was Mary Julia Baldwin. Lauded by the school’s board of trustees for her boldness, intellect, and philanthropic characteristics, Ms. Baldwin was given the challenge of leading the seminary through a turbulent era. In 1863, she was named principal of the seminary and saw the institution through the Civil War, even though all other schools in the area had closed due to the depressed economy and dangerous conditions of the wartime South. Augusta Female Seminary was renamed Mary Baldwin Seminary in 1895 in honor of Miss Baldwin, and became Mary Baldwin College in 1923.