Dunlora Academy

In 1830, the newly formed Virginia Baptist Education Society sought to establish a “seminary of learning” to train ministers. The Rev. Edward Baptist, a founder of the Education Society, was appointed teacher and opened a provisional academy one mile northeast of here at Dunlora plantation, his residence. Ann Hickman, Dunlora’s owner and a relative of Baptist’s wife, Eliza, provided lodging and board to the students. The labor of enslaved African Americans sustained the plantation and thus supported the academy. The school led to the formation of Virginia Baptist Seminary in Henrico County in 1832, which became Richmond College in 1840 and evolved into the present-day University of Richmond.