James Huckins
{{short description|American Baptist minister and missionary (1807–1863)}}
{{Infobox person
| honorific_prefix = Reverend
| name = James Huckins
| image = James Huckins sketches photo.jpg
| caption = Rev. James Huckins 1902 sketches portrait
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1807|04|08}}
| birth_place = Dorchester, New Hampshire
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1863|08|06|1807|04|08}}
| death_place = Texas
| death_cause =
| resting_place =
| education = Brown University
| occupation = Baptist preacher, editor, churches organizer
| organization = Baptist State Convention of North Carolina
Baylor University
| known_for = Co-founding Baylor University
University of Mary Hardin–Baylor
organizing first Baptist churches in Galveston
| relatives =
}}
Huckins James (April 8, 1807 — August 6, 1863) was an American ordained Baptist minister, the first Southern Baptist missionary of Texas, an educator, and a church organizer.{{Cite web|title=HUCKINS, JAMES|url=https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fhu04|date=2010-06-15|website=tshaonline.org|language=en|access-date=2020-05-25}}{{Cite web|title=James Huckins Family Papers, Inclusive: 1819-1918, undated; Bulk: 1832-1864|url=https://legacy.lib.utexas.edu/taro/baytc/10040/btc-10040.html|last=Huckins|first=James|website=legacy.lib.utexas.edu|language=en|access-date=2020-05-25}}
Background
James was an orphan who was born in Dorchester, New Hampshire and was adopted by a local farmer at the age of six. He was baptized at the age of fourteen.{{Cite book|last=Bebbington|first=David|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=myZJLZ38bsUC&pg=PA62 |title=Victorian Religious Revivals: Culture and Piety in Local and Global Contexts|date=2012|publisher=OUP Oxford|isbn=978-0-19-957548-0|language=en}}
Education and career
He attended Brown University and studied theology. In 1840 he was sent by the American Baptist Home Missionary Society to report on the conditions there. He organized one of the first Baptist churches in Galveston. He also established the first Baptist church in Houston and was editor of the Texas column in Baptist banner. He retired from the Home Missionary Society in 1845 and became a member of the Domestic Mission Board of Southern Baptist Convention due to issues of slavery.{{Cite book|title=Nothing Better Than This Missioi|isbn=978-1602585805|last1=Baker|first1=Eugene W.|date=31 May 2012|publisher=Baylor University Press }}{{Cite web|title=James Huckins: Missionary, church planter, and Baylor Founding Father|url=https://www2.baylor.edu/baylorproud/2017/04/james-huckins-missionary-church-planter-and-baylor-founding-father/|date=2017-04-07|website=BaylorProud|language=en-US|access-date=2020-05-25}} He served as president of the Texas Baptist Association for three terms.
19th century Union
File:Baylor University 1892 front.png
As an influential frontier Baptist minister of Texas in the 19th century, he established schools and churches. He was a member of the Union Association, Baptist Home Mission Society, and the Baptist Educational Society in Texas and was one of the trustees of Baylor University when the institution was established in 1845. In 1859 he left Texas for the Baptist Church of South Carolina as a Confederate Army chaplain.{{Cite journal|last=Carter|first=James E.|date=1986|title=Nothing Better Than This: The Biography of James Huckins, First Baptist Missionary to Texas. By Eugene W. Baker. Baylor University Founders Series 1. Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 1985. xii + 175 pp. $11.95.|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/church-history/article/nothing-better-than-this-the-biography-of-james-huckins-first-baptist-missionary-to-texas-by-eugene-w-baker-baylor-university-founders-series-1-waco-texas-baylor-university-press-1985-xii-175-pp-1195/46FEB3ABB5A337C894D089F196C8E304|journal=Church History|language=en|volume=55|issue=1|pages=145–146|doi=10.2307/3165493|jstor=3165493|s2cid=162299017 |issn=1755-2613}}{{Cite journal|last=Carter|first=James E.|date=March 1986|title=Nothing Better Than This: The Biography of James Huckins, First Baptist Missionary to Texas. By Eugene W. Baker. Baylor University Founders Series 1. Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 1985. xii + 175 pp. $11.95.|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/church-history/article/nothing-better-than-this-the-biography-of-james-huckins-first-baptist-missionary-to-texas-by-eugene-w-baker-baylor-university-founders-series-1-waco-texas-baylor-university-press-1985-xii-175-pp-1195/46FEB3ABB5A337C894D089F196C8E304|journal=Church History|language=en|volume=55|issue=1|pages=145–146|doi=10.2307/3165493|jstor=3165493|s2cid=162299017 |issn=1755-2613}}
Establishment of Mary Hard-Baylor University
He was the founding member of University of Mary Hardin–Baylor in Belton, Texas, in 1839, where he and Rev. Williams Tryon had been sent as a missionary by the Home Mission Board in New York.{{Cite web|title=Our History|url=https://go.umhb.edu/about/history|website=University of Mary Hardin-Baylor|language=en|access-date=2020-05-25}}{{Cite book|last=Early|first=Joseph Everett|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EpLknrGtI7gC&pg=PA85 |title=A Texas Baptist History Sourcebook: A Companion to McBeth's Texas Baptists|date=2004|publisher=University of North Texas Press|isbn=978-1-57441-176-8|language=en}}
Notes
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Huckins, James}}
Category:People from Grafton County, New Hampshire
Category:Baylor University people
Category:Brown University alumni
Category:Southern Baptist ministers
Category:University and college founders
Category:Religious leaders from New Hampshire
Category:19th-century Baptist ministers from the United States