From the beginning, Baptist settlers in Minnesota desired to give their young people a biblical education. Rev. Cressey put feet to that desire in 1854 when he wrote the charter for
Mark H. Dunnell
Minnesota Central University (MCU), the institution that would later become Pillsbury Baptist Bible College. Mark H. Dunnell, who was instrumental in locating the school in Owatonna, experienced the heartthrob of early Minnesota Baptists. Larry Pettegrew quotes Dunnell’s thoughts on Christian education in his book The History of Pillsbury Baptist Bible College:
A spirit of progress animated them. It had its birth in the desire to strengthen their own bands and honor God. An early outcome of this discussion was an act of incorporation, passed by the legislature of the Territory, through the action of the Rev. Timothy R. Cressey, then pastor of the Baptist church at St. Paul, creating the Minnesota Central University. The board of directors provided for in the act of incorporation elected Rev. Timothy Cressey as president. Committees were appointed on location and the collection of funds. (2)
Dunnell was writing about Pillsbury Academy in The History of Education in Minnesota published by the Government Printing Office in 1902. Other institutions of higher learning mentioned in this history include the University of Minnesota; Carleton College, Northfield; Hamline University, St. Paul; and Macalester College, St. Paul.
The charter for MCU called for twenty-two men to serve as trustees. The Board of Trustees would be supplemented with members elected by “the Minnesota Baptist Association or such other Baptist Association as may hereafter be formed within the bounds of this Territory.” At least four of the trustees needed to be from the Baptist Association. This association in 1854 was the Twin City Baptist Association and not the statewide organization it would become in a few years.
The Board of Trustees voted to build the new university in Hastings when residents there donated $30,000 for the first building. The cornerstone was laid in 1857 with great pomp and ceremony. Led by the Prescott band, the procession wound its way to the building site. Ex-Governor Alexander Ramsey, Governor Henry Hastings Sibley, and Rev. T.R. Cressey participated in the procession.
When the Panic of 1857 struck, MCU faced its first financial setback before opening its doors. Dunnell described the panic “like a thunderstorm from a clear sky.” He went on to say that those who had invested in the new university “felt its killing blow. It was the thing which ended the great enterprise.” (215) The next year Timothy Cressey returned East in hopes of raising money, but Dunnell said he “went forth with a few dollars of his own in his pocket, but came back with none of his own money left and not a dollar for the university.” (215-16)
Not willing to let the university die, the Baptist church in Hasting, third largest church in Minnesota Territory, took on most of the financial responsibility for the school. Enough progress was made so that the church’s pastor, Rev. TF Thickstun, began teaching students in April 1859.
