"Governor of the State of Mississippi."
The "announcement" for the initial term appeared in the Mississippi State Gazette, of Oct. 24th, 1818, a paper published in Natchez, and was signed by B. R. Grayson, Secretary of the Board of Trustees.
The Academy opened its doors to pupils November 12th, 1818, under the presidency of Chilion F. Stiles, and with Mrs. Jane B. Sanderson as "Governess." Of the first President, and the first Lady Principal of that first college for young ladies in all the Southwest, the distinguished Dr. William Winans thus writes most interestingly in his manuscript autobiography:
"Chilion F. Stiles was a man of high intellectual and moral character, and eminent for piety. The Governess was Mrs. Jane B. Sanderson, a Presbyterian lady of fine manners, and an excellent teacher, but subject to great and frequent depression of spirits. This resulted, no doubt, from the shock she had received from the murder of her husband a few years previously by a robber____Though a Presbyterian, and stanch to her sect, she acted her part with so much prudence and liberality as to give entire satisfaction to her Methodist employers and patrons. Some of the most improving, as well as most agreeable hours, of relaxation from my official duties were at the Academy in the society of Brother Stiles, who combined, in an eminent degree, sociability of disposition, good sense, extensive information on various subjects, and fervent piety, rendering him an agreeable and instructive companion. He was the only person I ever knew who owed his adoption of a religious course of life to the instrumentality of Free Masonry. He was awakened to a sense of his sinfulness in the process of initiation into that fraternity. Up to that time he had been a gay man of the world, and a skeptic, if not an infidel in regard to the Christian religion. But so powerful and effective was the influence upon him by somewhat in his initiation, that from that hour he turned to God with purpose of heart, soon entered into peace, and thenceforth walked before God in newness of life, till his pilgrimage terminated in a triumphant death."
Mr. Stiles was succeeded in the presidency by Rev. John C. Burruss of Virginia, an elegant gentleman, a finished scholar and an eloquent preacher. The school greatly prospered under his administration, as it continued to do under his immediate successor, Rev. Dr. B. M. Drake, a name that will ever live among us as the synonym for consecrated scholarship, perfect propriety, unaffected piety, and singular sincerity. In 1833 Dr. Drake resigned the presidency in order to devote himself entirely to pastoral work, and was succeeded by Rev. J. P. Thomas; and in 1836 he gave way to Rev. Bradford Frazee of Louisville, Ky. Rev. R. D. Smith, well known throughout the Southwest for his rare devotion, was called to the president's chair in 1839.
Some of the by-laws adopted by the Board of Trustees for the government and regulation of the Academy, recall in a measure the rigid and elaborate rules prescribed by John Wesley for the school at Kingswood. A few of these by-laws I here reproduce.
"The President of the Academy____shall be reputed for piety and learning, and for order and economy in the government of his family. If married he shall not be less than thirty, and if unmarried, not less than fifty years of age____.
"The Governess____shall be pious, learned, and of grave and dignified deportment____She shall have charge of the school, its order, discipline, and instructions, and the general deportment and behavior of the pupils who board in or out of commons____.