Davis Attends Jefferson College in Mississippi

Jefferson Davis was born in Christian County, Kentucky on June 3, 1808.

He was the youngest of ten children. In 1818, Davis attended Jefferson College in Mississippi, before transferring to Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky. In 1824, Davis entered the United States Military Academy and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in 1828.

A few miles to the east in Washington is Historic Jefferson College (1802–63; 1866–1964), which Jefferson Davis briefly attended; it was on its campus under the “Burr Oaks” that Aaron Burr was given one of his trials for treason (1807), and there the state’s first constitutional convention was held (1817) in a Methodist...