About Reverend Fontaine
Jacob Fontaine was born into slavery in Arkansas in 1808. His owners were several in number, but the most influential one was Rev. Edward Fontaine, a Virginia native who moved to Austin, Texas in 1839 and served as the personal secretary of Texas president Mirabeau B. Lamar. A benevolent slave-owner, Rev. Edward Fontaine is believed to have been instrumental in the educational and religious development of Jacob Fontaine.
Even before the emancipation of Texas slaves, Jacob Fontaine was on record as a minister. He was ordained on June 19, 1865, and performed his first marraige on March 15, 1866. Over the next couple of decades, Fontaine would establish several churches, beginning with the First (Colored) Baptist Church of Austin, where the Austin History Center now stands.
In addition to being a religious leader, he published The Gold Dollar in 1875, one of the first black newspapers west of the Mississippi River. During Reconstruction he was an entrepreneur, having launched a grocery, laundry and book store. As a minister, publisher and entrepreneur, it followed that Rev. Jacob Fontaine became a civic and political leader. In fact, he emerged as one of the leading advocates for the establishment of the University of Texas at Austin. Fontaine travelled throughout the state of Texas and rallied African Americans to exercise their voting rights for the cause of public education. The 1881 election proved successful, and what became of the 40-acre site in Austin is history.
Rev. Jacob Fontaine went from slave to free man to leader. His unmarked grave in Austin's Oakwood Cemetery is attended by a Texas Historical Marker, the first black Texan so honored. Fontaine is a most fitting person to give name to this organization that acknowledges the many virtues that can come out of the religious life.