William Winston Fontaine (1834-?), a great-grandson of Patrick Henry, was a school founder and administrator. During the Civil War Fontaine served as a colonel in the Richmond Artillery and participated in military engagements such as the Battle of Seven Pines and the Battle of Richmond. In 1864 he was captured scouting behind enemy lines and, in June of 1865, was released on parole. The family plantation, Fontainebleau, was destroyed during the war.
Fontaine moved to Fredericksburg, Virginia, and founded the Spotswood Female Institute after the war, then moved to Texas in 1870. He taught at Port Sullivan College in Milam County, Texas. During his presidency of Baylor Female Institute (1871-1875), he organized the Texas Female Institute at Austin. While directing a boarding school for girls in Louisville, Kentucky (1880-1886) he founded William Carey Crane College, at Independence, Texas, where he taught until 1889.
Source : Handbook of Texas Online, s.v. Fontaine, William Winston, http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/FF/ffo6.html (accessed May 20, 2010).
From the guide to the Fontaine, W. W. Papers, 1658-1916, (Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin)
