McAlpine, Rev. W. H., at present teacher of Ministers’ and Deacons’ Institute, under the appointment of the Southern Baptist Mission Board, was born in Buckingham county, Virginia, June, 1847. At the age of three years, he, his mother and a younger brother were brought to this state by a “Negro speculator,” who sold them to a Rev. Robert McAlpine, of Coosa county. At the age of 8 years and on the occasion of the death of this Presbyterian minister, he became the property (?) of Dr. McAlpine, with whom he remained till the close of the war. In this family he was the nurse of the white children for about ten years. As Mrs. Dr. McAlpine was very anxious and cautious as to the quality of the first moulding influences touching the childhood of her children, and as the schools around were hardly up to her ideal, she had her children instructed at home. As the nurse’s position placed him and kept him in constant association with the children, and as he was possessed of a literary turn of mind, he soon began to imbibe a knowledge of letters, advancing into reading, writing, grammar, geography and arithmetic. From 1855 to 1874 he saw nothing of his mother, and for sixteen years of this time did not know where she was. Naturally this incident started a train of serious reflections touching the facts and hopes of human life. About the year 1864 or 1865 he was converted to Christianity and some time after was baptized into the Talladega Church (white) by his friend, Dr. Renfroe. At the close of the war Mr. McAlpine first worked at the carpenters’ trade, which he left for school teaching. In the winter of 1866 he entered the Talladega College, supporting himself by laboring during the morning and evening hours--before the opening and after the close of the school. In 1873 he severed his connection with this institution, having been aroused to undertake the establishment of a similar institution for his own denomination. In 1871 he was ordained to the work of the gospel ministry, and accepted a call to the pastorate of the Mt. Canaan Baptist Church, Talladega, which he resigned in 1875 in order to give his whole time to his school project.