Payne Theological Seminary began as Union Seminary in West Jefferson, Ohio, established by the Ohio Conference of the African Methodist Church on October 18, 1844. In 1856, the Cincinnati Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church North purchased Tawawa Springs, a defunct health resort, to open Wilberforce University for people of African descent, naming it for British abolitionist William Wilberforce. The institution closed in 1862 because of low enrollment and dwindling funds, but AME Bishop Daniel Alexander Payne purchased the school for $10,000, and it reopened in 1863 after Union Seminary closed and its assets were merged. In 1895, Wilberforce University's theology department separated to become Payne Theological Seminary, named in honor of Bishop Payne, and it is the oldest free-standing African American seminary in the United States.