At the center of the Hardin-Simmons University campus, seven ivy-covered gravesites stand in the quiet grove known as the Triangle, where pioneer leaders of the university founded in 1891 are buried. Hardin-Simmons University was the first college in Abilene and one of the oldest Baptist colleges in the state. Dr. James Barlow Simmons, a Baptist pastor, abolitionist, and benefactor, completed funding for Simmons College over a period of years and continued to guide and support the college throughout his life. He also helped establish additional Baptist colleges, seven of which were dedicated to educating newly freed slaves. His wife, Mary Eliza Simmons, a devout Quaker who later became a Baptist, was a philanthropist, scholar, and educator. She died in 1894 and was buried in New York, then in 1901, at her husband's request, her remains were exhumed and brought to Simmons College. When Dr. Simmons died in 1905, he was buried beside her. Their only son, Dr. Robert Stevens Simmons, generously supported Simmons College through service, endowments, and scholarships, and after his death in 1934 in New York, he was buried next to his parents. Others buried there are Dr. Owen Clinton Pope, third president of Hardin-Simmons; his wife, Mary "Mollie" Wilde Pope; Dr. Jefferson Davis Sandefer, sixth president of the university; and his wife, Lucile Sandefer. Through the efforts, vision, and leadership of these men and women, the university's importance in Christian education was established and reinforced.