Even though our university's namesake, Rev. Richard Furman, did not get to take part of the planning stages of a new school, the convention honored him as the namesake of the new seminary: Furman Academy and Theological Institution. Throughout these early decades and relocations, Furman weathered financial straits and low enrollment. Its doors were kept open by donations from the Baptist faithful across South Carolina, a state dominated by the slavery economy. Nearly all the university's largest donors and trustees were enslavers, and many of them were planters (a designation given to those who enslaved twenty or more individuals).