Ann James, a teacher at the Fayetteville Female Seminary, left that position to start a female seminary in the Mount Comfort community in 1848, complementing the male Ozark Institute that had been operating since 1845.
James was born in London, England, the daughter of missionary parents. She came to America in the mid-1840s, joining family and friends in the Boston area where she continued training in missionary and social service.
She responded in 1847 to an open invitation from Sophia Sawyer through the Boston Woman’s Missionary Society seeking a teacher to supervise a high school department for Native American girls at the Fayetteville Female Seminary.
She and Sawyer did not see eye-to-eye on educational matters, and Robert Mecklin, leader of the Ozark Institute, suggested that James open a female seminary in Mount Comfort.
James operated the seminary for three years before meeting and marrying Lewis Sylvester Marshall, a traveling Methodist minister. They moved to Pine Bluff, and the school closed about 1851.