A friend of Portier, Cardinal Joseph Fesch, Archbishop of Lyons, was a major benefactor to the fledgling College, donating his philosophical and theological library and various works of art.

Upon his return from France, Portier rented a hotel next to the college grounds and started the first semester on May 1, 1830, with an enrollment of thirty students.

[3][4] In 1836 the governor of Alabama, Clement Comer Clay, signed a legislative act that chartered the college; the following year, four graduates received their degrees.

[citation needed] The first two presidents of the college were called away to be bishops, one to Dubuque, Iowa (Mathias Loras), the other to Vincennes, Indiana (John Stephen Bazin).

Portier transferred the college, first to the French Fathers of Mercy, and next to the Congregation of Jesus and Mary, but both groups lacked teaching and administrative experience.

The college president, Gautrelet, dispatched an urgent message to the assistant secretary of war in Richmond, who granted a temporary reprieve of the brothers' conscription.

[3] After World War II, a great influx of veterans taxed the facilities of the college, which erected numerous temporary buildings on the campus to handle the new students.

It played a significant role in educating the region's plantation owners and slave holders, especially in Louisiana, where many wealthy whites were Catholic.

[3] Even that late start made Spring Hill College comparatively early in educational civil rights for Alabama's African Americans.

In his 1963 "Letter from Birmingham Jail," Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said he "commend[s] the Catholic leaders of this state for integrating Spring Hill College several years ago.

Once alerted, students streamed from both ends of the building carrying whatever items were handy as weapons – golf clubs, tennis rackets, bricks, a softball bat – and put the panicked Klansmen to flight.

The following day, a group of students – male and female – hanged a Klansman in effigy at the college gate, with a sign reading, "KKKers ARE CHICKEN.

"[7] On July 27, 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald spoke at Spring Hill about life in the Soviet Union, at the invitation of his cousin, a student at the college.

[10] Following Hurricane Katrina's widespread destruction along the central Gulf Coast in 2005, Spring Hill accepted 117 students, the majority of them from Loyola University in New Orleans, a sister Jesuit institution, for the remainder of the year.

[citation needed] Spring Hill College offers undergraduate students bachelor's degrees through a variety of majors.

[14] Spring Hill has an academic center in Bologna, Italy; it also accepts study abroad students from other colleges and universities.

The college is a member of the Division II level of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), primarily competing in the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SIAC) for most of its sports since the 2014–15 academic year; while its men's & women's soccer and women's golf teams competes in the Gulf South Conference (GSC).

Spring Hill began to compete in full schedules starting in 2014, but it was not eligible for post-season play until the 2015–2016 school year.

[25] Notable baseball alumni include Blake Stein, former pitcher for the Oakland Athletics and Kansas City Royals, Frank Bolling who won a Gold Glove in 1958 as a 2nd baseman with the Detroit Tigers and went on to be a two time All Star selection with the Milwaukee(Atlanta) Braves.

Frank's brother Milt Bolling who was an infielder for the Boston Red Sox and Jim Hendry, former general manager of the Chicago Cubs.