December 9, 2021, Murfreesboro City TV Channel 3 The Benevolent Cemetery located off Church Street was covered in brush and broken headstones. Hundreds are buried there including members of the famed Buffalo Soldiers, a black cavalry regiment that fought in various battles including the Spanish-American War. Plans are underway to…
The Rutherford Courier, August 18, 1953 The Ideal Society Club consisted of a group of community servants who believed in fun, fellowship and service! The first mention of the Ideal Social Club in the Daily News Journal was October 3, 1933 (the club began meeting in 1932) when the Club…
July 28, 2021, Carol Robertson White of the Rutherford County Historical Society In 1866, Robinson enrolled on opening day in the new Fisk Colored School at Nashville, founded by the American Missionary Association. Her teaching career began at the age of thirteen. She earned money for tuition and living expenses…
CEMETERY SCHOOL BLACK 1874-1962 was on the southwest side of the old Nashville Highway and just northwest of Asbury Road. It was behind the Stones River Methodist Church. The site of the church is shown on the 1878 Beers Map. On February 9, 1874, Mrs. Eliza Burrus deeded one acre…
Frow Chips, March/April, 2021, Greg Tucker, Rutherford County Historian In 1962, eight years after the U. S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that segregated education was unconstitutional, the Rutherford County school system opened a new segregated school facility on U. S. Highway 231 South. The all black faculty taught black students…
March 10, 2021, Nancy DeGennaro, Daily News Journal In a far corner of Evergreen Cemetery on Highland Avenue near Murfreesboro Police Department headquarters is an open field. It’s lumpy in some places where the ground is visibly sunken. Beneath that fertile soil are the unmarked graves of at least 30 people once enslaved…
Carol Berning, RCHS Frow Chips, January/February, 2021 Just outside the Hazen Brigade Cemetery wall at Stones River National Battlefield stand two military grave stones. They mark the resting place of William Holland (1834-1909) and William Harlan (1895-1979). William Holland began his life as a slave. I have created a brief…
CEDAR GROVE SCHOOL BLACK 1901-1967, also called the JOHN E. WINDROW SCHOOL, was near the Williamson County line. It was on the John Windrow Road about one-half mile north of its intersection with the Rocky Glade Road and across from the Cedar Grove Missionary Baptist Church. On July 27, 1901,…
BEECH GROVE SCHOOL BLACK before 1917-1953, also known as EAGLEVILLE SCHOOL BLACK, was on the south side of the Allisona Road about one mile from Eagleville. Emmett M. Johnson and wife Odie deeded to the County Board of Education one-fourth acre of land for a school house. The deed was…
October 31, 2020 Mary Ellen Vaughn was one tough lady. Born February 24, 1893 near Montgomery, Alabama, Mary Ellen Vaughn moved to Murfreesboro as a young lady to become a force in the local early civil rights movement. From The Murfreesboro Post: “Mary Ellen Vaughn was an entrepreneur and skilled…