Boring School, 1885-1919

Photo courtesy of Karen Case

BORING SCHOOL 1885-c 1919 was located in District 4 on the west side of the Almaville-Smyrna Road at the intersection of Burnt Knob Road. Sterling Brown Boring and wife Elizabeth on October 10, 1885, sold one-half acre of land to William T. Edwards, Richard K. Spann, and James L. Anderson for a schoolhouse in consideration of one hundred dollars. The name S.B. Boring is on the 1878 Beers Map.

The one-teacher school, grades 1-8, was held in a one-room, weatherboarded building with windows on each side and one front door. Walls were painted black for blackboards.

Photo courtesy of Karen Case

Some of the teachers were Pattie Wade in 1906, Florence Brandon Johnson, Anna Bell Becton, Lockie Wilkinson Lewis, Mary Belle Bennett, Annie Manson King.

In 1905-1906 the School Board members were T.H. Williamson, T.A. Richardson, and J.E. Manson.

Mary Sue Bethel Heaton, b. March 3, 1882, was an early student. A souvenir of 1905-1906 gives the names of additional students who might be in the 1907 picture: Carl and Homer Alsup; Aubrey, Bessie, and Ira Bazil; Anna Pearl, Jessie, Warrnuth Cunningham; Hattie Mai, Johnnie, Robert, Tom, Walter Edwards; Annie, Alfred, Charlie, Nannie Elliott; Lizzie and William Henry Foster; Flora and Jim Hayes; Reed McRae; Eda and Ella Primm; Beulah Roulett; Willie Russel; Sue Jordan; B. and Willie Snell; Tom and Roy Vaughan; Maggie Wheeler; Florence, Hattie, and Lucy Whitley.

Photo courtesy of Karen Case

The Rutherford County Board of Education sold to John T. Lewis and J.H. Lewis on October 22, 1919, the lot and schoolhouse known as BORING SCHOOL for two hundred dollars.

J.T. Lewis bought the Boring farm while the school was still in operation. He bought it for his mother who then moved into the house. Later, John C. and Judy Lewis Simpson, a niece of J.T. Lewis, bought the property. The school building was used for farm crops and machinery. It still stands in 1986.

SOURCES: Deed Book 28, p. 416; Book 62, p. 385. Interviews, June 7, 1984, with Judy Lewis Simpson, daughter of Myrtle Wheeler; with Katherine Harris Wood, daughter of Eva McClaran Harris; July 10, 1984, with Sam Lee Heaton Weatherly, daughter of Mary Sue Bethel Heaton; May 14, 1984, with Lewis Pitts, b. 1892. *Louise Hilliard, daughter of Mary Lee Wheeler.

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