CENTRAL ACADEMY, also called BRICK ACADEMY before 1855-1878 was on one acre of land deeded by Levi Wade on March 31, 1855. The site of the schoolhouse was in old District 7 on a stage coach road. It would be in the present District 6 on Burleson Road, southwest of the old Nashville Turnpike, between Baker and Florence Roads. The site of the school and the name L. Wade are shown on the 1878 Beers Map.
Trustees were Isaac Burleson, Jesse Sikes, Joseph Watkins, Richard Hazelwood, James Bass, Patterson Miles, C. L. Davis, B. W. Henry, Jackson Smith, George Howse, W. D. Neal, and John W. Richardson. Provisions were made in the deed that the Trustees would “repair said Academy lately burned for a seminary for youth of both sexes.” If the property was used for any other purpose, it was to revert to Levi Wade or to the Wade family.
Isaac Burleson died in 1865, but in 1878 the names Mrs. J. A. Burleson, Mrs. J. Sikes, G. W. Howse, J. W. Richardson, J. J. Bass, and J. W. Smith are on the map.
Kate Burleson Talley, b. 1857, the daughter of Isaac Burleson, and Judge John W. Richardson attended the old BRICK ACADEMY.
By the time Haskell Burleson Talley, son of Kate Burleson, was born in 1877 and ready for school, the school was no longer in existence.
SOURCES: Deed Book 7, p. 418. Interview, October 14, 1985, with Fannie Batey Talley, whose husband was Haskell Burleson Talley, grandson of Isaac Burleson.