HALLIBURTON SCHOOL 1860’s was in the Rucker Community. The 1878 Beers Map shows it to have been on the south side of the Rucker Road just east of the railroad.
The school was held in a residence owned by the Halliburtons who had a spare room.
The teacher was “a little woman” named Sarah Elizabeth Key Miller, b. December 19, 1839, ‘‘Who had her back broken when child.”
The school was a private school for all the children in the neighborhood. The cost was about two dollars a month. Federal Judge Tiliman Davis Johnson was a student before 1868. In his “Memoirs” he recalled that books used about this time were Ray’s Arithmetic, Davies Arithmetic, Webster’s Spelling, McGuffey’s Readers. Both mental and written arithmetic were stressed. Capitals and small letters of the alphabet were learned. Teachers were good but did not have to pass examinations. Students could read in six or eight weeks.
A particular incident Tillman remembered was this: There was a stream between his home and the school. During one rainy period, his mother sent his brother Robert on Old Beck, the horse, to see whether Tillman had been able to ford the stream. Robert returned to his mother to tell her “yes,” and Tillman walked the rest of the way home.
SOURCES: Tillman Davis Johnson, “Memoirs” Tillman Johnson was born Jan. 8, 1858 . The “Memoirs” was contributed by Dorothy Fingers Barringer, a niece. John Bailey Nicklin, comp., The Millers of Millersburg Nashville:
Brandon Printing Co., 1923. The book is owned by William Miller.