Old School Names were often Descriptive

As published by the Daily News Journal, Sunday, January 22, 2012

By Greg Tucker, President of the Rutherford County Historical Society

Rural education in 19th century Rutherford County could have been a Hard Start with Little Hope for a Last Chance to ascend that Happy Hill of knowledge.

The rural “subscription” schools — private schools organized by entrepreneurial educators or local families — and even some of the earliest public schools in remote communities often had imaginative and descriptive names.

Hard Start School was built on a knob behind the Church of Christ, and across from the Baptist Church, on Miller Road in the Christiana community. It was a log schoolhouse built in 1872, according to the written memoirs of Judge Tillman D. Johnson who was among the first students. Johnson recalled that the first teacher came from Boston and was called “Brandy.” After a year, James Laughton became the only teacher, and in 1877 Johnson, the former student and later Judge, taught at Hard Start.

History does not explain the name for this first school in Christiana, but perhaps “hard start” was meant to be descriptive of the early educational challenges in this rural, railroad community in the 1870s. Hard Start closed when the Hermitage Academy was opened in 1878 by B.N. White (a local physician), I.M. Miller, A.J. Brandon (the first teacher) and others. The Academy, like Hard Start, was a subscription school, but became part of the county system before it closed in 1908.

Little Hope was a predominantly black community north of Blackman in the decades following the Civil War. According to local lore, a visiting preacher at the Baptist Church, disappointed in the turnout for his message, declared that there was “little hope” for that community. The name stuck and Little Hope School opened for black children in 1894. (White students in this area attended Brown’s Chapel School, established in 1876.)

The first Little Hope schoolhouse was built of logs and brush on property donated by Bird Peebles, a black landowner. The earliest teacher remembered by former students was Sam Cincinnati. The last of four schoolhouses used by Little Hope was a two-room, concrete structure built in 1940 by the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Little Hope closed in October 1965. Faculty through seven decades included Laura and Josie Blackman, Cordela Ransom, Myrtle and Lydia Glanton, Andrewine Seward, and Bertha Green.

Contemporaneous with Little Hope was Last Chance, a predominantly black community near the Bedford County line on what is now the Newton Road due south of Versailles. Area black students were attending the Last Chance School in the closing years of the 19th century, but little more is known about the school or the community. The “last chance” name may have reflected the difficult circumstances of the post-Civil War period.

A positive contrast with “little hope” and “last chance” was Happy Hill School, which opened in the black community on Marshall Knob in 1913. A one-room frame building was built against a rock wall on the east side of the Shelbyville turnpike where the county rock quarry now operates. The land was deeded to the county school board by C.C. Henderson, publisher of the Murfreesboro News-Banner. A kitchen and dining area were eventually added to the school.

In 1948 the original schoolhouse was demolished and the Happy Hill School was relocated to Rucker Road between the Shelbyville turnpike and the railroad. Marietta Fagan was the school cook in both locations. Asa Lytle drove the bus. Teachers included Josephine Blackman, Annie Ransom, Andreween Seward and Willie C. Miller.

Happy Hill was closed and the students moved to the black Christiana School in 1952.

Possibly the first free school in the county was Black Gnat Academy, a private school on the west bank of Overall Creek a few hundred yards north of the bridge over the Franklin turnpike. The school was built and funded by James Moore King, owner of a large plantation, for his children and neighboring families in 1850. The small schoolhouse was built of logs with one door, two windows and a large stone fireplace.

The “black gnat” name, according to King descendants, referenced the swarms of black gnats that came up from the creek bank during the warm months. Family names of Black Gnat students included King, Batey, Beesley, Blackman, Baskin, Floyd and Vaught. The school closed in 1881 when Kingwood Academy, a county school, opened a mile west on the Franklin Pike.

 

Kelley Chapel School opened on the Eagleville to Shelbyville turnpike, about three miles south of Eagleville, in 1886. It was a county school for white students on property sold to the county school directors by the Kelley family for $25. Near the turn-of the century, the Kelley schoolhouse was used for black students and was called Lizzard Lick School. The name was never documented or formalized, but “lizzard lick” may have been the name used informally to identify the local black community. The school was closed and the property eventually sold in 1929 for $50.

Uncle Dave Macon is said to have influenced the naming of Loafer’s Rest School. Originally named Walnut Grove School when founded in 1881, the school was on the south side of the Woodbury Pike at the Mt. Herman Road intersection. Jim Anderson owned the grocery on the corner. Allegedly at the suggestion of Uncle Dave, Anderson named his store “Loafer’s Rest” and the community and school came to be known by the same name.

Loafer’s Rest was a one-teacher, county school for white children. Early teachers included Dora Rooker, Nannie Todd, Alta Hall, Fanny Snell and Nick Lowe. After the school closed in 1913, Floyd Weeks drove a two-horse school-wagon from Loafer’s Rest to Kittrell.

Little is known of Sheephouse School, a subscription school run by Virginia McElroy in the late 1800s. Located east of Halls Hill Pike on Northcutt Road near the county line, it was so-named because the McElroy family used the schoolhouse to shelter the sheep flock when school was not in session.

Finally, there was Toe Nail School located west of Midland (originally Middleton) near the county line. Charles McBride gave land for the school before the Civil War and the school originally was called McBride School. The school yard was enclosed by a rail fence. The building was of rough lumber with homemade furnishings. Teachers included Lena and Viola Chick, Ola Gill, Frusanna Crockett, and Carrie Mitchell.

Some of the Toe Nail student family names were Wheelhouse, Smotherman, Faulkner, Lamb, Boyce, Pope and Holden. The school closed around 1912 and the building was later used as a church and barn.

Local lore alleges that the school earned the “toe nail” name because of the barefoot injuries on the rough wooden floor. More likely, the name was applied because the school, like those it served, was thought to be “small and insignificant.”

Greg Tucker can be reached at [email protected].