SHILOH SCHOOL BLACK 1874-1967 was on the north side of Hall’s Hill Road about three and one-half miles from Murfreesboro.
On July 30, 1874, Elizabeth Smith, Mary M. Harris, and Sam Harris deeded one acre of land on the Murfreesboro-Liberty Hill Pike to school commissioners. The lot was bordered by the property of Johnson. On November 27, 1940, Rose Anna Ransom sold to the Rutherford County Board of Education eight-tenths acre of land next to the old school lot; and on December 6, 1956, Chalmers Brown and William Lee Sowell and their wives sold 5.303 acres.
The first school served about eight other communities. “About 100 students, ages ranging from five to thirty, by foot for miles, carrying their tin buckets of cold biscuits and potatoes” came to Shiloh. “During the two and Sometimes three months school terms, they sat on long wooden benches as they had their recitations” of reading, writing, and arithmetic. In winter, the potbellied stove furnished heat. There were no windows. “The front door provided the fresh air talked about in the physiology class.”
The school burned three times during which times school was held in the homes of John M. Burkes and Horace Hicks and in the Walnut Grove and Nelson Chapel Churches.
About 1939 the frame school, which was by now a two-teacher school, was remodeled. It had a well on the ground, a kitchen, and two jacketed heaters. In the early 1940’s, a two-room,concrete block building was constructed with small windows near the roof-line. On January 27, 1958, GLADEVIEW, EMERY, and SHILOH were consolidated in a new brick SHILOH SCHOOL. It had a central heating system, ‘cafetorium’, modern kitchen, and indoor plumbing. In 1963 the lunchroom received an A rating and in September of 1963 a new classroom was added.
The first schoolmaster was Anderson Cooper. Other principals included Ben Woods, Beulah Miller, Susie Minter in 1890, Bertha Green, Cordelia Butler, Lucile Butler, Bertha Blackman in 1917, Stella Howse in 1918, Jennie
Hartwell in 1919, Al Black, Mary Black, Golena Rucker, Nannie Watkins, Marietta Black, Stella Butler, Mrs. Scales in 1920, Marie Witherspoon, and Grace Witherspoon, who was principal when the schools consolidated in 1958. Later teachers were Helena Alexander Sanders, Mrs. N. G. Rucker,
Mrs. W. K. Rucker, Miss A. M. Rucker, Mrs. Joe W. Robinson, Nannie Smith Rucker, Annie Zachary, and Willa K. Kimbro Foster.
Areas of instruction in the consolidated school included the arts, health and physical education, language arts, science and conservation, mathematics, and social studies. The school met the state’s minimum requirements.
In 1967 the school closed. The COUNTY SPECIAL SCHOOL then used the building and the teachers were instrumental in having the name changed to the DANIEL McKEE SCHOOL. The school is now the school for the
severely handicapped.
SOURCES: Deed Book 20, p. 365; Book 111, P. 497; Book 119, p. 476. “Shiloh School History Dates from 1879,” The Daily News Journal, Nov. 13, 1963, p. 10. *R. T. Butler, d. April 5, 1986. *Willie K. Kimbro Foster. *Nannie George Flowers Smith Rucker.