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Chapter III
Educational and Religious
Situation
The first university of learning in the
Mississippi Valley, being built in East Tennessee, shows that the
people of this
section believe in education. So as soon
as the neighborhood began to prosper, the neighbors gathered together
with their axes to fell the timber for a schoolhouse.
This institution was erected on the land of John Johnson and was
known as Johnson’s Schoolhouse. It was a
small
log house, built as heretofore described consisting of a puncheon
floor,
with a log cut out for a window and almost one end of the house for a
fireplace. I have not ascertained who the
first instructor was, but I have been told one of Samuel McSpadden’s
sons
was probably the first teacher. The wages
of
teachers then ranged from twelve to eighteen dollars and when wages
reached
twenty dollars everybody wanted to follow pedagogy.
The funds to pay the teacher were acquired from the rents of the
school land, and corn was worth from fifteen to twenty-five cents a
bushel
and from other farm products in proportion. The
teacher began school at sunrise and kept until sunset, with but little
recess. The textbooks consisted of Webster’s Blue Backed Speller and the testament. The exercises of the day were rather
monotonous,
all spelling aloud until Friday afternoon, then a spelling contest
ensued,
in which all engaged that could spell by heart, as it was called. Two of the pupils would throw up “wet or dry”
and the lucky one got first choice of the spellers until all were
chosen. Then the teacher placed the
leading combatants on the floor and pronounced from the spelling book
until a word was missed. The party who
missed took his seat and the next from the same side took the place and
so on until one side was spelled down. This
was called a spelling bee, and the pupils were always glad to see
Friday afternoon come, doubtless from two reasons,
one that it was the only variation from the daily routine of business;
another, that they would get to stay at home Saturday and Sunday. The teachers were not always too ignorant as
some of the young pedagogues of today would have you believe. In fact, I think they were equally advanced in
their profession with other professions or business avocation of that
day
in this section. One man in particular
whom
I have often heard complimented as a fine instructor and many of whose
plans are still in vogue, was King L. Williams. I
went to the public school some eighteen years ago to an old gentleman
by the name of Howard who was one of King L. Williams’ pupils, and he
often spoke of this venerable old instructor’s plans of imparting
knowledge
and in fact followed them himself, and I must say that I have never
seen
anything in the line that excels many of them. If
some of our young teachers of today should happen to stagger on his
plan
of teaching spelling they would go to the country normal and claim to
have
made a great discovery in teaching that art.
There were no church house in the settlement and
but few ministers. So the people would
hold services at the neighbors’ houses, then they began to use
Johnson’s Schoolhouse for a church house. The
boys would have great fun sometimes at these meetings.
If a bat
came in the house while the preacher was preaching, the boys would
gather
up the broom and their hats and kill it while the preacher would take a
rest and then go on with his discourse. On
a certain occasion a preacher by the name of Butcher came to Johnson’s
schoolhouse to preach and found the door fastened against him. It appears that some of the neighbors did not
want
to hear Brother Butcher. It was on Sunday
morning
and the boys told Brother Butcher that they had come on purpose to hear
him preach and if he would preach they would soon clear off a piece of
ground, near the house, large enough for the congregation, and he
should
have a place to preach. To this he
willingly
consented. So the boys took their
pocketknives
and set to work to clean off a place for holding services.
The crowd waited patiently as did Brother Butcher
until all was ready. Perry Howard, who was
a
young man full of fun, told Brother Butcher to ascend the rostrum. Perry made a mark on the ground with a stick
and
said, “Now Butcher, you must stay behind this mark.” to which he agreed. In the midst of the discourse, Brother Butcher
became so animated that he stepped out near the mark.
Perry cried out in a loud voice, “Stand back, Butcher, you are
near
the dead line.” Brother Butcher begged
pardon,
stepped back and enthusiastically finished his sermon.
Such conduct would seem ridiculous now, so would such preaching,
yet
many were converted to the religion of Christ and held out faithful to
the
end. Johnson’s schoolhouse soon became too
small
to accommodate the congregation and the people decided to build
another,
so they built it in the gap of a ridge between the two valleys included
in
the three miles of the settlement. This
spot
is at the foot of a big ridge which is covered with beautiful laurel
which
is evergreen. At the base of this ridge
and near
this particular spot there gurgles from the ground as pretty a stream
of
clear crystal water as ever flowed. When
the
people met to cut the logs for the walls of the building and were
discussing the dimensions of it, they all thought Peter Airheart wanted
to build it too large, so Uncle Peter finally agreed that 20 x 50 was
enough. They got to work to build it. Uncle Peter cut the pole to measure the logs
and instead of making it 20 x 30, he made it some larger.
Soon after it was completed they found it too small and
acknowledged it to Uncle Peter. He then
proudly told them he knew it would be too small and that he had fooled
them and that the house was much larger than it would have been. They then acknowledged
Uncle Peter’s superior ideas. This was
known
as Laurel Hill church and schoolhouse. Preachers
had improved as other things. By this
time,
Methodist circuit riders had been sent to this work and Laurel Hill
became
a Methodist church. Among the first
ministers
were Henry Price, Elijah Still and A.F. Shannon.
I cannot give the exact date of these transactions, but Laurel
Hill church was built sometime in the forties. Laurel
Hill, as had been said, was also a schoolhouse and at this place was
one
of the most brutal teachers that ever kept school in a civilized
country. His name was Foster.
He
was a preacher and a doctor. He was an old
man
and wore a wig and he would take off his wig and throw it at the
children
and scare them almost to death. He would
pitch
a hickory at them, right at their faces, and have them carry it to him,
then
he would whip them. He has been known to
tie
the hair of two boys together and whip them until one would pull the
wisp
out of the other boy’s head. He would make
the
boys jump benches and would strike them as they went over.
On one occasion he told the children he was going to hang one of
the
boys to a joist, which he did for a while, and the child went home,
took
sick and died. The boy’s father did not
law him
because he was the boy’s teacher. Laurel
Hill
still existed as the center of attraction until in the year 1855. Mr. Foster was still keeping school and the
circuit
rider came to preach. As it was customary
at
that time for the circuit rider to preach through the week, there was a
large fire kept on that occasion, the house caught on fire and so ended
Laurel
Hill church house. The people met again
and
soon erected another log house, larger than the first and better in
every
respect. The fireplace did not take up so
much
room and the cracks were well daubed and it had glass windows, in fact
was
quite a comfortable house. It was no
longer
called Laurel Hill, but was called “Lebanon.” Doubtless
this house would have become too small and uncommodious much sooner
than
it did if things had moved on in peace as before. The
war broke out and disturbed the peace and prosperity of the settlement
until
they must be content with a log house in which to educate their
children
and in which to worship God, until about the year 1879, when some of
the
citizens decided a better house should be built in which to worship. Therefore a building committee was appointed
and
the business of building a church was, for the first time, gone about
in
a business manner. This committee
consisted of
five members, as follows: J.S. Roberts, Chairman; W.S. Johnson,
Secretary
and Treasurer; S.M. Thatch, W.P. McSpadden, Garbiel North, Jas. McCarty. Mr. Johnson was Secretary, but was allowed no
vote,
only five being allowed to vote. This
Committee
went about house building in a business-like way and erected a large
commodious
house, well finished, at a cost of about eight hundred dollars and had
a
little money left after it was dedicated. It
still retains the name “Lebanon.” They
still
had to use the old log house for a school and here I spent my first day
in school in the year 1868, I believe. A
long
day it was, too, for I could not touch the floor with my foot and I was
afraid to ask the teacher if I could leave the room.
Shortly after the erection of the church, a good schoolhouse was
built, thus ended log cabin days of what is now Lebanon.
The church and school houses are the pride of every country
community,
as they should be, and I shall now give a short biography of the
building
committee of Lebanon Church.
J.S. Roberts, Chairman, was reared a poor boy
somewhere in the eastern part of Bradley County, come to this
neighborhood when
quite a boy. He was so energetic and full
of business that the boys nicknamed him “Goahead.”
He married Miss Mollie Brown, daughter of the venerable Jacob
Brown,
spoken of heretofore. Soon after the close
of
the war, Mr. Roberts, like many others, had a hard time making a living. He peddled awhile and finally got enough money
ahead to plank up about six feet on his father-in-law’s porch for a
store and put fifty dollars worth of goods in it. This
was the beginning of his mercantile life. He
prospered in this little shanty until he was soon able to box up a
larger place and put in more goods. I have
been told that he, like many others who had grown up about war times,
did not have
enough education to make a calculation if it had fractions in it. The neighbors sarcastically named his little
store “Baltimore.” It rather offended Mr.
Roberts for them to call his little shanty “Baltimore.”
In the course of a few years he was able to build a large
storehouse and
keep a fine assortment of goods. He then
advertised his place as “New Baltimore” and put up guideposts along the
road to
tell the people the way to his place. He
moved to Apison about the time the railroad was completed from Ooltewah
to Cohutta, and sold goods there for a while, then moved to Sherman
Heights,
thence to Cleveland, where he is one of the leading merchants of that
city. Mr. Roberts is a liberal,
kindhearted pleasant man, a little inclined to melancholy.
He gave more toward building Lebanon than anyone else and always
enjoys a
visit to this place.
W.S. Roberts, Secretary of the Board, was born
near Lebanon. He is the son of John
Johnson, and is about forty-five years of age. Mr.
Johnson was a young man when his father died and left him to take care
of his
mother and two other members of the family. He
managed to get a very good education and taught for some time. He married Miss Mary Watkins of Ooltewah and
continued
to live with his mother on the old homestead until her death. He then moved to Ooltewah and sold goods for
a while but was not very successful in the goods business.
He could not say “no” easy enough to become a
successful merchant. Mr. Johnson then
moved
to Sherman Heights where his wife died about a year ago and left him
with
a family of children to care for. They are
getting along well. His only daughter,
Miss
Hattie, is only about thirteen years old but she is like her mother,
very
sensible and a good manager. Mr. Johnson
is
a good citizen, a kind and loving father and a devout Christian
gentleman.
S.M. Thatch was a son of Henderson Thatch and
was
a boy large enough to help his father build their first cabin in this
neighborhood. Mr. Thatch married Elizabeth
Igou,
daughter of John Igou, Esquire, of this place, and raised a large
family
of children. He went to California in 1853
and
endured many hardships on his trip. He
stayed
two years and returned to his wife and six children not so poor as when
he went away. He was a very quiet,
taciturn man,
yet he was a jolly man and loved a joke as well as any one I ever saw. He was a lover of a good horse and always kept
good ones. He was a successful farmer and
blacksmith. He would do the neighbors’
blacksmithing and if he did not pay for it he would never ask him for
it. He was regular in attendance at
Church, always ready to help with the finances of the same, but would
never talk, pray, sing, or take any public part. He
was a man of great firmness, and
anything he said meant something with those who knew him.
He lost his wife, my mother, in the year 1885, and
he never appeared like himself anymore. He
lived
four years after the death of his wife and went home to join her in
paradise.
Gabriel North is a son of George North, of this
section. Mr. North lives about two miles
from Lebanon in the northwest corner of the section I am describing.
Mr. North is a very ambitious man and is one of the best farmers
in the section. He is regular in
attendance at
church and always ready to help with its finances.
In
fact, he is one of the main standbys, Mr.
North
is able in prayer and is the class leader at Lebanon.
He gave liberally toward building the church and is worth a
great
deal in Sunday school. We need more such
men
as Gabriel. Mr. North married Jane Bell
and has
a large family, all girls but one. Mr.
North
is about fifty-six years old.
W.P. McSpadden is a son of Stewart McSpadden and
was raised in this section. He married a
lady
by the name of Smith and they had one son born to them whose name was
Kindry. Kindry died when a young man about
twenty-three years of age. Soon after
Kindry’s birth, Mrs. McSpadden departed this life leaving her husband a
young widower. He then married Evaline
Kelley and raised a large family of children, several of whom are dead. Mr. McSpadden lives near Lebanon and is a
genial, whole-souled man of about sixty. He
helped very liberally in the erection of both the church and
schoolhouse at Lebanon. Mr. McSpadden is a
nice farmer and a splendid mechanic. He
can make most anything of iron or wood.
James W. McCarty lives near Lebanon. He was born and raised in Bradley County, but
not in this section. His father died when
he
was a small boy so his mother had to take