Montgomery Bell Academy - Bell Yearbook (Nashville, TN)

Page 14 text:

0 C33 S OEEsife i ' - :. V - ■ . -. ■ ' ■- ' ' o Western Military Institute, which be me the literary i department of the t iversity under the name of the Nashville Military College, thus became one of the d!s- | tinguished ancestors of MBA. The boys, who studied the manual of arms nd close order drill irf this schot , were to fight on a; ' hundred bloody battlefields of the ' Civfl War. It W|LS during this period that Sam Davis, a farrn boy from Smyrna in Rutherford..County, signed hi| naihe on the roll book of the military school. As thous ncK of other boys, Sam was soon- ught up in the’ ' holocaust of war, but ' none would Be better remembered nor more honored than he. In November, 1863, at Pulaski, Tennessee, Sam Davis was hanged by Federal troops He chose to die rather-i-than betray a friend. His home today is a public shrine, and his statue stands on the grounds of the Ten- nessee State Capitol. The roll book he signed was the same one used by the old Western Military Institute, gokag back to 1847. This book is still used as the Register for MBA students. 4 i

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Montgomery Bell Academy opened in 1867 supported by the bequest of Montgomery Bell, a Pennsylvanian who came to Dickson County, Tennessee around 1800. In 1804, he purchased the Cumberland iron furnace from James Robertson and soon expanded his iron nace holdings. “It was by reason of his financial success, states the history of Davidson County, “that more than 30 furnaces shed their ruddy light over the western iron belt previous to the war.” Montgomery Bell died in 1855 at the age of 86. Froin his considerable fortune, he left $20,000 to the Uni- versity of Nashville. The interest from this sum was to be appropriated for the ' support of an academy or school to be called the Montgomery Bell Academy forever.” This sum was too small to start an academy at that time. The trustees of the University invested the money under the care of Dempsey Weaver of the Planters’ Bank in Nashville and by 1867, it had grown to $46,000. At this time John Berrien Lindsley opened Montgomery Bell Academy. From its earliest times, MBA offered scholarships to “deserving and needy students.” According to the Bell will, these were to go to 25 boys — 10 from Davidson County and five each from Montgomery, Williamson and Dickson Counties. lO