Scotts Hill High School - Lion Yearbook (Scotts Hill, TN)

Page 8 text:

This picture shows the front of the frame school house erected in the 1880’s to replace the area’s first small log schoolhouse. The date is 1895 after Ben A. Tucker (extreme right rear) had come here to teach. The other teacher is Jim C. Duck, third from left, extreme back. A few of the students shown are still living (1976), - all in their 80’s and 90’s. So in the late 1880’s a frame building was erected, with two large classrooms which dou¬ bled as an auditorium. This house stood about where the gymnasium and east campus entrance now are. This larger building was filled with students in a year or so, making two and then three teachers necessary. First teacher in the new structure was Henri Heuterburg, a German, who left after one year, in 1889. Ben Davis followed (1889-90); then W. Ben and John H. Duck (brothers), 1890-91; Frank and W. Alfred Austin (1891-92); John H. and Jim C. Duck (1892-93); D. S. (Samp) Duck and William Stinson (1893-94); then Jim C. Duck, Ben A. Tucker and Myra Turner (1894-96). School interest had grown so by 1895 that Tucker and others began promotion of a larger school building, to house also a ’’college” department. He had graduated from Hunting¬ don’s Southern Normal University and had served for a term or two as superintendent of Decatur County schools and by now had an unexcelled reputation as a school promoter and administrator. The two-story frame ’’college” building was completed with local labor and materials, in time for the opening of school in September, 1896. It was located a few hundred yards from the old campus, to the northeast - on what is yet known as ’’College Ridge. ” Water for this Scotts Hill College came from a fine spring; heat was by box stoves, often fired by upperclassmen to pay for their tuition who cut the wood from the virgin timber back of the building; there were two large classrooms on the first floor; an auditorium doubled for classes upstairs and also had a stage and siderooms for extra activities and ’’exhibitions” at school closings. A small ’’office” was located also on the first floor and the ’’college” had no library except a few books loaned by teachers. For girls, an antiquated toilet was installed; boys used the deep woods still farther back! Tucker was contracted by the new Board (Henry Austin, A. L. Goff, John Austin, George Swift, Jodie Davidson, P. W. Holmes and J. S. Turner), to head the school ’’provided he 6

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Ben A. Tucker headed the famous old college from its start until his untimely death in 1903. A Method¬ ist leader, he also had a book store and published the weekly newspaper, THE SCOTTS HILL BANNER. Here is the $1,000 Scotts Hill College building erected 1895-96: three teachers; 200-odd boarding and day students; box stove heat; water from a spring; no library! B. A. Tucker with poverty, zeal, hard work, and an obsession to teach, housed here, to unprecedented standing and fame. that year one Samuel P. Winston came in to become our first teacher. He came from Hick¬ ory, N.C., where he had been teaching. The first school house - a small log structure - was built In the Jess Holmes woods just back of the present gymnasium. (Jess and Cynthia Austin gave the site for the building, and several succeeding schools were also built on their donated lands.) My father, J. S. Turner, recalled visiting this first school more than once to hear the scholars recite. The house had two windows closed by shutters in inclement weather, split-log benches, a chimney and fireplace for heat, and only a few books, always shared by students. Winston married Annie, the pretty daughter of the Holmes, in 1875 and thus became the nephew of the town ' s popular doctor, Pleasant W. Austin. Reports were that Dr. Austin soon began efforts to persuade Winston to enroll for a medical course at his (Austin’s) alma mater, the University of Louisville College of Medicine. Since Professor Winston’s salary was so meager ($15 per month) as a teacher, and since he could moonlight by practicing medicine, or vice versa, arrangements were made for Winston to enter medical training. He commuted by steamboat on the Tennessee and Ohio Rivers, made a good record attending the lectures, and still taught school here between terms - never more than three or four months in a year. Graduating in 1884 with an M.D. Degree, Winston was a success as a doctor at once back here. But he had also increased school interest and soon began urging the town to provide better quarters for a school.

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Big events in the short life of the Scotts Hill College were the annual picture-taking and the issuance of cata¬ logs. This picture shows the 1898-99 student body with teachers B. A. Tucker, Prin. (male on extreme left wearing black bow tie); Jim C. Duck, Asst, (male standing, extreme left); and Myra Turner (later, Mrs. John C. Graham), (center, 3rd row from front looking left). teaches the school and maintains the property! ” The salary was fixed at $45 per month, to be paid by tuition charges collected from all students from the ABC’s through three college courses offering the degrees of B. A., B. S. and L. I. Tucker’s main helper was Jim C. Duck and third teachers from time to time included Mintie Turner, Minnie Woodward, Perry Patterson and Myra Turner. Teachers helped col¬ lect the tuition ranging from $1 to $2.50 per month. The school issued annual catalogs; patronage was from several counties and town homes literally opened their doors for board¬ ing students, offering board, washing, and heat at from $4 to $5 per month. Tucker was a great Methodist leader and he also operated a bookstore and published the weekly Scotts Hill Banner. Alumni still living (1976) affirm that no better mathematician ever lived and cite the fact that the ’’college” ran advertisements in newspapers as far away as Nashville and Memphis, offering ”a solution to any problem” sent the school, either by math students or, if students failed, by Tucker himself. A charge for each problem was set at 15 £ and many were they that came in for solution from far and wide. E. D. Brigance, now of Henderson, a college student from its opening day until it closed as such in 1903, states that every problem sent the college was solved to the satisfaction of the sender, except one. Tucker worried much about it but then found out that this problem was a hoax and that a solution was impossible! But alas! Like a meteor flashing across the sky and as suddenly burning out, Tucker’s life ended on March 10, 1903, very likely, later doctors said, of appendicitis. The old ’’col¬ lege spirit” began to wane within weeks though a brother of the lamented Principal, W. Festus (’’Fed”) Tucker, Perry Patterson, C. S. Austin, Myra Turner and others tried to hold things together. All these are deceased now but in one of my last talks with my uncle, C. S. Austin, he recalled that ”no wonder that Tucker was the mainspring of the old school - for the mule- drawn wagon train of mourners which followed his body to Concord Cemetery 10 miles east 7