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

Page 9 text:

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

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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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The ’Ted brick schoolhouse” which replaced the old college building in 1916-17. Front frame addition had been added as cloakrooms but actually became more of a firewood storage space. The belfry housed the old college bell which had become a hallmark of good schools. of town, was more than a mile long. ’ Nor would the area soon forget their First Citizen. Within days after the funeral, a com¬ mittee composed of N. N. Norton, Oscar Stephens, Lou Robbins, Sam Walton, Perry Har- bert, A. L. Goff, Dr. W. B. Keeton and Will Stubblefield (all deceased), had quickly raised funds for a pretentious monument. Unveiled on the college campus in the presence of a big-crowd, the monument was removed to a later building on the old campus (1932) where it stood until the present main structure was completed, and was then moved nearer to it. It stands there now and beside it last Fall during the town’s Sesquicentennial Celebration, a Time Capsule was buried to be unearthed in 2025. Later teachers here in the old college building, included: ”Odle and Coble”; G. G. But¬ ler, Perry Murphy and Mabel Terry (1905-1907; George L. Wortham and his wife and Her¬ bert Bagby (1907-1909); J. A. Bobbitt, John H. Duck, Granville and Alfred Bartholomew (1909-1916). Miss Mae Joyce and perhaps a few others also taught at intervals during this time. By 1915 the old college building was in disrepair, difficult to heat, and a perfect target for storms, one of which as early as 1909, had damaged it. So by 1917 a new ’’red brick” building was ready for use back on the old campus. It contained three classrooms, in line, and with movable partitions between to provide for an auditorium. School spirit was none too high now and teachers were changed often. Among those remembered for their faithful service for the next few years were: Professor James M. Austin, A. C. Tarlton, Jim C. Duck, Maida Austin, Walt White, Ruby and Gertrude Roberts, Myrtle Johnson, Jimmy Rains, and Roxie Kelley. By now World War I clouds were confusing things, schools being no exception. It was Dr. R. L. Wylie who heard of an up and coming young school teacher in the Middleburg area known as Ira C. Powers. Dr. Wylie and others persuaded Powers to come here and lead efforts to improve the school. Powers came on Sept. 12, 1921 and his efforts were as tonic for the school. Soon the ninth and tenth grades were added; Powers was named Principal and 8