Photo credit: Williamson County in Black and White, by Rick Warwicks

One of the most important parts of a society is the education of its citizenry.  Without the basics of an education (i.e., reading, writing, arithmetic), life today would be a very difficult task.  The same could be said for the early settlers of this county.  Many were highly educated members of society upon their arrival into the area.  It was not long after the establishment of Williamson County in 1799, that its new residents started building multiple educational institutions.  For this reason, education became another one of the important cornerstones of the county’s foundation.  Many children throughout Williamson County’s rural areas were educated in what was known as field schools.  These were one room schoolhouses that educated children of all ages.  However, if you were from a more affluent family, your children would have likely went to one of the more highly regarded academies found in the area.

The southeastern part of the county, today Triune, known then as Hardeman Crossroads, saw the construction of five large brick schoolhouses between 1820 and 1845.  The most notable was Hardeman Academy.  Started as an all-boys school, Hardeman Academy, educated some of the most recognizable families in the area.  Having to shut its doors during the Civil War, it reopened afterwards as a co-ed school to accommodate the displaced girls from the Bostick Female Academy, also in Triune, which was burned down during the war.  In 1833, Boiling Springs Academy, located east of present day Cool Springs, opened its doors for its first classes.  Catering to boys, it taught orthography, reading, writing, and arithmetic; tuition was $8.oo for six months’ worth of classes.  The two story brick school building is still standing today along the banks of the Little Harpeth River and serves as a location for teaching about early education for local school children. 

There were many opportunities for the boys of the county to receive a higher education, but the female residents had fewer choices.  The Franklin Female Institute became one of the more respectable schools for girls.  Started in 1847 in downtown Franklin, students were put through rigorous studies.  At the schools peak, it had an enrollment of several hundred girls.  Classes had to be suspended during the Battle of Franklin on November 30, 1864 (we will cover in length on a different post) and the building received damage during the battle.  Afterwards, the building was used as a hospital for the wounded. The school did continue after the war, but eventually shut its doors when the public school system became too much of a competition for private institutions. 

Along with religion, freed men and women knew how important it was to have an education.  With many former slaves being denied the opportunity to learn the basics of reading and writing, these now freed men and women thirst for that knowledge not only for themselves, but also for their children. While the Freedmen’s Bureau played a major role in assisting the black communities establish schools, without the eagerness and will to learn from the pupils, most would have failed.  An article in The Weekly Review on June 14, 1867, features the first mention of a black school in Franklin.  The article referred to the school known as Pearly Hill, located on Carters Creek Pike.  The funds for the building were raised by the citizens of the area and continued to operate until 1952.  Another mention of an early black school came from a citizen of the county named Sally McNutt.  When her family returned to Franklin following the Civil War, she noted in her journal that their home had been taken over by the Freedman’s Bureau and converted into the McNutt High School, one of the first schools for black students in Tennessee.  That claim, however, cannot be verified.  Black schools continued to flourish in Williamson County, including Natchez High School, up until desegregation in the mid-1960s.  Many young black children took their first steps into white-only schools, most not fully understanding the massive barriers they were breaking or the strength it took to accomplish it.  

The public school system continued to grow here in Williamson County, now consisting of 51 total elementary, middle and high schools.  It has become one of the best school systems in the state of Tennessee.  In order to keep our schools at such a high level, we must make sure that America’s history, good and bad, is taught and that our traditional American values are being passed on to our children. This will ensure that our public school system will remain strong for years to come.