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Early Education in
Maysville, Georgia
By TODD DORSEY & MARY ARNOLD
First school in Maysville
was held at the Gravely Church, also known as Gravel Creek School
and Grand Creek, with volunteers for teachers. These teachers rode the
train from Athens to teach. The main subjects taught were how to read
scales, how to weigh cotton and how to measure lumber to build wagons.
Among the teachers were a Mr. Whitehall, a Mr. Winters, and a Mr.
Crawford—all who later had towns named in their honor: Whitehall,
Winterville and Crawfordville, GA.
The Gravely Tree, planted at the location of the primitive Gravely
Baptist Church, still stands behind the home of Tommy Sims near the
current Maysville Elementary School.
Schools were later held in some of the homes and
Wheelers and
Duncans built one-room schools. A Mr. McFurr and a Mr. Rylee built the
Crossroads School at Grove Level. Help was given by a Mr. Perkins, Mintz
and Burns. A number of Maysville citizens taught in these schools. In all
three schools, William Pledger Cooley, former mayor of Maysville, and
Tressie Hill Arnold helped to improve the schools from one-teacher to
two-teacher schools.
The Maysville
Institute
Maysville’s
first school building was built in 1878 and is still standing at 7 Comer
Street. It was a two-room schoolhouse with large heaters in the center of
each room. The first principal was Capt. Thomas A. E. Evans from Albany
GA. Tuition was charged to attend the school.
Maysville was rapidly growing as a
result of the Northeastern Railroad completing its line through town in
1876. The student body quintupled in little over a decade, from 25
in 1879 to 125 in 1891.
The immediate answer to overcrowding was to move
some students to temporary classrooms in a house next door and, on one
occasion, the principal’s wife taught the youngest of the children at her
home.
Maysville High School
In
March of 1905, Maysville decided to alleviate the overcrowding problem and
build a new schoolhouse. Mr. and Mrs. CT Bacon donated a beautiful
four-acre lot to Maysville for school grounds. The city council decided
to issue bonds for a new building.
On April 13, 1905, Colonel R. L. J. Smith, attorney, was employed to
draw up a bill, which was passed by the Georgia General Assembly in
August, giving the mayor and council the power to call an election for the
issuing of school bonds to the amount of $10,000. The election was held
October 4 and there was not a single vote against the bonds. The entire
issue was sold on November 20 and brought a nice premium.
Construction began in 1906. The local Masonic fraternity laid the
cornerstone on the evening of June 29, 1906.
A formal public school system appears to have been established in
1907 since an amendment to the town charter was made to allow the mayor
and council to question the voters on the issue.
A 1908 account in the Banks County Gazette describes the Maysville
School as “a $13,000 building, well-equipped, with a core of excellent
instructors as thorough as any.” It was noted that non-resident students
could secure board with private families. An earlier town amendment had
stated that students had to be either “bona fide residents of the town or
living within one mile of the corporate limits.”
Some of the courses taught at the new school were physics,
chemistry, Latin, French, Spanish, biology, literature and home
economics. Students were well educated and had well-qualified
instructors.
Superintendents of the school were notable men such as Dr. Lamar
Ferguson, who later became Superintendent of Decatur City Schools. In his
later years, Dr. Ferguson came back to Maysville, dug his own grave, and
built his own vault of brick and cement, covering it with a large cement
slab. In 1971 he was buried in it.
Maysville Board of Education records show that in 1929, teaching
salaries ranged from $62.50 to $75.00 per month. Mr. J. P. Cooper,
the superintendent, received a salary of $200 per month. Salaries of teachers appear to
have decreased to $50 a month in 1939. However, the state or county may
have been supplementing teacher income.
Maysville High School was destroyed by fire on the night of July
28, 1953. According to minutes, the Jackson County Board of Education met
in called session on July 31, 1953 with the Maysville Trustees to discuss
the action to take in order to provide for the education of those children
attending Maysville School. A motion was approved to reimburse the City
of Maysville $50 which was paid to the City of Commerce for their use of
fire equipment at the Maysville School fire. An agreement was made that JCBOE would build a school in Maysville if the Maysville Public School
System were dissolved.
Maysville Elementary School
Jackson County Board of
Education records indicate
that $3000 was paid to Howard Brown for 10 acres of land on which to build
an elementary school at the corner of Jefferson Road and Commerce Road.
Maysville City Council minutes for Feb. 1, 1954, note that it was
moved and carried to “present a bill to the Jackson County School Board
for scraping that was done on the school yards.”
Council minutes for Sept. 6, 1954, under the administration of mayor Tom
O’Kelley, note that it was “moved and unanimously carried that the Town of
Maysville make a payment of $25 from the General Fund of the town treasury
to Maysville High School to apply on the purchase of equipment to be used
by the school patrol.”
Until a new school could be built, the gymnasium, which stood
beside the Maysville School, was subdivided for classroom use. The gym
was constructed in 1937 by Works Project Administration (WPA) labor.
Classes were held there for approximately four years until the
completion of the new elementary school around 1957-58.
On June 15, 1956, the Maysville Herald wrote, “The new school
building is rapidly taking shape and a well is being bored at the new
school site to supply the necessary amount of water. According to County
Board member George Deadwyler, plans are being formulated for the grammar
school to go in the new building the first of September, 1956, and then
space would be available to remove the partitions from the gym. The gym
was partitioned off into classrooms when the main building burned in
1953. The high school students will have their classes at the gym,
according to plans. The Maysville School District will be
changed as will the number of local trustees under the new consolidation
plan. The new district will be larger and there will be five local
trustees instead of three and they will be selected from the entire
district.”
Today, the Maysville Elementary School serves grades K-5. Three
new classrooms were added in 1983 and more again in 19___.
In 1984, the Maysville Booster Club decided not to renew the $1 a
year lease on the old gymnasium from Bill Jennings. It was estimated that
it would take $20,000 to repair. The Jackson County Board of Education
agreed to build a new gym on MES grounds if the Booster Club would
complete the inside. A new gym was built in 1986. The old gym was
dismantled.
Page last updated
11/03/2007 |
