This Rosenwald School was built to accommodate three teachers at a cost of $3650. The effort to bring the facility to Ailey was largely the work of Shelton Mincey (1865-1930), a community leader who served as a delegate to the Republican National Conventions of 1912 and 1920. Since its restoration, the school has served as a community center for Ailey.
While photographing in Camden County with Cynthia Jennings yesterday, I met Mr. Marshall Glover. Mr. Glover is leading the work of restoring the historic Kinlaw Rosenwald School, which was built in 1921. The formal education of African-American children in Kinlaw began in a one-room schoolhouse built on the site in 1896.
The African-American community of Kinlaw was very progressive and embraced better education for its children. Upon learning of the existence of the Rosenwald grants from Matilda Harris, Camden County’s supervisor of black schools, the people of Kinlaw began exploring the possibility of replacing their schoolhouse with a better facility. They raised $909 and with matching contributions and grants began construction on this structure in 1920, with the first classes beginning in 1921. The school offered instruction for children from first to seventh grade and was one of three Rosenwald facilities in the county. Kinlaw is the only one that survives today.
Mr. Glover told me that his father and grandfather both attended the school and that he was glad to be doing the restoration as a way of honoring them. He noted that he has been working for over a year and spent much of that time caulking the tongue-and-groove paneling. He pointed out that the excellent material and construction of the school has been evident during the restoration, with much of the work being cosmetic. He stated that there were some parts of the floor that were compromised due to leaks in the old roof, but they are getting to that work now. With a team of volunteers, he has done an excellent job.
Please consider a contribution to continue this important work. Secure donations can be made here.
This schoolhouse is part of the Shields-Etheridge Heritage Farm and is just down the road from the main house and sharecropper’s village. Alex and Emory Shields, grandsons of James Shields, donated two acres for the construction of the school and it was named the Bachelors’ Academy in their honor. Ira had been a teacher himself in his younger days and believed strongly in education. In 1938, when Jackson County consolidated its rural schools, the Bachelors’ Academy became a school for African-American children, and Ira provided the teacher housing in the sharecroppers’ village. The school was in used until 1950 and was restored in 1996.
Shields-Etheridge Farm, National Register of Historic Places
The congregation who built this typical late-19th century house of worship organized in the idyllic Apple Valley community in 1887 and raised this structure the next year. It is thought to have also been used as a schoolhouse.
Harrell Lawson’s History of St. Pau CME Church [2005] describes the two-story meetinghouse adjacent to the church as a building previously used as a school for the secular education of the youth of the community and as a meeting place for Masons and a burial society founded by St. Paul members in the early 1900’s.
A resource survey conducted in 2001 dates the structure to circa 1870. It was built in the school/lodge combination common among African-American congregations in this part of Georgia in the late 19th century. These structures inevitably served as de facto community centers, as well. No matter when they were built, they are important resources.
The only reference I can locate regarding this structure is from the old Friendship Baptist Church minute book. It was noted on 23 January 1864 that the schoolhouse and adjacent five acres were purchased by the congregation for $500. Considering the church was built in 1857, it is possible that the schoolhouse predates it. The portico is obviously a later addition.
Stilesboro was incorporated in 1866 and retained that distinction until 1995. It was named for Savannah attorney William Henry Stiles, who served in Congress and the Georgia House of Representatives.
A high school was established here in the late 1850s and the community raised funds and completed the present structure in 1859. It was the center of the community and during the Civil War was used for sewing Confederate uniforms. Though it is likely apocryphal, a legend persists that in May 1864 Sherman spared the Academy due to an interior inscription: Deo ac Patriae [God and Country]. [I say it’s likely apocryphal because there’s a story like this for nearly every surviving antebellum building in the South].
The Stilesboro Improvement Club, a woman’s benevolent society, lobbied to save the old Academy when a new school was built nearby, and has owned the building since the school closed in 1939-1940. Formed in 1910, the club, at the suggestion of Miss Campie Hawkins, began holding an annual chrysanthemum show in 1912. The Stilesboro Chrysanthemum Show continues to be a popular event, 108 years later. It has taken place every year, except during the Great Influenza (1918) and World War II (1942).
The Etowah Valley Historical Society notes that research on the history of the Academy is incomplete.
Though it appears at first glance to be a house, this was the Vernon Johnson School. Located across from Asbury Church, on the Wilkinson side of the Wilkinson-Twiggs County line, it is best known locally as Asbury School today. A state educational survey in 1918 recorded 31 students from both counties. Wilkinson County students attended for 5 months and Twiggs County students for 6 1/2 months. One teacher was responsible for all eight grades.
I’m so excited to be able to share this photograph, which was shared by my friend John Brown. He made the shot circa 1995. It’s the old Oliver School and was lost to fire a few years after the photograph was made.
Oliver was one of about 40 white schools in Screven County surveyed by M. L. Duggan for the Georgia Department of Education in 1916. The steeple or bell tower was a design element present only in the larger schools of the county, including Capitola, Douglas Branch, Gilgal, Harmony, Rocky Ford, and Sylvania. At the time of the survey, W. S. Brown was teacher and principal, and Miss Fannie Ryon was his assistant. There were 10 grades and 62 students, with a 32-week school year. The school was valued at $3000 and was noted to be in very good condition.
Vanishing Georgia: Photographs by Brian Brown 