John Milton Endsley Deed for Liberty Valley School (1883)
Marshall County Deed Book C2, page 175
[Community Deed to one acre Extended to them by J. M. Endsley & Recorded October 3, 1883]
I, John M. Endsley, of the County of Marshall in the State of Tennessee for the benefit of rising generations of the community at large, do hereby give, bargain, and convey to said community all the right, title and claim that I have in and to one acre of land lying in the 5th Civil District of Said County being a part of that portion of my lands known as the Murphy tract and bounded as follows, to wit:
Beginning at a rock in the boundary line of the lands of Bedford Endsley and running North 2 1/2 degrees West with said line 12 1/2 poles to a rock thence East 86 1/2 degrees North 12 1/2 poles to a rock, thence South 3 1/2 degrees E 12 1/3 poles to a rock, thence West 86 1/2 degrees South 12 2/3 poles to the beginning.
I do hereby bind myself to defend title against all persons whomsoever, the above title to go into effect when said Community commences to erect a good house for school and other literary purposes which shall be for the benefit of white pupils exclusively and to be controlled exclusively by share or stock holders, and said title to hold good so long as it is used for said literary purposes, but to return to me or my heirs when it shall cease to be used for such literary purposes. House to revert to Stock holders.
GIVEN under my hand on this the 6th day of August, 1881
JOHN M. ENDSLEY
F. L. WOODS, Sr. Jurat Aug 17, 1883
B. B. CRAIG Jurat Sep 3, 1883
STATE OF TENNESSEE
MARSHALL COUNTY Personally appeared before me, Jo McBride, Clerk of the County Court of Marshall County aforesaid F. L. Woods and B. B. Craig, Subscribing witnesses to within deed, who being first sworn, deposed and said, that they are acquainted with John M. Endsley, the bargainer and that he acknowledged the same in their presence to be his act and deed, upon the day it bears date.
WITNESS my hand at office this 3rd day of Sept 1883
Jo McBride, Clerk
FILED in my office at 11 1/2 o’clock AM on the 3rd day of September, 1883
J. A. Yarburogh, R. M. C.
[Transcriber’s note: The School was known as Liberty Valley School. It was about 1 1/2 miles from Belfast out Liberty Valley Road on the right hand side and very near where Beech Hill Cumberland Presbyterian Church stood until the 1950s. The land with the old school building did revert to the heirs when Marshall County built a new school in Belfast. Sometime between 1910 and 1920 the old James Burgess Endsley (son of John Milton Endsley) homeplace burned. His son, John Lee, who had remained on the farm, and his family, took up residence in the old school house for a time. Bob Neely, who died in 2002 at age 85, was a grand son of James Burgess & Amna Bell Endsley. He told me about coming up from Newmarket, Alabama, to visit his Neely and Endsley kin as a child. He said the old Endsley homeplace burned slowly from a fire which could not be extinguished but which burned so slowly that a lot of the furniture was saved. Bob said a lot of the furniture was stored in a tightly built “wheat house” near the spring. He said there were several beautiful old antique pieces said to have been brought from North Carolina by the family in 1816/1817.]
contributed by Dick Wood (September, 2004)