Pine Orchard School

Pine Orchard School, Morgan County, TN,  December 1912
Front row: Lora Summers, Ruby Powell, Belle Miles, Shirley Snow, Pearl Powell, Mabel Johson, Walter Stone, Hazel Weatherford, Ethel Miracle, Chas. Vigle Johnson, Frank “Preacher” Miles, Frank Miles, Bill Miles, Ruth Weatherford, Kate White, Ahiga Snow (or Lonnie).

Pine Orchard School  (sometime between 1892 and 1927)
Virginia Brown has an old original photograph with no dates or names. Pine Orchard School   1930’s and 1927

Pine Orchard Church 1916
Photo taken from “The Pictorial History of Morgan County, Tennessee”, page 56

PINE ORCHARD SCHOOL HISTORY & REUNION

Beginning back before the Civil War, only a few families made up what is now known as Pine Orchard Community, located in the third district of Morgan County in Tennessee.
At this time, there was one church and one school in the locality. The school was known as the Blake School and was located on the North side of Crab Orchard Creek. The first teachers of this one room log school were Tenna Blevins and Captain Agers. This church and school were approximately four miles apart. These two buildings served this section of the county until 1872.
A one room log school was built on the South-East side of Crab Orchard Creek. This building was built by the settlers. The first teacher was Tenna Blevins who came from the original school. Other early teachers of the school were Frank Lacy and Charlie Margraves.
A description of classes in a log building as told by a former county resident: “School was taught in a long school house with benches made of slabs of wood and the only thing that induced students to sit erect was the warp of a black gum switch, as the benches had no backs.”
The community was named Pine Orchard because of a massive area of beautiful pine trees.
The first settlers of this new Pine Orchard Community were the Snows, Powells, Whites, McGuffeys, Stouts, McGills, Hatfields, Gallahers, Alleys, Weatherfords, Livelys, Headricks, Kittrells, and Binghams.
A Baptist Church was organized and church services were held in the school building once a month until 1890 when the first church building was built.
A two room frame structure school house was built in 1892 with materials furnished by the community. Among the first teachers in this school were Amanda Kimmer, Thomas Snodgrass, and Sampson Dekesseth. This building had one teacher for the eight grades.
Many children had to walk three or four miles to get to school. Thus other one room schools were built in the more remote sections of the community. These were Pleasant Dale in the South-West section and Hatley School (known as Seed Tick) in the North-West section. All three schools — Pleasant Dale, Seed Tick and Pine Orchard continued until after World War I.
In 1927, the original Pine Orchard School was torn down and the county built a new one room school to serve grades 1-8. Also a community building was started in 1930 to provide a place for hot lunches as well as provide a place for community fairs and gatherings such as music concerts and the county elections.
Since there was no lunchroom until the early 1930’s, students took their lunch in the Fall and Spring, packed biscuits and baked sweet potatoes in a lard bucket, went outside and ate lunch under the pine trees. During cold weather, soup was made on the top of a small oil stove in a “back room” and carried to the students’ desks. Some still brought their lunch in the lard buckets in the Winter.
When the school went to two teachers in 1946, this building was also used for classes for the lower grades and the other building for the upper grades.
Construction began on a modern three room brick school in 1950 which opened for the 1951-1952 term. The teachers for the first year in this building were Annis Blake and Hazel Zumstein. At this time, the board of education purchased the community building for the lunchroom. Also at this time, construction was started on a new community building a short distance from the church and school. There were still only two teachers for the eight grades until 1954 when all three classrooms were used with three teachers. A gymnasium and lunchroom were added some years later. The school was consolidated with Oakdale at the end of the 1967-1968 term. The teachers for the last year were Nellie Bingham and Karen Summers Kittrell.
The high school at Pine Orchard was established by the unanimous vote of the High School Board in October, 1915. “The school building was painted inside and out, had two good rooms well supplied with the necessary school furniture and other equipment including a library of something over 150 volumes, to be used for reference and general reading, a musical instrument and song books for use in devotional exercises and entertainment.” The faculty consisted of Lee M. Cross, Principal and Glenna D. Kries, Assistant. The high school lasted for only one year due to lack of pupils.