Shafter School 1893
Southern Weakley County, Tennessee
Shafter is about 2 miles NE of Greenfield on the Greenfield-Dresden Highway


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From an old Observer Newspaper article: 
With interest growing on all the old school pictures that are around now, Mr. John SIMMONS brought one into the Observer office this week and added a little history lesson with it. This picture was taken in 1893 and is of the Shafter School. Mr. Simmons said that back then the community was called Scatterville and that he didn�t know where the name originated, but that the community was there before Greenfield came into existence. The church and school were organized in 1847 and was used as a school during the week and a church on Sunday. The community and three stores and when the post office was built by Mr. Alphus HORNBEAK they changed the name to Shafter. That building stood until 1897 and then built a separate school and church, then again in 1947 they built another church which at the present is called Bethel Baptist Church.  At the time of the picture there were two teachers for the school and Mr. Simmons said that one of them was Mr. Jeff DeSHONE�S mother, Mrs. WOMBLE. Mr. Tom FEATHERSTONE was the other teacher at that time. Pictured on the far right is Dr. E. J. SHANNON and the man kneeling in front is his son, Dr. John SHANNON. Mr. SIMMONS went on to name some of the people in the picture, standing at the back is Mr. Alphus HORNBEAK, Lee NEWBERRY, Hench PETWAY. Others were Lula ERWIN, Edd YOUNG, Henry MAY, Joe PASCHALL, Ann WOMBLE, Lynn SIMMONS, Clarence SIMMONS, Georgia NEWBERRY, and J. M. SIMMONS, Mr. John�s father. The Observer gives a special thanks to Mr. SIMMONS and to Mr. Russell COATS for making this story possible.

                                                                       Submitted by Joe Stout
 



 

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