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Nothing is more exciting than a beginning. Lives begin with birth; cities begin with settlement; schools begin with opening. Usually the beginning is small, but often the growth is astonishing.
John Donelson arrived in Nashville on April 24, 1784, and opened up a settlement which was officially named Nashville by the legislature of North Carolina. The tiny, struggling settlement was not a new one. Its intrepid founder, James Robertson, first called it the Bluffs, a most appropriate name for a place perched precariously on the cliffs rising above the Cumberland River. But from 1781 to 1784 the little fort had been called Nashborough. Evidently agreement upon the name for the young settlement was not immediate, for in the opening paragraph of his diary, John Donelson states that his destination was the French Salt Lick.
When Nashville was only five years and eight months old, a significant beginning occurred. On a blustery, snowy December 29 in the year 1785, Davidson Academy was born. The Legislature of North Carolina created this school west of the Alleghenies, a one-room, old-field school destined to touch and enrich hundreds of lives as it came down through the years. With its line unbroken, except for changes of name and scene, it has continued through to Peabody-Vanderbilt University and the Davidson Academy of today. It is worthy of note that no other of the nation's major settlements established an institution of learning at so young an age. This academy, the great-great grandmother of Peabody College, may be said to have been founded by a pioneering group of as fine a quality as ever gathered in one of the country's settlements.
This first Davidson Academy, located six miles northeast of Nashville on the Kentucky Road, was fortunate in its incorporators and trustees. They were the Reverend Thomas B. Craighead (1775 graduate of Princeton University), Hugh Williamson, Daniel Smith, William Polk, Anthony Bledsoe, James Robertson, Lardner Clark, Ephraim M'Claine (or McLean), and Robert Hayes. In the records they were all referred to by the complimentary title of Esquire.
It may be truly said that the earliest history of Davidson Academy is the history of Thomas B. Craighead, president of the academy from 1785 to 1806 (Windrow 17, 23, 24, 26). A Presbyterian minister, he may be called the founder of Presbyterianism in Nashville, Tennessee. Both James Robertson and Andrew Jackson were his close personal friends and served on his Board of Trustees. Not by accident was the Reverend Thomas B. Craighead an innovator and a leader. His father, Alexander Craighead, was illustrious, and he himself was a product of Nassau Hall, Princeton. Davidson Academy was fortunate indeed in its first teacher and mentor, a finished scholar and great theologian. Having succeeded at Davidson Academy, Thomas B. Craighead served as president of Cumberland College from 1806 to 1809.
James Robertson was instrumental in seeing to it that the Legislature of North Carolina provided legally for the establishment of Davidson Academy. Since this act was one of the first pronouncements in favor of education uttered west of the mountains, it is here stated in full:
Whereas the good education of youth has the most direct tendency to promote the virtue, increase the wealth, and extend the fame of any people; and as it is the indispensable duty of every legislature, to consult the happiness of a rising generation and to endeavor to fit them for an honorable discharge of the social duties of life. And whereas it is represented to this General Assembly, that the citizens of Davidson County are desirous of making an early and liberal provision for the instruction of youth by laying the foundation of a public seminary in that county:
I. Be it therefore enacted, by the General Assembly of the State of North-Carolina and it is hereby enacted by the authority of the same, that the Reverend Thomas Craighead, Hugh Williamson, Daniel Smith, William Polk, Anthony Bledsoe, James Robertson, Lardner Clark, Ephraim McClaine, and Robert Hayes, Esquires shall be and they are hereby declared to be a body politic and corporate, to be known and distinguished by the title of the trustees of Davidson Academy; and by the name of the trustees of the trustees of Davidson Academy, shall have perpetual succession and a common zeal; and that the said trustees and their successors by the name aforesaid, or the majority of them, shall be able and capable in law to take, demand, receive and possess all monies, goods and chattels that shall be given them for the use of the said academy; and the same apply according to the will of the donors and by gift, purchase or device, to take, have, receive, possess, enjoy and retain to them, and their successors forever, any lands, rents, tenements or hereditaments of what kind, nature or quality forever the same may be, in special trust and confidence, that the same or the profits thereof shall be applied to and for the uses and purposes of establishing and endowing the said academy, in the county of Davidson, building or purchasing suitable and convenient houses, purchasing a library and philosophical apparatus, and supporting and paying the salaries of the provost and such number of professors and tutors as to them shall seem necessary.
II. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, that the said trustees and their successors, or a majority of them, by the name aforesaid, shall be able and capable in law, to bargain, sell, grant, demise, alien or dispose of and convey any such lands, rents, tenements, or hereditaments as aforesaid, when the will of the grantee doth not forbid the same; and further, that the said trustees and their successors forever, or a majority of them, shall be able and capable in law, by the name aforesaid, to sue and implead, be sued and impleaded, answer and be answered in all courts of record whatsoever by the style of "the president and trustees of the academy of Davidson."
III. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, that the said trustees or a majority of them shall and they are hereby authorized to choose a president, treasurer and secretary of their own body; they may also choose a rector, professors and tutors for the academy, and the same may remove at pleasure; and they shall have authority to make bye-laws for the government and regulation for the academy, and the same to alter and amend. Provided nevertheless, that such laws not be repugnant to the laws of the state, their morals, studies, and academical exercises, as to them shall seem meet, and to give certificates to such students as shall leave the said academy, certifying their literary merit and progress of useful knowledge; and further, that on death, resignation, refusal to act, or misconduct of either professor or tutors, the secretary, treasurer or steward, others shall be elected in their room and stead a majority of the trustees agreeing thereto.
IV. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, that the treasurer of the said board of trustees, shall enter into bond with sufficient security to the trustees aforesaid, in the sum of fifteen hundred pounds conditioned for the faithful discharge of the trust in him reposed; and that monies and chattels belonged to the said corporation that shall be in his hand at expiration of his office, shall then be immediately paid and delivered into the hands of the succeeding treasurer; and every treasurer shall receive all monies and donations of whatsoever kind, that may belong or accrue to the said academy during his office; and at the expiration thereof shall account with the trustees for the same; and the same pay and deliver over to the succeeding treasurer; and on the neglect or refusal to pay and deliver as aforesaid, the same method of recovering may be had against him as is or may be provided for the recovery of monies from sheriffs or other persons chargeable with public monies.
V. And be it further enacted, that if any trustee shall neglect attending at the stated meetings of the board for the space of two years, or if any of them shall die or otherwise resign his office, the remaining trustees, or a majority of them, shall at their next meeting choose another trustee in the room of the person thus neglecting his duty, dying or resigning his office.
VI. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, that no lands, tenements or hereditaments, which may be vested in the trustees of the academy of Davidson for the sole use and behoof of the academy, shall be subject to any tax for the space of ninety-nine years.
VII. And be it further enacted, that two hundred and forty acres of the land reserved for the use of the state, being that part of said land which is most remote from the salt springs near Nashville, shall be and is hereby vested in the trustees of Davidson Academy for the use of the Seminary (Windrow 27-29).
After carefully perusing this document, could anyone doubt the sincerity and the commonsense of the founders of Davidson Academy?
On a day in the warm third week of August - August 19, 1786 - the trustees of Davidson Academy held their first formal meeting. They could not possibly have gazed down the years to see Cumberland College, the University of Nashville, or George Peabody College for Teachers. But these men of rare character and intelligence must have felt a hint of the importance of the meeting held that day.
The most important decision reached at this first "meeting of the board" was the choosing of Thomas B. Craighead as principal of Davidson Academy. Also at this first meeting, a ferry was established at Broad Street, whose revenue should accrue to the academy. Tuition was fixed at four pounds per annum, "hard money."
Davidson Academy had begun its history. The lineage of Peabody is direct, the inheritance clear. Without Davidson Academy there would have been no Cumberland College, no University of Nashville; without the University of Nashville, no State Normal College, nor Peabody Normal School, nor George Peabody College for Teachers. It is, indeed, a rich inheritance (Windrow 16).
When the reader is caught up in the history of Davidson Academy, he may forget to picture in his mind some of its humble beginnings. The Board of Trustees chose the Spring Hill Meeting House as the home of the Academy, September 25, 1786. This little rough stone church, twenty-four by thirty feet, was on the Gallatin road leading toward Kentucky, six miles east and north of Nashville, itself mainly a group of cabins. The Meeting House was demolished many years ago, and today the highway runs through the site.
"Progress moves with irreverent feet," said Professor A.L. Crabb. Where was the "hard money" to come from? On December 5, 1786, the Board of Trustees met and agreed "that Mr. President make a motion to court for a ferry just above the town lands." The motion was granted. On April 3, 1787, the right to operate the ferry located 220 feet upstream from the present site of the Sparkman Street Bridge was granted to the trustees of Davidson Academy. The ferry was established at Broad Street, with the stipulation that its revenue (estimated to be from $100 to $650 per year) accrue to the academy. But the ferry produced more annoyance than income, and, in 1813, it was disposed of. The academy was in constant need of money, and its appropriation of land, 240 acres, was sold off by piecemeal. By 1803, only seven acres remained, this acreage serving as the campus. On these remaining seven acres new Davidson Academy buildings would be erected. The school was following a pattern - more buildings, less land.
In this year of 1803, Sumner County made an effort to have Davidson Academy moved to Montpelier, in that county. The effort was not successful. There is a further reference to the buildings of the academy. On April 5, 1796, the territorial legislature passed an act which said that:
the buildings of the said academy shall be erected on the most convenient situation on the hill immediately above Nashville and near the road leading to Buchanan's Mill, and that the trustees of aforesaid shall proceed to erect buildings and employ tutors to proceed to the business of instruction as soon as the funds will permit.
The site chosen was approximately the present area bounded by Third Avenue and Peabody Street.
Schools often grow by merging. In 1799, Federal Seminary merged with Davidson Academy. A further note on the endowment of Davidson Academy is of interest. In 1789, two licks at which salt could be manufactured, with the adjoining land, were to be retained for the use of Davidson Academy. Thus early was provision made for the endowment of a Literary Institution upon the remote frontier. In 1804, Nashville had about four hundred people.
The progress of Davidson Academy is a matter of special interest to Nashville. As a beginning venture, it grew with the progress of society and gave form, tone, cohesion, luster, and the means of nobler growth to the society around it. The heroic spirit of those who founded and guided it finds expression in the energetic ideal of its descendant, the present Davidson Academy. Davidson Academy objectified the esteem of the intellectual and spiritual which the earliest of the pioneers brought from North Carolina (Windrow 50).
In the autumn of 1786, Davidson Academy opened in the old stone church, the oldest church and school house in Middle Tennessee. This rustic church was the cradle of Nashville University, of Peabody College, and of the present Davidson Academy. The children were taught in it during the week; the parents, children, and servants on the Lord's day.
In 1802, Davidson Academy was "still in its infancy, only seven or eight young men being yet assembled, under one professor" (Michaux 246). In this year Judge John McNairy and David Shelby of Federal Seminary, were elected trustees of Davidson Academy. It is fascinating to see all over the Nashville of today the names of the people connected with the school of 1785-1786. The names recur in streets, buildings, and especially in prominent families. And it is worthy of note that Davidson Academy was chartered about six years after the first settlement in Middle Tennessee and nearly eleven years before Tennessee became a state.
Interesting, too, is the fact that, until 1768, James Robertson had not taken the time to learn how to read and write. Then he married Charlotte Reeves of Wake County, North Carolina, under whose tutelage he learned fast. This man led Davidson Academy with energy and foresight.
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