The one-room log schoolhouse at Little Greenbrier, like the somewhat larger Granny’s College at Big Greenbrier, provided the basics in reading, writing, and arithmetic.
Edouard E. Exline
And judging by the smiles of Margaret Tallent and Conley Russell, the place was lots of fun.
Edouard E. Exline
Herman Matthews conducts a class in the school’s last year of operation, 1935. He was the only teacher who had completed college.
“In lieu of kindergarten, graded and normal schools was the Old-Field school, of which there were generally only one or two in a county, and they were in session only when it was not ‘croptime.’ They were attended by little and big, old and young, sometimes by as many as a hundred, and all jammed into one room—a log cabin with a fireplace at each end—puncheon floor, slab benches, and no windows, except an opening made in the wall by cutting out a section of one of the logs, here and there. The pedagogue in charge (and no matter how large the school there was but one) prided himself upon his knowledge of and efficiency in teaching the three R’s—readin’, ’ritin’ and ’rithmetic—and upon his ability to use effectively the rod, of which a good supply was always kept in stock. He must know, too, how to make a quill pen from the wing-feather of a goose or a turkey, steel and gold pens not having come into general use. The ink used was made from ‘ink-balls’—sometimes from poke-berries—and was kept in little slim vials partly filled with cotton. These vials, not having base enough to stand alone, were suspended on nails near the writer. The schools were paid from a public fund, the teacher boarding with the scholars.”
During the latter 1800s, free schools began to replace subscription schools. But the quality and methods of education did not appear to change drastically. Across the Smokies, in East Tennessee’s Big Greenbrier Cove, Granny’s College provided the rudiments of public education for many students and was an example of similar schools in the Great Smokies region. Lillie Whaley Ownby remembered the house which was turned into a school:
“Granny College was built before the Civil War by Humphry John Ownby. This house was two big log houses, joined together by a huge rock chimney and a porch across both rooms on both sides of the house. The houses were built of big poplar logs. The rooms were 18×20 feet and both rooms had two doors and two windows. The floor was rough, hewn logs. There was a huge fireplace in it. The living room had a partition just behind the doors and a cellar about 8×10 feet.”