On April 20, 1865, Gwyn Allison, an old bachelor, the son of a Revolutionary soldier and a first cousin of President Andrew Jackson, realizing that his end was near, called in his lawyer and dictated his will. Fortune had smiled on him, and his fertile acres had yielded bountiful crops whose proceeds had netted him around $35,000. His brothers were likewise successful farmers. Interested in the welfare of the poor children of Greene County, he directed in his will that he gave and bequeathed to the Inferior Court of Greene County twenty thousand dollars, with the interest to be used for the education of poor children belonging to Greene County, while no part of the principal was to be used for that purpose.