In the late nineteenth century, African-American Baptists concluded that East Tennessee needed a black college and chose Mossy Creek, the former name of Jefferson City, as its site. Largely through the fundraising efforts of Rev. Peter Guinn and contributions from black and white Baptists and local residents, 12 acres were purchased and construction of a two-story wood-frame building began in 1889. Nelson Merry College, also called Nelson Merry Academy, opened in 1890 and was named for Nashville pastor Nelson G. Merry. A few years later, Thompson Hall, a three-story brick building made from local clay, was added for use as a dormitory, classrooms, and dining hall. Although called a college, the school taught elementary and secondary classes and included a normal school department for training teachers. It was one of three African-American collegial institutions in Tennessee supported by the Baptist Church, along with Roger Williams University in Nashville and the Howe Institute in Memphis, and its presidents included G. Nelson Bowen, C. Lopez McAllister, Jeremiah M. Thompson, B.A. Nance, and H.J. Baily. In 1932, the site was sold to Jefferson County for use as an African-American high school, one of about 90 such schools in Tennessee. A new H-plan brick building for grades one through twelve was built with local funding matched by the Rosenwald Fund, and the school was later expanded with a gymnasium in 1956 and a science classroom. As desegregation following the 1954 Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education gradually closed black schools across Tennessee while white schools were integrated, Nelson Merry High School shut down in 1965 because of low attendance. The property then passed to the East Tennessee Baptist Association, was sold to a furniture manufacturer in 1973, and after local opposition to industrial use, was purchased by Jefferson City in 1976 for conversion to a community center. The main building was demolished in 1980 because of maintenance problems, and only the gymnasium remains. Nelson G. Merry, born into slavery in Kentucky in 1824 and brought to Tennessee in 1826, was freed in 1845 at age 21, entered the ministry, and was baptized and trained in theology by Rev. Dr. R.B.C. Howell. Licensed to preach in 1853 in the African American branch of First Baptist Church in Nashville, he served as pastor there for 28 years and is regarded as Nashville’s first ordained black pastor. During the Civil War he was jailed for several months for preaching sedition against the government. After the war, the mission gained independence from the white Baptist church and became the First Colored Baptist Church in 1865. Under his leadership, membership grew from about 500 in 1865 to more than 3,000 in 1872, and he also organized 14 other churches and served for life as president of the Nashville Preachers’ Union.