Bachelors' Academy

Built in 1909 under the supervision of former teacher Ira Ethridge, Bachelors' Academy stood on two acres donated by Alex and Emory Shields, grandsons of James Shields, and was named in their honor. Harvey R. Carruth constructed the schoolhouse for $361.00, including $18.00 for a bell in the bell-tower. Ira Ethridge remained closely involved in the school, and in its early years the county-employed teacher stayed at the Ethridge home during school terms. In 1915 an Educational Survey of Jackson County recorded 26 children in seven grades, with a school year divided into two terms of 16 and 8 weeks. In the early years all of the pupils were white, but when the county consolidated its schools in 1938, Bachelors' Academy became a school for African American children, and a house was then provided for the African American teacher at the Shields-Ethridge farmstead. Children walked to school along paths through the surrounding woods and fields, carried lunches from home in buckets, usually ate outside, and drew drinking water from the yard well. The 1915 survey said the building was well kept but its grounds were an unimproved grove with neglected grounds, no school-garden, and no toilets; toilets for girls were added later, but boys continued to go into the woods. The school had no electricity, relied on daylight for interior light, and used a potbellied stove to heat the main schoolroom. Its equipment in 1915 included double patent desks, a cloth blackboard, one chart, one globe, no maps, and no pictures, and the cloth blackboard was later replaced by a slate one. The schoolhouse remained in use until 1950, and a Georgia Heritage grant funded its restoration in 1996.

Georgia · United States