The History Of Pyburn School In Pyburn Community Photo found at: Teague Chronicle Web site: www.teaguechronicle.com/ under Freestone Frontiers 21 Jan 2010 article THE PYBURN SCHOOL, photo circa 1928, educated the children of the Pyburn Community from around 1902 (the exact date is unknown) until 1948 when it was consolidated with the Teague ISD. Grace Henderson Grayson taught there from 1925 until 1930. Miss Grace is pictured in the top row, second from the left. To her left is Miss Vivian Terry and to her right is Eula Mae Pickett, middle row, 3rd from left is Cox Rickard and 5th from left is William Thomas Pickett (Tom), and bottom row, 4th from left is Jimmy D. Pickett and 6th is Olan Inderman. If anyone knows the identity of other students pictured contact Nancy Rula at 254-739-2016. NANCY RULA 21.JAN.10 This history of the Pyburn School, located in the Pyburn Community, was written by Miss Grace Henderson (later Grayson), who first taught at the Pyburn School when she was 17 years old. My Granddad, Robert Asa Pickett, was one of the trustees for the school and my father, Asa Willis Pickett attended the school along with members of the Henderson, Inderman, Biggs, Petty and Scott families who also lived in the Pyburn Community. The following is Mrs. Grace Grayson's story of the Pyburn School: Quite some time ago Sonny asked me to give a program on Pyburn School. The history of Pyburn is not very long, but I have tried to prepare the history along with some incidents that happened to me as a first time teacher. I hope you will enjoy. Many of you have never heard of Pyburn School only through the historical letter, but I'm sure all of you have seen the sign of Driver Cemetery on Highway 84 between Teague and Fairfield. The Pyburn schoolhouse stood about 500 yards west of the cemetery. The school was named in honor of Andrew Jackson Pyburn, who gave the two acres of land for the school. In September 1891, there were 107 community schools in Freestone County. 54 were white and 48 were colored. There was no Pyburn School listed at that time. Hicks Springs was the community school. It was located in what is now the Driver pasture about a mile and a half on the Clay Hill Road west and about three fourths of a mile south. The school got its name from the cool springs by which the school was located. In 1890, the first ex-confederate encampment was held at Hicks Springs. As a lad my father attended Hicks Spring School. I still have some of his books with Hicks Springs written all in them. In 1902, this school building burned and the children went to Pyburn School. This is the earliest date in verified documents of the Pyburn School. However, from Volume I of the History of Freestone County, I found these facts in an article on the Pyburn family. In 1895, Andrew Jackson Pyburn, his wife, Caroline Stovall, and their four children came to Texas and settled at what was to be called or known as Pyburn. A post office and a school were established as well as a country store. This information may not be documented, but in the records of the post offices of the county done by Mr. Euel Davis of Wortham, the Pyburn Post Office was established in 1895. It had three postmasters; Andrew Jackson Pyburn, his son Oscar Pyburn, and George Terry. The post office was discontinued in 1907 and the mail was delivered from Fairfield. So it must be true that 1895 was the correct beginning of Pyburn School. It became a state law in 1906 that all community schools were to form common on school districts and that every school had to be governed by three trustees, elected by the people of the district. The law also provided that all the districts in the county were to be under the supervision of an elected county superintendent. In 1912, Mr. Furney Richardson was elected the first county superintendent. He served two separate terms and held the office for 26 years. He was still superintendent when I started teaching in 1925. Here I must stop and give credit to my ex co-worker and a very dear friend of mine, Hugh Whitaker. When Hugh and I were getting our masters degrees at Sam Houston State University, as his thesis, he wrote on The Development of Schools in Freestone County. It was from his thesis that I found many historical facts. I want to explain how I was teaching school at age 17. Back then a person had two ways to get a teaching certificate. She could go to college one year or go over to the courthouse in Fairfield and take a teacher's examination. I graduated in 1924 and went to Baylor Female College in Belton for a year and got my certificate. The next fall I started teaching at Pyburn. At that time there were no restrictions as to the age of the teachers, the number of days taught, the length of the days taught or the length of the term. Often schools only went for four and one-half months, but usually Pyburn had enough money to run for seven months. When I was five years old, we lived where I live now, south of Teague on the Donie Road. There was a community school called Lindsay about one and one-half miles south of our house. My older brother, Greer, was seven. Miss Clara Schick was the teacher. She later was Mrs. Joel Bonner of Fairfield. Miss Clara went to school in a buggy and always carried my brother. I wanted to go to school so badly that I would cry every morning. Finally Miss Clara persuaded my mother to let me go. I will never be any richer or any happier than I was in the buggy, holding the umbrella over Miss Clara and going to school. Thus I graduated very young. In 1925, the teachers were paid $65 per month but we often had to discount our vouchers $10 to get them cashed. There were two buildings for the Pyburn School. I could find no record when either was built, but the first one was sold to Mr. Robert Pickett and he made a home out of it. The Pyburn School of 1925 had two large rooms with very high ceilings. Each room had a big pot-bellied stove and a cloak room. The desks had shelves under them for the books and an ink well on top. There were no janitors. The teachers built the fires and cleaned the rooms. The larger boys brought in the wood. Our school served as a church for funerals. If there was a funeral, school was dismissed. There were no buses. Both the teachers and the students walked to school. I stayed with my grandmother Henderson and walked two and one-half miles. Walking was fun then. Nearly always there were seven or eight going along together. Sometimes we caught a ride in a wagon. In 1925, Pyburn was a two-teacher school. Miss Fanny Pridgen was the other teacher. She was much older than I was. Her two sisters Miss May Pridgen and Mrs. June Glazener had preceded us. Being only 17, I was given the grades 1 through 4. Miss Fanny had 5 through 9. School was from 8 to 4 with 15 minute recesses. One in the morning and one in the afternoon. School had been going on about two months when Mr. Robert Pickett, one of the trustees, came to school to talk with me. It was about 30 minutes before school was out and I got very nervous thinking about what I had or hadn't done. Finally it came time for the conference. Mr. Pickett told me that Miss Fanny was having trouble with 7th grade arithmetic. The trustees had met and wanted to know if I would trade places with her. Rather stunned, I told him I would rather not because it would upset Miss Fanny and I had learned to love her. He said that would not be the case because it was Miss Fanny's request that they ask me. So we traded horses in mid-stream. I was scared because there were students in the 9th grade as old as I was. Times were different then and I had very little trouble. Back in those days it got cold - really cold. Across the road (on the Teague & Fairfield road) there was a huge tank known as the Driver tank. Many times the older kids and I would go at morning recess to skate on the ice. The ice was so solid that it held up all 22 of us. I can assure you on those day recess was more than 15 minutes. Strange as it may seem, I did not get fired or have any complaint from Mr. Pickett, Mr. McNutt or Mr. Inderman, the trustees. Not even after Tom Pickett skated into the barbed wire fence and tore long slits in his new pants or when one of the girls took a complete flip over a wire the boys had strung across the tank. Many funny things happened at Pyburn. There were no such things as germs in those days. We drew water out of a tin cistern and had a community bucket and dipper. One day Eula May Pickett came to me on the school ground and said, "Miss Grace, those salmon eating Finleys have been drinking out of the dipper again." The Finley family was the only one affluent enough to buy salmon for croquets. The rest of us had homemade sausage between our biscuits. We didn't have any deodorant spray. The only odor that we had was the two Conn boys who were always trapping and skinning polecats. Fights are common now but they were very rare then. We only had one. We had two very high strung Indian girls in the school, the Paddy girls. Ruby Paddy and Ester Daily had a fight. Ester used the community dipper for a weapon. No one was hurt, just a few blue spots and hours after school. In 1928, the enrollment decreased so much that Pyburn became a one teacher school. Miss Fanny went to a school in East Texas and I was the one left. In the 5th grade was a little boy named Calvin. You have heard the expression "he can out curse a sailor." Calvin could out do two sailors. One morning coming to school he tried out his talent. The girls told me when they got to school. After school I gave him a good paddling. That did no good so I started keeping him in after school and letting the others go home. After about 2 weeks that got monotonous and I asked him if he could behave and of course, he said "Yes Mam," but the next morning he tried it again. Laura, a sixth grade girl, conked him on the head with her dinner bucket and knocked him out cold. The others ran in telling me that Laura had killed Calvin. I went to see about him. He was sitting up looking around as if wondering what had happened to him. Needless to say, that solved the problem. One day Barney came to school and he had blood all between his fingers. The boys asked what was the matter. He said he had caught and skinned a possum. Skinning that possum turned out to be the itch. It had gone on so long almost every one in school had caught it. When the schoolroom got warm, there was a strong odor of sulfur and grease. No one complained because all of us had it on us. I guess the saddest thing that ever happened was a death. Mr. Sammons with an older son and two girls, Freida and Emma Dee, lived on what we called the John Riley place. Mr. Sammons and his son were coming home after dark from carrying a bale of cotton to the gin. A car hit them from the back and the boy was killed. All of us went to the cemetery. The two girls had on old ragged discarded army coats. It impressed everyone, even the boys. We were all poor and we all wore hand-me-downs, but we felt for the girls. Later we had a box supper (the only way a school, at that time, had to make money). Mrs. Marcie Verdon took the money, bought material and made the girls some pretty warm coats. At Christmas time in 1930, John Grayson and I married and the next fall I went to teach in Streetman, John's hometown. Vivian Terry (later Mrs. Elliot Peevy) taught 7 or 8 years after I left. I do not remember the other teachers. In 1948 Pyburn School was consolidated with the Teague School. The building was sold and my brother and his wife bought the two acres of land and gave it to the cemetery. As is always the case, when the school leaves, the town or community declines, and so it was with Pyburn. Now, only one son of an old timer, the cemetery and memories are all that is left of Pyburn. If you are interested in the history of Freestone County come and join The Freestone County Genealogical Society. The FCGS meets the second Monday of each month, 7:00 p.m., at the Freestone County Genealogical Society in Fairfield. For more information contact Nancy Rula at 254-739-2016.