The first public school in Greensboro was outside the corporate limits across Caldwell Creek

Greensboro Public School¹

Published in 1908

In 1858, Miles Hassell Yerby, a graduate of the State University at Tuscaloosa, came to Greensboro and taught the first public school near the town of which any record can be found.

The school house was situated outside of the corporate limits, northeast of Greensboro, across Caldwell Creek. The school was attended by many boys, who in after-life, attained to prominence in the affairs of church and state. The location of the school was changed after the war, and the building on Centreville Street then known as the Gibson place was used for a long while as a school house.

Students and teachers in 1869

From the old record before us for 1869, (the only one that could be found) the following pupils were enrolled in the Greensboro Public School for that year: Reuben C. Johnson, Frank Johnson, Andrew W. Owens, Nelson Owens, Morris Steinhart, Charlie Steinhart, Jeff D. Steinhart, Joe Stockton, Willie Stockton, Joe Stokes, Dan Taylor, Milford Harris, Filmore Norfleet, Will Miller, Jeff Evans, Willie McGee, John Musy, John Yerby, Willie Yerby, Tom Taylor, Syd Taylor, Alex Davis, Willie DuBose, Willie Kenan, Ed Williamson, Steve Williamson, Albert Williamson, Ed Bell, John Bell, Mary Herran, Bettie Sharon, Rosa Sharon, Julia Wilburn, Fannie Owens, Sallie Owens, Bettie Andrews, Lida Miller, Alice Sledge, Jessie Yerby, Bettie McDonald, Ida Steinback, Sallie Blanton, Alice Blanton.

The teachers of the public school have been, in all its history, as follows: M. H. Yerby, Mrs. Mary Happel and Mrs. M. A. Hutchinson, Miss Sallie Pasteur, Mrs. J. M. Pickett and Miss Maggie Pickett, W. W. Lee, J. A. Baxley. The present school is known as “The Greensboro Graded School,” and is taught in the old Female Academy building on Demopolis street.

Old Greensboro Female Academy (HISTORY OF GREENSBORO, ALABAMA From Its Earliest Settlement by William Edward Wadsworth Yerby, Montgomery, Alabama)

There is an attendance of about 130 pupils, and besides the principal, there are four assistant teachers. The old school house on Centreville street presents much the same appearance now it presented some forty years ago, and the picture will no doubt be recognized by many of the former pupils, scattered far and wide over the face of the earth, into whose hands a copy of this volume should chance to fall. But they will miss the wide-spreading elm trees in the yard—only one of the many now remaining, and it is gnarled, and the branches have been broken and torn by the winds that have angrily passed through them these many years.

THE OLD PUBLIC SCHOOL HOUSE ON CENTREVILLE STREET (HISTORY OF GREENSBORO, ALABAMA From Its Earliest Settlement by William Edward Wadsworth Yerby, Montgomery, Alabama,)

They will also miss the stately poplars on the hillside just north of the building, and the forest trees and the “big swamp” in the rear of the playground. And the flowers have blossomed and faded above the grave of the highly educated and painstaking schoolmaster of the old days for nearly ten years.

He rests from life’s labors in the quiet city of the dead in Greensboro among loved ones, friends, and former pupils. The same babbling brook is at the foot of the little hill to the north of the house, but the shade trees and the violets are gone, and the spot is no longer an inviting place for the school boy to stroll side by side with his first sweetheart and gather the wild flowers for her—as the boys used to do in the years that are dead.

1Excerpt from HISTORY OF GREENSBORO, ALABAMA From Its Earliest Settlement by William Edward Wadsworth Yerby, Montgomery, Alabama,

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Donna R. Causey, resident of Alabama, was a teacher in the public school system for twenty years. When she retired, Donna found time to focus on her lifetime passion for historical writing. She developed the websites www.alabamapioneers and www.daysgoneby.me All her books can be purchased at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble. She has authored numerous genealogy books. RIBBON OF LOVE: A Novel Of Colonial America (TAPESTRY OF LOVE) is her first novel in the Tapestry of Love about her family where she uses actual characters, facts, dates and places to create a story about life as it might have happened in colonial Virginia. Faith and Courage: Tapestry of Love (Volume 2) is the second book and the third FreeHearts: A Novel of Colonial America (Book 3 in the Tapestry of Love Series) Discordance: The Cottinghams (Volume 1) is the continuation of the story. . For a complete list of books, visit Donna R Causey