Sam Houston Schoolhouse State Historic Site is a single-room log cabin-style

school A school is an educational institution designed to provide learning spaces and learning environments for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is sometimes comp ...

house in

Maryville, Tennessee Maryville is a city in and the county seat of Blount County, Tennessee, and is a suburb of Knoxville. Its population was 31,907 at the 2020 census. It is included in the Knoxville Metropolitan Area and a short distance from popular tourist de ...

, built in 1794. Sam Houston taught at the school as a young man, before the

War of 1812 The War of 1812 (18 June 1812 – 17 February 1815) was fought by the United States, United States of America and its Indigenous peoples of the Americas, indigenous allies against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom ...

.Tennessee Historical Commission: State Owned Historic Site: Sam Houston Schoolhouse
/ref> Open to the public, the schoolhouse is a

Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...

state historic site operated under an agreement with the

Tennessee Historical Commission The Tennessee Historical Commission (THC) is the State Historic Preservation Office for the U.S. state of Tennessee. Headquartered in Nashville, it is an independent state agency, administratively attached to the Department of Environment and Co ...

. It was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

in 1972. The school house was originally built by a Revolutionary War veteran, Andrew Kennedy along with Henry McCulloch and other neighbors. The National Heritage Area Program and Blount County Tennessee: A Feasibility Study says “Sometime after his arrival in Tennessee, probably in 1794, Kennedy and Henry McCulloch joined with some neighbors to construct a small log schoolhouse in a clearing less than a mile from the Kennedy home. No definitive explanation can now be given for the decision to locate the schoolhouse at the somewhat unusual site more than a half-mile from Little River. Presumably its proximity to the refreshing spring which flows nearby and perhaps its central position in relation to the original builders' homes were factors in the selection of the site.”

References

External links

Sam Houston Historic Schoolhouse
School buildings completed in 1794 School buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Tennessee Buildings and structures in Blount County, Tennessee Museums in Blount County, Tennessee Education museums in the United States Defunct schools in Tennessee Tennessee State Historic Sites History museums in Tennessee Sam Houston National Register of Historic Places in Blount County, Tennessee 1794 establishments in the Southwest Territory {{BlountCountyTN-NRHP-stub