Bristol school graduated its first students in June 1895

Public education was slow in coming to Bristol.
However, for two or three years in the very earliest days of the town’s existence, the Rev. James King paid James B. Crabtree to conduct a school for what few children were here at the time (1854-55).
The general practice was for a teacher to set up a private school with a charge for each pupil taught. These were called “subscription schools.” Some were taught in the homes of the teachers. Such was the case with Miss Julia Womack Bailey who taught in her home on Shelby Street.
One could have private instruction from her for about $7 per month and that included the books used by the pupil and what other supplies may have been needed. (Mrs. Bailey was the great-grandmother of the late Mrs. Virginia Caldwell of Deery Inn fame).
Several others taught private schools here during the pre-Civil War period, and there were more such schools here after the war ended.
Through almost a half-century of Bristol’s existence, only those who could afford to pay tuition could receive an education. Many, perhaps most, of the young folks had to go through life without it.
Public education came to Bristol, Tenn., in 1888. It did not start in Bristol, Va., until 1891. When Major Z.L. Burson built his own big church house on the Virginia side of the 800 block of Main (now State) Street in 1872-73, he could not then know that the first public high school classes in Bristol would be held there. Nor could he know that his grandson would be the first Bristol Virginia High School graduate.
The classrooms in that school consisted of three curtained-off portions of the church sanctuary. In 1892, a move was made to a newly constructed building on Mary Street across from the head of the Lee Street. It was there that the first graduation exercises took place in June 1895. The first to receive a diploma was John Temple (Jack) DeHart who was then 22 years old. The second was given to William Arthur McNeil at the same ceremony. These two young men formed the entire graduating class of 1895.
John T. DeHart was born Sept. 17, 1872, a son of William M. and Sarah (Sally) Burson DeHart. Sally was a daughter of the legendary Maj. Z.L. Burson and his first wife, Susannah Hale Burson. John’s birth occurred in the DeHart home that yet stands vacant at 333 Moore St., Bristol, Va.
When given to Sally by her father, the house was a frame building. Many years later, it was enclosed in brick, likely by John T. DeHart.
The first graduate of Virginia High School went on to graduate King College in 1898. That same year, he was serving with the Bristol Virginia Fire Department. He attended the University of Richmond and the University of Georgia. He was admitted to the Georgia bar in 1901. He then returned to Bristol and practiced law here for more than 50 years.
He married Louise (Lulu) Findlay from the Bethel Community near Abingdon, Va. They had one daughter, Florene, who graduated from Virginia High in 1924. She became an outstanding teacher of dancing.
Her son, Jack, now of Tallahassee, Fla., and who supplied much of the information for this article, graduated from the same school in 1945, 50 years after the graduation of his grandfather.
John T. DeHart was a member of Bristol’s First Baptist Church where he taught a Sunday school class for several years. During the winter of 1952-53, he spent much time at Hot Springs, a health resort in Garland County, Ark. Then, in mid-May, he went to Lake Worth, Palm Beach County, Fla. He died there at 10 a.m. May 27, 1953.
He was buried in the Lake Worth Municipal Cemetery. I used to do winter work in that city, and I have strolled through that cemetery several times, but I had no knowledge that the first graduate of Bristol Virginia High School was buried there.
A word about William Arthur McNeil who graduated in that class also. He was a son of old Captain A.S. McNeil who founded what is now known as the Weaver Funeral Home. The McNeils long lived at what was 320 Moore St., but the number has been changed to 322. This was not far from the DeHart home. The house still stands.
The McNeil Furniture and Funeral business of this family was located at 532 State St. by the building now occupied by Goodman Jewelers and William King Clothiers. William McNeil worked as a short time as a clerk and cashier in the Dominion National Bank. He then began a career with the U. S. Navy. Nothing further is known of him.

BUD PHILLIPS is a local historian and author. He can be reached at (276) 466-6435. For more about Bristol’s history, visit www.bristolhistoricalassociation.com.