Rattlesnake Invasion Led To School Closing

For years, it was my good fortune to have as a neighbor, friend and historical informant Miss Billie Baxter, who long lived on Solar Street in Bristol, Va.
Among other things, she told many stories concerning the work of her late father. Mostly, he was a Christian missionary, but also had a great interest in the promotion of education.
His field of work was mostly confined to the mountains of eastern Kentucky, primarily Clay County of that state, and to the mountain and hill country of Sullivan County, Tenn.
It was while he was working in the latter location that he helped establish a private subscription school known as Rattlesnake Springs. For those who are not familiar with this type of school, it was a private school supported by the attending students. This form was very common in early Bristol.
Miss Baxter did not remember the exact location but knew that it was at a point in the low hills that spread southeast of the Holston River and the high mountains. She thought it was right at the foot of those high mountains.
The very isolated community was made up of rather poor and mostly illiterate people. Many of them followed moon shining and bootlegging as a means of making a living. There were many children in the community that had never attended a day of school. The nearest established school was several miles away and difficult to reach.
It was winter when Mr. Baxter began his visits to this remote area. He first set up a Sunday school that met in a log house in which lived a very large family. The drafty hill-country home was cold, but no one there had a house that could be called warm, so he soon had several of the younger set and a few adults in attendance.
When spring came, he located an unfinished log house that could be had for the purpose. A hermit of sorts had started this house but had died before it was finished. It stood in a shady cove on the side of the mountain slightly above the low hills.
A large, cold spring flowed forth abundantly from the mountainside at that location. A large, natural pond had formed below this spring. Often in dry summers, rattlesnakes came down the mountain to this pond. At such time, several of them might be found in the grass and bushes around this place, thus came the name “Rattlesnake Springs.” 
The house in which Mr. Baxter located for the conducting of his Sunday school could scarcely be called a house. It was more of a log pen about six logs high. There were no windows and only one door. Having no windows did not create a problem because the gables were still open. The floor was the bare ground. The crude shingle roof leaked like a sieve.
Soon after the Sunday school opened there, Mr. Baxter went on to establish the subscription school in the same house. He found an older woman in the community who had reached the fifth grade, very rare for that community. She agreed to teach the summer school for whatever the parents could pay and was paid mostly in farm produce. Any day, a student might show up carrying a cabbage head, perhaps a dozen ears of corn, tomatoes, cucumbers or whatever might be in season at that time.
Occasionally, a freshly shot squirrel, groundhog, rabbit or freshly killed chicken, duck or goose might be brought. These were usually immersed in the spring pond until time for the teacher to go home.
One day, a near grown boy brought a gallon of moonshine as his pay for the teacher. She did not drink, but she did keep it to sell, much to the dismay of the very religious Mr. Baxter.
Books were scarce and what pencils and paper were needed had to be supplied by the teacher or Mr. Baxter. Students sat on split log backless benches as they learned their three “Rs.”
The summer heat was stifling. During thunderstorms, rain blew in through the cracks and poured through the roof. The nearby bushes served as sanitary facilities. To say this school was sub-standard is putting it mildly, but the children did learn. One of them finally became a Bristol lawyer.
Incidentally, this was the one who had shown up with a gallon of moonshine as his subscription. Miss Baxter would not identify him for fear that it would become an embarrassment to his surviving children. 
Late that summer, the weather became very hot and dry. Rattlesnakes began to come down the mountain. One day, a six-footer crawled right in among the students causing quite a stampede. The one small door was no problem since many of the students climbed the walls and exited through the open gables.
Soon after this unwelcome visitor made his unannounced appearance, the bushes and weeds around the school became so infested with the greatly feared serpents, that the parents became afraid for the safety of their children and would no longer send them.
By the next summer, Mr. Baxter had moved on to another location. The future of the educational movement in that area is unknown.

BUD PHILLIPS is a local historian and author. He can be reached at (276) 466-6435.