BrushySchool

Hood County Texas Genealogical Society

HISTORY OF BRUSHY SCHOOL
by Addie Sargent Kinson

The exact date of the first school house in the Brushy Community is unknown, but we do know it was destroyed by fire sometime between 1880 and 1885.
This building was described by a former pupil Mrs. Ada Peters Gauntt who attended this school as a small child. It was a very small one room built of logs with a fireplace across one end and three or four rows of seats made of split logs. It was known as Duckinville School and was situated about 100 yards north of the Rough Creek Cemetery, near enough to the creek for water to be carried for drinking. No one seems to know where the name Duckinville originated. Some think it was because all the teen age boys wore trousers sewn from a material called Ducking and usually dyed blue. Others think it was named for a family in the community named Dunkin.
Only three teachers named of this school have been obtained:

A Mr. Kelly

Mr. Berry who was the father of our Granbury Arthur Berry

Miss Annie Gollsome.

Some of those attending this school were:

Adrian Davis

Allen Nelson

Ada Gauntt now deceased.

Soon after the loss of this school by fire, a new building was erected of lumber on the Lee Nash property near where the city refill is located. This school was named Brushy. It took its name from being almost hidden by trees and brush.

Only one teacher's name could be recalled according to Mrs. Gauntt's information: my father, George E. Sargent taught a term in this at the age of 28.

Some of the pupils attending this school were:

Burl, Earl, Ara, and Jeff Rhea

The Davis and Carter children

Tommy Peters

Marcus Elder

Emma and Rosa Allen Nelson

Mollie Holden

Eva Cassity

Will Long

Lee Nash

Charlie Peters.

(Above information given by Jeff Rhea, the only surviving pupil of this school that we can locate.)

After a few years, the residents of the community decided it was too far for the small children who resided in the northern part of the district to walk to school, so they built a small structure of lumber just inside of where the Rough Creek Cemetery is. It took the name of the original school that burned Duckinville. After a short time, the people decided they could not support two schools, so they voted to build a two-teacher school nearer the center of the community, so the men of the community moved the Brushy building - using log rollers, on the present site which was deeded to the community by two civic-minded citizens, Mr. Jim Nelson and Mr. Hastings. An extension was added on the north end of the original building. This was in the year 1900 or 1901. This school was named Rough Creek because the creek has its beginning a short distance south of the school grounds. Squaw Creek also heads here. It could have been named Squaw Creek School, but happened it wasn't.

Later a partition was added making two rooms. Some of the first teachers were:

Arthur Berry

Mrs. Lunsford

Mr. Edwards, who was the father of Jimmie Edwards of Granbury

Miss Earl Duckworth

R. M. Mugg

Mamie Smith

Ethel and Myrtle Abbott

Glady Miller

As the population increased, another room was added on the west of the original building consisting of Old Brushy, Duckinville, and Rough Creek. So we compromised and called it Brushy.

After consolidation with the Granbury School, the building had been used as an active community center for church services, revival meetings, singings, club activities, homecomings, and various community affairs, but all of this was terminated when our beloved school house was destroyed by fire of an unknown origin on November 14, 1978.

Reprinted from Hood County Genealogical Society Newsletter dated May 1997
Web Page by Virginia Hale