As a result of my articles about former schools in the Fork, the Knox County lands between the French Broad and Holston rivers, someone asked me for more information about the one at Huckleberry Springs, formerly known as Whortleberry Springs.

What is a whortleberry, anyway? Well, it’s kinda like a huckleberry. Some people call them “bilberries.”

Still perplexed? Whortleberries are similar to blueberries, but unlike the blueberries’ pale centers, the whortleberry has a distinctively colored center. However, the names of all these berries are often interchanged. Evidently, they grew near the springs back in the day.

Whortleberry/Huckleberry Springs school began in 1871 as a seminary where the old “camp meetings” of the Second Great Awakening were once held along the present road that bears the same name. It was started by Professor F.C. Beaman and benefited from the Peabody Education Fund, which was established by banker George Peabody in 1867 to improve existing schools in “the most destitute portions of the Southern States” after the Civil War. Peabody and his partner Junius Spencer Morgan’s resulting business is known today as J.P. Morgan. & Co.

By 1873, Prof. Beaman was serving an average of 94 students at his subscription school and was assisted by his wife and Mr. J.T. Rose. The institution was accredited, and by 1907, it was overseen by the district board, which held educational rallies and teacher training there to promote education in the other districts of the Fork as well.

Beaman’s school was closely associated with the Methodist church that had existed there long before the Civil War. The current Huckleberry Springs church building was constructed by Rufus Perry Johnson, whose war pension helped him pay for his nearby farm. His grandson Luther Johnson told how when the Civil War began, Rufus had “dropped his plow in the field and made for Kentucky and enlisted in the Union army.” Rufus was wounded by shrapnel during the war, but throughout his remaining days, he cared for his horse Dolly, as any good former cavalryman would. On Saturdays, he would ride Dolly to Lyons Creek Baptist Church to attend their business meetings. When the Fork chapter of the veterans’ fraternity called the Grand Army of the Republic was formed as the Dan Fisher Post 78 in 1889, Rufus served as Commander.

Johnson told that on his grandfather’s bedroom wall hung a picture of General Grant and Civil War scenes, and in the corner was Rufus’ sword. His gun hung over the door. About 20 yards from the house was the cool, clear spring, which ran into a pine trough whose end was over a rock where one could set a bucket to catch water. The stream continued through a springhouse floored with rocks upon which sat crocks of milk, butter and other perishables. Out from the springhouse, the stream flowed into a fenced fish pool, where Rufus could bring the fish to the surface with a tap of his cane upon the boardwalk.

Even though the school closed in 1911, when the Riverdale school was established, the old schoolhouse continued to stand. By the 1940s, the J.P. McMillan family had renovated it into a home and had lived in it for decades, regularly hosting the McMillan family reunions there.

By the 1920s, the name for the springs had transitioned to “Huckleberry,” and though the springs still flow, whortleberries have been forgotten in the Fork.

Jan Loveday Dickens is an educator, historian, and author of Forgotten in the Fork, a book about the Knox County lands between the French Broad and Holston Rivers, obtainable by emailing ForgottenInTheFork@gmail.com.