Hazel Green Academy

"Hazel Green Academy is established as a Mission for the Kentucky mountains hence its very low rates of tuition, and the offer of the managers to educate free of charge the worthy indigent. It is intended to bring it within the power of the poorest in this world's goods to secure a good education. It is hoped the Academy may serve as a stepping stone to college and a higher sphere in life to some who otherwise might never have an aspiration beyond the life of their fathers. By giving young men and women a taste of better things, we hope to fill them with a noble ambition to rise in life."

Hazel Green Academy was founded in 1880 in the small farming community of Hazel Green, in Wolfe County, Kentucky. At the urging of his wife Lou Ellen, Senator William Oldham Mize, along with two other men of the Hazel Green community, Jesse Taylor Day and Green Berry Swango, financed and established the Academy. It was established in 1880 by a Charter from the Kentucky Legislature. The bill was introduced by a Hazel Green citizen, Senator William O. Mize. The Founders of the school were Mize and his wife, Hazel Green merchant, J. Taylor Day, and Green Berry Swango, Greenberry was a community leader in Wolfe County, Kentucky, a Commissioner of Wolfe County, a Judge in Wolfe County (two terms: 1882-1886), a delegate to the Kentucky Constitutional Convention in 1890.

Greenberry Swango, CSA

The first classes were held in the Hazel Green Masonic Hall, before a permanent school building was erected downtown in 1885. N. B. (Napoleon Bonaparte) Hays was the first principal. He was later the Attorney General of Kentucky. Hazel Green offered health services, and ran a farm to provide many of the school's staples. Much of the labor to support the school came from the students. In its earlier years, the Academy was called the "Athens of the West" and the "Mother Mountain School" as it preceded other private, missionary and public schools in its 20 county service area by several years

The founders remained responsible for the school until 1886, at the invitation of the Founders, in 1886, the Kentucky Christian Woman's Board of Missions (CWBM), a sisterhood of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), assumed operation of the financially ailing school. The Disciples of Christ adopted the school in 1886 and operated it as a mission, with tuition and boarding costs offset by outside donations and work scholarships for students. The academy’s motto was, “Where we find a path or make one.” The magnitude of the undertaking as the "Kentucky Mountain Mission" caused the Kentucky Board to appeal to the National CWBM at Indianapolis for support. By 1919, the CWBM was enveloped in the new United Christian Missionary Society (UCMS) which sponsored the Academy. In 1919, another division of the Christian Church, the United Christian Missionary Society, headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, became the governing body and the major source of financial support for the Academy. 

By the mid-1920’s, the Academy boasted a 212-acre farm, a used clothing store, a small hospital and a kindergarten, along with a gymnasium, administration building, classrooms and an arts and crafts complex. Free public education offered by the state, however, began to sweep through the state in the 1910’s and 1920’s. Although the Academy teaching staff during those years numbered few more than a half-dozen, grades 1-12 were offered until 1929, when grades 1-6 were discontinued. As public schools were established in the area, the academy stopped teaching the first six grades in 1929, the Academy began offering courses only for middle and high school students. In 1965, grades 7 and 8 were dropped.

But under Stovall’s leadership in the 1930s and 1940s, course offerings and community services grew. The school had its own water and power plants, which supplied electricity to the town into the 1930s. At various times, Hazel Green Academy also provided the community with a library and a small hospital. When World War II ended, the school’s farm donated more than six tons of food for European relief. The Academy continued to teach grades 7-12 until 1965, by which time grades 7 and 8 were no longer being offered. Established at a time when few eastern Kentucky roads were passable the year round, and 28 years before Kentucky provided for the establishment and maintenance of public high schools, Hazel Green Academy began as a boarding school and remained so until 1983.The school closed its doors August 31, 1983. Its last Director was Dr. Robert "Sandy" Goodlett and the last Principal was Rev. Bob Dailey. Dailey was the principal, 1980-83. Before that he was the math and science teacher for two years.

Hazel Green 1885 (newspaper above)

Hazel Green 1900, wing had been added on

 

Hazel Green Fall Term 1907

 

Pearre Hall

Rev. Clarence Larkin

Henry J Derthick 1906-1910

Hazel Green Academy 1960 Post Card

Henry Stovall Memorial

Hazel Green Industrial Building

1887 Baseball

Pearl (Day) Bach (1887-1968)

Mrs. Pearl Day Bach, historian of the Former Students Association of the academy, has compiled the information concerning the school, particularly in its early years. Mrs. William Everett Bach (Pearl Day Bach), was born in Hazel Green, Wolfe County, Kentucky, and graduated from Hazel Green Academy in 1905. During this time, Pearl became the organist for the Hazel Green Presbyterian Church and later began teaching Music at Caney, Kentucky. In 1905, she was married to William Everett Bach of Jackson, Kentucky and settled in Cannel City, Kentucky where her husband worked as the conductor on the Ohio & Kentucky Railroad. The couple resided briefly in Pineville from 1917 to 1919, where William Bach became the president of the Kentucky River Mining Co. In 1919, Mr. and Mrs. Bach, along with two daughters settled permanently in Lexington, where Mr. Bach continued working for the coal business, and with the Kearns Coal Company, of Cincinnati, Ohio. Pearl was active in numerous organizations, committees, and causes. Among her activities include membership of the Eastern Star, the United Daughters of Confederacy, President of the Crippled Children's Board of the Good Samaritan Hospital, on Advisory Committee of Dessie Scott Children's Home in Wolfe County, charter member and organizer of the Kentucky Mountain Club of Lexington, Kentucky, as well as chairman of the Sick and Hospital Committee from 1945 to 1958. Foremost, she is most notable as an active Kentucky genealogist and clubwoman.