Freedmen School and Church

Freedmen School and Church. . , Upon the surrender of Clarksville to Union forces in 1862, freed slaves from the surrounding area encamped near Fort Defiance seeking the protection of Union Soldiers. After the war, the Freedmen began their own community in the area near the fort. The new community began a church and conducted services under a brush arbor until a proper building could be raised. In 1865, a new building was constructed on this site and the congregation named its church Greenhill Baptist. The simple white clapboard structure sat on the bluff overlooking the Red River to the east. The Freedmen had purchased the lot $45, brought the lumber, and paid for the labor to erect the building. The original building was lost to a fire in 1960. A new church building was then located nearby at 311 Walker Street and continued to serve the community., The church building was also used to house a school for the Freedmen's children. The New Providence Freedmen's School was funded by the newly created Freedmen's Bureau, the Presbyterian Home Mission, and the American Freedmen's Union Commission. A northern missionary, Miss Maggie Horton, taught at the school and provided a basic education for over 100 students. Many Freedmen schools across the South were met with resistance and sometimes violence. Miss Horton endeavored to find an additional building to relieve the overcrowded conditions of her school. Unfortunately, she was met with hostility, and no accommodations were to be found. Miss Horton taught at the school until 1870 when the public school system provided segregated education to students of all races., Captions: , Greenhill Baptist Church, 1865 - Courtesy of Greenhill Church and Christian Outreach Ministries, Greenhill Baptist Church sits on the bluff above a flooded Red River, 1937 - Courtesy of Customs House Museum and Cultural Center., A classroom of Freedmen students in Richmond, Virginia; sketch by Jas E. Taylor - Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Miss Maggie Horton's monthly report to the Freedmen's Bureau - Courtesy of Tennessee State Library and Archives