History of the Berea Community and Jefferson Adventist Academy

The Berea Community is located five miles northwest of Jefferson, Marion County, Texas.

A Seventh-Day Adventist minister by the name of E. B. Hopkins held meetings in the city of Jefferson on the grounds of the school, which is now Lions Club Park. The people of Jefferson invited the Seventh-Day Adventist to open a school in the area and the Progressive Club of Jefferson offered to pay for the school building.

Like most ministers in that day, Elder Hopkins did not have the kind of money needed to obtain property on which to establish a school. However, he felt this was an offer that should be acted upon. He persuaded his friend, W. A. McCutchen, who was then president of the North Texas Conference of Seventh-Day Adventist, to find the necessary funds with which to proceed. Using personal funds Mr. McCutchens purchased the old Jones Plantation of 1770 acres of land. In Ms. Lucille Bullard’s book “Marion County, Texas 1860-1870” she states that Mr. Jones, whose plantation is where the Adventist Community is now located, had 56 slaves and is now the residence of Ms. Minnie Kilgore.

The home was owned by Douglas and Mamie G. Jones and in 1913 Mr. McCutchen purchased the property and home from the Jones family. There was a large house on the property. Ms. Kilgore purchased the house and some acreage. At the time Ms. Kilgore was living in Mexico with her doctor husband and agreed for the .Alexander family to live in the home indefinitely.

Last week I talked with Virginia Alexander Guston of Knoxville, Tn. who is the daughter of the Alexanders. Virginia was born and raised in the plantation home. She described the house as being two story, having large rooms, high ceilings, five fireplaces. She stated that it was very cool in the summer, but very cold in the winter. She also stated there was a cotton gin, smoke house, a large barn, and a separate kitchen behind the house and several slave quarters.

Mr. and Ms. Walter Alexander lived in the house for many, many years while it was owned by Ms. Alexander’s sister, Ms. Kilgore. Ms. Minnie Kilgore lived in the house in her later years. She always had about 20-30 cats, and as many hats. She always wore a hat, gloves and high heeled shoes no matter where she was going.

I was in the plantation house many times growing up and also when it was owned by Mr. B. C. Allen. The house burned during the time Mr. Allen owned the place.

When Mr. McCutchin purchased the Jones property, he set aside property for a cemetery. The oldest grave in the cemetery is that of Arrena Graves, wife of J. T. Graves, who died Octobers, 1917.

Mr. McCutchin offered to sell plots up to 50 acres to any family wishing to move to East Texas and send their children to the new school. A community began to develop which came to be known as Berea. The establishment of the school was thus assured.

The Progressive Club, as they had promised, built the necessary building and the school opened its doors in 1914. There was one teacher and twenty-four pupils enrolled that first year. The school has been in continuance operation since that time. The enrollment in the academy has been down at times, but it always manages to have a good school year.

This school year we have 62 pupils and we were thankful for that as the tuition had to be increased this year. There are families who have 2-3 children living in the dormitory so it is a hardship on some. However, a Christian education is a very high priority to families in the Seventh-Day Adventist church.

Elder W. S. Lowry, another minister who helped start the community and school built a store near the school building as the community was five miles from town and there were few, if any, automobiles at that time. He later sold the store to Mr. Henry Hopkins, husband of Susie Hood Hopkins. With no modern moving equipment, the men of the community placed the building on large logs and rolled it across the road to the Hopkins property, where the store has become one of the landmarks of the community. It has been in the Hopkins family for about 80 years with the exception of 3 years. After “Aunt Susie” was unable to take care of the store, her daughter, Lois Chapman, moved here from California to help out, and later bought the store. Lois later sold it to her younger sister, Grace and her husband, Cecil Kinder who are the owners at the present time.

I remember that first store building. It was unpainted and was several yards from Ms. Hopkins house. There was a large piece of iron in front of the store and when you went there you just picked up a rock and hit the iron piece and Ms. Hopkins would come out of her house to the store. There was a tall glass cabinet that was centered in the store building. In this case is where she kept the candy. I am sure she made many trips out to that store for a penny’s worth of candy.

Later the store was moved to the rear of the Hopkins property and used for a barn or storage. They built a new store onto the east end of the Hopkins home and that was the store for many years. In the 1960s a large, new store was built, probably about where that first old store building stood. This is the store that is now in use.

By 1916 the school had grown to 50 pupils so the school building had to be expanded. This work was done by the church members who went into the woods, cut the timber and built an addition to the east end of the building. In 1919 it became necessary to hire a third teacher. Still the school grew. The school was first known as Berea Intermediate School, now known as Jefferson Adventist Academy.

Some of the first families to move to the area because of the school included the Alexanders, Colvins, Culpeppers, Hoods, Sibleys, Hancocks, Powells, Aliens, Greenhills, Parsons, Lowrys and Hopkins. Many of their descendants still live in the Berea community.

One story that was of interest to me was when the Colvin family moved to the community from Arcadia, Louisiana in 1914.

They sold their farm and home, loaded their household goods, their mules and cows in a boxcar and started for Texas. Mr. Colvin rode on the freight train to look after the stock, and the rest of the family came by passenger train. Two of the oldest children had come ahead to find a place to move into, and they met the rest of the family at Kellyville, where the stock and household goods were unloaded from the train.

Before leaving Louisiana Ms. Colvin sewed 51,000.00 in the hem of her dress “for fear it would be lost or they’d be robbed.” That perhaps is true, for she proudly handed over 51,000.00 in cash to Mr. McCutchin for land with a house on it. And with total self-confidence, she proceeded to the Marion County Courthouse and had the warranty deed recorded in her name, Mrs. S. P. Colvin. Ms. Colvin was the mother of Ms. Rosa Spellings and grandmother of Lyle Spellings. Sr.

There are many interesting stories of the people and how they came to the community. My grandmother Parsons moved here in 1923 after joining the Adventist church in Mt. Pleasant. She was a widow with five children. My mother, Oleta, was the oldest child at 15 years. Grandmother worked very hard, with the help of her children, to make sure they had a Christian education. She worked in the fields and the school broom factory, which was probably the first of many broom factories in the community.

My father, Clyde Greenhill, started in the broom business about 1939 and it continues as the only broom factory in the community at this time, owned by my brother, Robert Greenhill.

Curtis Culpepper and B. C. Allen each had a Broom & Mop Supply business. Mr. Culpepper’s business is still operated by his son-in-law, Paul Tullock, although on a smaller scale.

My father’s family, the Greenhills, moved to the community in 1922 from Palestine, Texas to send their children to the new Christian school.

The building that houses the Community History House located in Berea was built about 1927 and was used as the elementary school for many years and where I started first grade. I graduated from Jefferson Adventist Academy in 1950. The History House contains antiques of members of the community from the past and present.

In 1941 the school became a boarding academy with the opening of a girls dormitory. The boys who came lived with families in the community until a boys dormitory was built.

The original classroom built in 1914 was demolished in 1982 to make room for a new administration building and classrooms. Two new dormitories, a cafeteria, gym and a swimming pool were also added.

Four generations of my immediate family have attended the school. Both my father and mother, Clyde and Oleta Parsons Greenhill, attended the school, as did their four children. My two daughters also attended the school and at the present time I have three grandsons who attend Cypress Bend Adventist Elementary school across the road from the academy.

This year, in addition to the students who live in the community, students come from Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Alabama, California, Illinois and from Africa we have students from Tanzania, Kenya, Ghana, Uganda and Zimbabwe, from the Phillipines, India, Mexico, Turkey, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.

Jefferson Adventist Academy is the fifth oldest of the seventy-five academies in the United States, operated by the Seventh-Day Adventist Church.

Researched and written by

Juanita Greenhill Harrell

September 30. 1998