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Pleasant Hill Academy

... Pleasant Hill, Tennessee

1884-1947

Pleasant Hill Academy and students
Courtesy Tennessee State Library and Archives

Pleasant Hill Academy was created to provide education to rural students on the Cumberland Plateau. The school was established by the American Missionary Association of the Congregational Christian Church and was a boarding school dedicated to liberal arts, sciences, agriculture and vocational training. The school was also accredited by the University of Tennessee, and all graduates were automatically accepted to UT. The school was active until 1946, when the Cumberland County school system acquired the property for a public school.

From 1917 to 1920, one of Tennessee’s pioneers in medicine, May C. Wharton, joined her husband Edwin at Pleasant Hill. She received her M.D. from the University of Michigan in 1905, and when her husband was named principal in 1917, she worked as the school’s physician until the Rev. Wharton died in 1920, including a difficult year during the 1919 flu epidemic. Dr. Wharton stayed in Pleasant Hill as the community’s doctor and established a hospital in Pleasant Hill.

Pleasant Hill Academy Girls' Hall
Courtesy Tennessee State Library and Archives