History:

The first recorded school in Wayne County was Waynesville Academy, located in Old Waynesville. According to the late Judge D. M. Clark, the first school in Jesup was in the unfinished Methodist church building on the corner of E. Cherry and N. Brunswick streets. Judge Clark wrote: "Father moved his family to Jesup in February of 1873, at which time the Methodist church was incomplete, but was occupied for services and also a day school. There was no school building, or any other building used for school purposes other than the church building."

The second documented school was taught by Miss Belle Norwood in 1876-77 "while her father was manager of the railroad hotel" (said to have been a large hotel near the railroad station). Miss Norwood was a graduate of Savannah High School. Presumably the school was taught in the hotel. According to Anna K. Clark, her niece, Belle Norwood later taught another private school, this time in the original Milikin School House for several years. This school stood at the corner of Bay Street and South First Street. Among the pupils were some of the Milikins, the Hopps, the Goodbreads, the Whaleys daughter, Frances Grady, the Causey's, the Purdoms, and others.

When Miss Fannie Milikin graduated from Shorter College in 1888, she and three classmates founded the Milikin School for Girls. The founding date has also been given as 1890. Fannie Milikin was a daughter of Benjamin D. Milikin and Martha Hopps Milikin and later married Joe H. Thomas. "Fannie Miliken, 20, ...was quite an accomplished young woman. (She had at one time been associated with her father in publishing the then-young "Jesup Sentinel.") She was interested in education for girls and persuaded her friends, Jennie Killen, Laura Hume, and Betty Ledbetter, to assist her in establishing a school for the young girls of Jesup." To house this school, the Milikin School House was greatly enlarged and improved. This proved to be an excellent and popular school and included Latin and German in its curriculum. Some forty to fifty young girls attended the Milikin Girls School during its five-year life span, their parents paying tuition for their instruction. The building was moved in more recent years to a site in the Toddville Community four miles southeast of Jesup off U. S. Highway 84 where moderate alterations were made in the structure.

According to Anna K. Clark, a Captain Fort taught a school for boys about the same time. This may have been Jesup Academy, first established in the Masonic Building in 1888. This school proudly promised to prepare boys for West Point and Annapolis. (The school was sometimes referred to as Jesup Institute). Tuition rates for that year were $1.50 to $4 per month.

In the Aug. 2, 1888 edition of The Jesup Sentinel, the Odum correspondent reported that three schools were in operation in that community. One was at Beulah, near the G. W. Harris home, and one at Bethel church. Private school was being conducted by Miss Amanda Moody at the Aaron Moody Home. Several schools sprang up in other parts of the county before the turn of the century. The old Sawgrass School was located near the Wayne and Brantley line, three miles from Hortense and 2.5 miles east of present U. S. Highway 301. Dale's Mill, a thriving community just north of Screven on the railroad, had its own school. Ellis Creek Old School, standing on Ellis Creek on the old Fort Barrington Ferry Road was located across the road from the Union Baptist Church. Church records state: "Families would send their children there if a place could be found to board them. In later years, the school turned out doctors, teachers, lawyers and businessmen."

The public school system was organized probably in 1894 (Dates from 1890 to 1896 have also been mentioned.). The city of Jesup had began to realize the need for a city school. The town was growing and there was promise of much development for Jesup. It was at this time that the Georgia Normal Industrial School was started in Milledgeville and there was more general interest in the education of girls and boys. Tuition was required for the public school system as well as the two others in Jesup. The enrollment fee at the Jesup High School in the 1890s was 30 cents monthly for those living in town and 50 cents for Wayne County children living outside the city limits.

The white school was housed in a large brown frame building on the corner of Orange and Wayne Streets and facing what is now the city park. It was on the site of the Leonard Carter home. This building was owned by one of the fraternal orders and consisted of four large rooms, one of which was reserved by the organization. In one of the lower floor rooms were the primaries, presided over by "Miss Effie" Williams, later Mrs. Mandeville. Grades seven through ten were housed in the other downstairs room and were taught by the principal and one other teacher. The room on the second floor was used for fourth, fifth, and sixth grades. School was taught here at least through 1896.

Mr. Weaver, the principal in 1896-7 has been given credit for "grading" the school. During the years 1896-1900, some of the teachers were Mrs. Maudell, "Miss Effie," and Mr. Lucas who taught fourth, fifth, and sixth grades. Mr. McLendon was principal for two years and specialized in mathematics. Mr. Osborne, who was also pastor of the Baptist Church, was principal in 1899-1900. He also is remembered as an excellent Latin teacher. Two outstanding teachers in the black school were Mr. Bryant, the principal. His son became a respected physician in Savannah. Another well-remembered teacher was Anna Hall, the dedicated missionary.

In 1905 a new school was opened in the center of E. Cherry Street between Elm and Hickory Streets. This two-story, brick building housed 10 grades in six classrooms and had water pumped into hall fountains from an artesian well. It was valued at $10,000 and was the last word in schoolhouses in Wayne County. An old-fashioned bell hung in the steeple of the school and was rung for classes; there was a four-acre playground; small school gardens were wired off and tended by students; there were six classrooms, an auditorium with sections curtained off for classrooms; and a library of 200 volumes. When Col. J. H. Estill, publisher of the Savannah Morning News at one time, visited Jesup just prior to the completing of this school building, he said, "Professor M. H. Johnson is the principal of the Jesup Public School and editor of the Wayne County News. Between the two professions Wayne County is well provided for in matters of educational intelligence. The bricks and other materials for erecting a new schoolhouse are on the site of the proposed building and in the course of a few months, Jesup will have a handsome addition to its educational facilities. The school enrollment for the county is 1,929 white and 466 colored children, taught by 48 white and 12 colored teachers."

This was as in the day of the old -fashioned lyceums and spelling bees-- the day when community life practically revolved around the school-- the day of large families and close family life. The story is told of a large family who attended a lyceum lecture one night in the school. One member of the family, a young boy, grew tired and sleepy and promptly went to sleep. When the lecture was over, everyone was talking and overlooked the sleeping lad. The family did not miss him and no one was the wiser until the next morning when early risers passing the school saw the boy waving frantically from the window of the locked school.

As late as 1909 the school board listed 52 schools, only eight of which were county-owned. Length of school year was based on seasonal planting and harvesting, among other factors. This was true well up into the first half of the twentieth century.