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SPECIAL THANKS

We'd like to extend a special thanks to the following folks who helped us make this project possible:

We'd like to that our funders USDA Rural Development , Tucker Foundation, Tennessee Department of Tourism Development, the Cracker Barrel Foundation, our sponors, and the numerous other private and public donors that made this Web site and it's promotion possible.

MMA Creative
Thanks to Darrell Kerley, Jesse Kaufman, Donna Zec and all the Web site programmers at MMA Creative for nuturing the idea of this project and making it a reality. 

Thank you Randy Williams of the Upper Cumberland Development District for giving this project the Edge, and thanks to all our members and partners who have always participated with the Alliance, and supported our efforts to pursue a more inclusive vision for the region's future.  

 

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Historic Sites Historic Sites

Burritt College

Burritt CollegeEstablished 1848 through the efforts of Elihu Burritt, a blacksmith who intended that the youth of this community should get the benefits of education denied to him. It closed its doors in 1939 as a result of the development of the public school system and improvement of communication facilities.

In selecting a name for the college the founders desired one which represented the ideals which they sought to embody in the school: scholarship, the dignity and worth of labor, and service to man. The name finally chosen was "Burritt College," named for Elihu Burritt of Worcester, Massachusetts. The founders’ choice of a name has presented a number of intriguing questions that need to be answered before the study of the college itself is undertaken. These questions deal mainly with the nature of the religious group with which Burritt College was associated throughout its existence. Of special interest is the group’s views on social reform and education. In order to answer these questions it will be necessary to notice something of the nature and work of Elihu Burritt.

Elihu Burritt, commonly known in his lifetime as “the learned blacksmith,” gloried in the concept of self-improvement, and like many of his contemporaries, became a self-made man. Though a poor man with few opportunities for education, Burritt through initiative and determination acquired a working knowledge of approximately fifty languages. Even more outstanding in Burritt's own life was his ideal to serve mankind in some humanitarian endeavor rather than to accumulate a personal fortune, for "unlike most Americans, he had no ambition to rise above the working class from which he came.

-by Marion West from Pioneer of the Cumberlands @ http://www.therestorationmovement.com/burritt.htm 

 

For More Information

379 Tennessee 30
Spencer, TN 38585

Phone: 931.946.7033
Website: http://www.therestorationmovement.com/burritt.htm

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