The large white oak, Quercus alba, stands on the property once owned by the American Missionary Association (AMA) in Pleasant Hill, Cumberland County. The Academy was established in 1884 to provide broad liberal arts education for rural youth, while also giving vocational training in agriculture and local skills. The Academy was supported by the Congregational Church and operated until 1947.
Students worked within the Academy to pay for their schooling. By the end of 1887 some 79 students were enrolled, some riding horses or mules for miles. While the Academy started out as an elementary school, by 1890 it was offering a full college preparatory course, and contained over 10 buildings, including dormitories. In 1945 the AMA voted to sell the campus to the Cumberland County Board of Education. The Pleasant Hill Elementary School, grades pre-K through 8th, now occupies the site of the original Academy. One of the few remaining buildings of the Academy now stands as Pioneer Hall Museum, originally a dormitory, and was featured in a segment of the PBS show, Tennessee Crossroads.
May Wharton, and early woman physician from Minnesota, established a medical clinic at the Academy in 1917 while her husband was a principal of the school, and she was later responsible for establishing a small hospital with a sanatorium annex for people with tuberculosis. The hospital was later relocated to Crossville and is now known as the Cumberland Medical Center. Mary was famously referred to as the “Woman Doctor of the Cumberlands”.
Not far east from the Pleasant Hill Academy also was Camp Crossville, a prisoner of war camp during World War II, and housed captured German and Italian officers from November 1942 until the end of the war.
The huge white oak was rumored to be within the original hog lot of the Academy and has been dated to be over 278 years old. As such, the tree is the only known living remnant of the original Academy property. The tree stands 73 feet tall and over 18 feet in circumference.
It was originally nominated as a historic tree by the late Bill Hess, a member of the Crossville tree board.
Historic Tree, 2023. Nominated by Bill Hess. Pictures by Tom Simpson
