Mound Prairie
Was Thriving
There's nobody around to remember it now, but Mound Prairie was a thriving Anderson County town in the 1850's, boasting a post office, several business concerns, and a college.The Mound Prairie Institute offered courses at the following rates of tuition: First class, $10; second class, $15, and third class, $20. A course in ornamental needle work was offered young ladies at $15, and it cost the same amount each to attend classes in French or Spanish.
Professor James R. Malone was head of the male department, and Mrs. Sarah V. Malone was in charge of female students. Trustees were J.A. Lawrence, Col. J.S. Hanks, J.S. Morrow, I.W. Dalton, John Billops, Rev. R. Hedge, R.K. Gaston, R.E. Cox, Rev. A. McCain, Rev. D.C. Nevil and Major P.O. Lumpkin. Besides Mound Prairie Institute, there were other educational institutions in the county, making Anderson County one of the state's outstanding cultural centers.
In operation during the 1850's were the Palestine Female Institute and the famous Tennessee Colony Masonic Institute where D. M. Hocker was principal, backed up by the following trustees:
I. King, G.F. Shelton, John Vannoy, Thomas Hudson, John Woolverton, A.M. Anderson and A.L. Porter.
Plentitude, a community long since disappeared, was in full flower at that time, and John Billups' cotton gin and portable mills were located there. The community was about eight miles north of Palestine.