Grandison D. Nevill's Teaching Career

       ©  Kathy Duncan, 2021

Before Virgil Nevill died, he was interviewed by a great-nephew about the Nevill family. In that interview, Virgil revealed that when he was a young boy, he had gone on a short trip with his grandfather, Granville D. Nevill [Grandison D. Nevill Jr.], from Avery, Texas to Mt. Pleasant, Texas. During their journey, they supposedly visited the grave of Granville's father, and the old man told his grandson that he had negative feelings for his father because of his parents' divorce, that his father had been a horse trader and harness maker, that he had a quick temper, that he had been a school teacher, and that they had run a freight line together from Mt. Pleasant, Texas to Jefferson, Texas. Virgil also recalled that his grandfather had a brother that he visited in Beaumont, Texas. Over the years, I have been able to document everything except the freight line.  

On the 1880 census in Crawford County, Arkansas, G. D. Nevill Sr's occupation was listed as being a school teacher.

Crawford County, Arkansas 1880

Teaching seemed to have been a fallback profession for Grandison D. Nevill Sr. Something he could do when he was not operating a tannery or farming or too old to do anything else. 

Many years prior to 1880, Grandison D. Nevill can be found in Stoddard County, Missouri when he was involved in a lawsuit against Ransom Ladd. That suit was in the courts from September 1851 to March 1853. This was in the immediate years after Grandison lost his tannery and property in Dickson County, Tennesse, and after the dissolution of his third marriage to Annette Travis. There were no other Nevills living in Stoddard County on the 1850 census, so he was likely the only Nevill in Stoddard County in 1851. 

The following information can be found in S. C. Turnbo's Early School Days Near Bloomfield: 

"In speaking of early day schools in Southeast Mo., Mr. Austin Brown who has lived many years at Peel, Ark. gives this account. "I was 12 years old [when] I received my first schooling. This was in 1847 and we lived near Bloomfield in Stoddard County. The school was taught in a little log hut by a man of the name of Macum. Some of my school mates were Anthony and Daniel Clubb who were brothers and there were 3 or 4 of the teachers sons and nephew of his was also named Macum. When I was 16 years old or in 1851 a man of the name of Neville taught on Delaware Creek 4 miles west of Bloomfield and I went to it. The only names other than myself that I call to mind who attended this school was Susan Chappelle and her brother Leiper. I studied my lessons in Noah Webster's old Blue Back speller and during the first school I got to Baker and the next one I reached the pictures which pleased me well." 

It is reasonable to think that this teacher was Grandison D. Nevill, and it indicates that he was teaching school as early as 1851. 

Then in 1873, a single man by the name of Nevill was teaching in the Black Fork Township of Scott County, Arkansas. Grandison D. Nevill Jr. had married the daughter of John C. Walker and Hannah Holcomb of Scott County, Arkansas around 1867, and they had moved to Titus County, Texas by 1870. They did not stay there long before returning to Arkansas, probably in the vicinity of her family. It is reasonable to think that Grandison D. Nevill Sr was also in the vicinity since he seems to have lived near his son from 1860 on. Grandison Sr. can be found in Sebastian County in 1863, where Grandison Jr's children married years later. Senior can also be found next door to his son in Crawford County, Arkansas in 1880. His exact location in 1870 is currently unknown. This may have been during the period that the Nevills were running a freight line from Mt. Pleasant to Jefferson. 

This description can be found in the book From Memory's Scrapbook: A History of the Early Days of Scott County, Arkansas vol 2 by P.M. Claunts:

"One of the early teachers of Blackfork valley was Prof. Nevills, to whom the writer attended school when a small boy. This was about 1873, not sure about the year. It was taught in a little log house which stood just north of the valley road about one mile west of the John M. Martin Sr. home and on the north side of Blackfork creek. It was made up of all ages and sizes none being larger than the teacher who weighed bout 200. It was a winter term beginning in September and continuing until the following March. Many children, ten or [?] years of age learned their alphabet at this school and the grown-ups all studied the old McGuffey's, a blue-backed speller and the readers from No. 1 and No. 4, and Ray's arithmetic. At intervals during the day he would have the whole school lay their books aside and sing a little sing-song ditty beginning with the words of two letters and continuing to words of three letters, for example: 'Except that I cannot give the tune---' Ba Be bi-biby-bi bo-biby-bi-bo-bu-biby-bi-bo. (One would have to hear it to appreciate it). Another sing-song was the states and capitals. Beginning at Wisconsin, following with the capital repeating each or since each twice; taking in all the states and capitals. This was not so silly as the "Ba's" for we learned these states and their capitals and the writer can yet repeat them in this sing-song way. Special:--(If any of the Waldron readers want this story verified and a sample of the singing, just make an appointment with Judge W.A. Bates and advertise it and you will have an audience and be well entertained for he attended school to this same teacher, at Vise schoolhouse on Jones Creek). The teacher boarded at the R.G. Richmond home and from this home two boys and three girls attended: Jerry, Ben, Lou (who later became Mrs. L.O. Day), Lila who later became Mrs. Bud Gist, and Mollie, who later became Mrs. John Allen and later Mrs. Aikin, the only surviving member of the Richmond family, at this writing. In this school there were bad boys and pranks as is found in modern schools of today. There was one boy in the school who was from a family where the father had died; the widow, in providing pants for the boy, made a pair shorter but no smaller from a pair of the father's trousers and they were supported by a string over one shoulder. This bad boy would be just behind him when he stood up for his spelling lesson as it was called. It was a warm day and the boy had on no coat; when [he] crossed his legs the string slackened and the bad boy from behind with a sharp knife clipped the string and the show started, with the trousers falling to the floor and the boy in his excited effort to pull them up, hobbled himself and fell, all the time making for the door. When he went out at the door he had only one foot in the trousers and was supporting them in his hand. The teacher like the pupils, could not hold himself and announced: 'recess for dinner.'

It was the next day before this boy showed up at school and he never did know the string was cut, but thought it broke."

It is interesting to me to note that years after Grandison D. Nevill Sr was teaching at Black Fork and Vise, Arkansas, his granddaughter Susan Gertrude Nevill married Richard E. Duncan, a nephew of Samuel K. Duncan who became a legal partner with the very same Judge W. A. Bates, who had been a student of Grandison D. Nevill Sr. 

Keywords: G. D. Nevill, G. D. Neville, Granderson D. Nevill, Granderson D. Neville