Bradley Academy

Bradley Academy was the first school in Murfreesboro and kept the name through successive buildings on land the Murfree family gave in 1811. John Bell and James K. Polk were students. The second building, a substantial brick structure of the 1830s, became a Civil War hospital and was badly damaged. It reopened in the 1880s as a school for African Americans, and that is the school's second life: it became the county's first accredited high school for Black students and the center of the Black community.

What the plaque says

Bradley Academy Stood 100 yards E. Organized 1806, with Jos. Dixon, Jno. R. Bedford, Jn. Thompson, St., Wm. P. Anderson, and Robert Smith trustees, it was supported partly by tuition fees, partly by lotteries. An early headmaster was Samuel P. Black. James K. Polk was at one time a student. It merged with Union University in 1848.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Stones River National Battlefield — 3.6 mi
  The Murfreesboro battlefield of December 1862, with a national cemetery built by Black soldiers, a Trail of Tears route and the story of the freedmen's settlement called Cemetery.
• Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration — 24 mi
  The Shelbyville show grounds where the Tennessee Walking Horse has been crowned world grand champion each late summer since 1939, and where the practice of soring is part of the story.
• Henry Horton State Park — 25 mi
  A Duck River park on Governor Henry Horton's former farm in Marshall County, with a mill ruin from 1845, kayak floats and the grave of a governor the House declined to impeach.
• Old Stone Fort State Archaeological Park — 29 mi
  A 2,000-year-old enclosure of piled stone and earth on the bluffs above the forks of the Duck River, built by Native people between about 80 and 550 A.D., with a museum and waterfall trails.

More markers nearby

• Oaklands — steps away
• Holloway High School, 1929-1968 — steps away
• Mary Ellen Vaughan — steps away
• Dr. James Robertson Patterson — 0.2 mi