Site of Muse Academy

The house was a long, expensive build. James Sanford Muse's grandson wrote in 1920 that work started about 1858 and took two years. A contractor took the job for $3,000 and quit when the money ran out with the house half done, so Muse hired carpenters at $1.50 a day, and it cost $6,000 in the end. One carpenter was Jim, an enslaved man Muse owned, the grandson wrote. Heart pine came by ox wagon from Jefferson, and the frame was joined with mortise and tenon and pins, in eight-inch pine logs set like a mill's.

What the plaque says

Site of Muse Academy A native of Virginia, James S. Muse (1804-1878) prospered as a hemp grower in Missouri before coming to Texas with his wife Margaret Slaughter. He bought 320 acres and built this house in 1858-59. In one wing which was later removed, he opened Muse Academy, also known as Mount Pleasant High School. A lay preacher in the Christian Church, he was also a Greek and Latin scholar. Other instructors, including his daughters, were added as the school grew. Many children of prominent pioneer families in North Texas attended. The school closed in 1871. (1978)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Heard Natural Science Museum & Wildlife Sanctuary — 3.5 mi
  A 289-acre sanctuary in McKinney that Bessie Heard founded at the age of 80, with five habitats, a 50-acre wetland and 6.5 miles of trails.
• Rockwall County Historical Foundation & Museum — 22 mi
  A small museum in Harry Myers Park that keeps the evidence on Rockwall's rock wall, sandstone dikes that geologists call natural and folk tales call built.

More markers nearby

• First Presbyterian Church of McKinney — 0.5 mi
• Waddill-Morris Homesite — 0.7 mi
• First Christian Church of McKinney — 0.8 mi
• Collin County — 1.0 mi