As part of a recent class service-learning project, Tusculum College students clear undergrowth from a small cemetery, the only physical remains of New Hope Church in rural Greene County. Then Tusculum President William Stephenson Doak preached at the Presbyterian mission church at its beginnings in 1869. (Tusculum College photo)

Service project for Tusculum College students ties to school's and local Presbyterian church's histories

A group of Tusculum College students recently cleared underbrush and trash from a small cemetery at the corner of New Hope and Oak Grove roads near campus.

The students' effort was the latest in a project to preserve a part of local history, an undertaking which has grown to involve Tusculum College's Museum Studies Department, the Holston Presbytery, and interested local citizens.

As the result of the students' efforts on the sunny spring day, the overgrown lot is now recognizable as a cemetery, all that physically remains from a church called New Hope founded in the 1860s.

Students in the "Citizenship and Social Change: Theory and Practice" course taught by Ricki Kaplan, an adjunct sociology professor, selected the cemetery clean-up as a service-learning project for the class. The clean-up was also a project of the Great American Clean-up of Keep America Beautiful.

While the project is representative of the Civic Arts emphasis at Tusculum and students' involvement in community service, it also ties to the college's history. In 1869, the Rev. William Stephenson Doak was appointed by the Holston Presbytery to serve as an itinerant missionary in Greene County and as such, preached to a group of African Americans meeting for worship in a school house near Holley Creek. At the time, Doak was president of Tusculum College.

The group decided to form a church and requested affiliation with the Holston Presbytery, a governing body of Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) that includes churches in 12 Northeast Tennessee counties and one in Southwest Virginia. Tusculum College also has a covenant agreement with the Holston Presbytery.

The first two elders of the church, Everett Harlan and Charles Kennedy, were ordained by Doak. The church was also known for its choir, led by Kennedy. Allen, Leming, Snapp, and of course, Harlan and Kennedy, were some of the family surnames in the congregation.

This information about the church beginnings is found in local historian Richard Doughty's "Greeneville One Hundred Year Portrait 1775-1875." No other written records have been found to give further detail of the church's history.

The project to preserve the cemetery began when Eleanor Mosca approached the Tusculum Museum Studies Department about the possibility of preserving the cemetery.

The Holston Presbytery has also became involved as the Museum Studies Department began to investigate the history of the cemetery and possibilities for preserving the cemetery. Members of Tabernacle Presbyterian Church in Greeneville, a member of the Holston Presbytery, are interested in learning the history of the New Hope congregation, and perhaps linking with other local African-American heritage groups to preserve this and other burial sites, according to the Rev. James Mays of the presbytery.

Elders at Tabernacle Church have indicated that church was built when members from New Hope moved into to Greeneville for more work opportunities just prior to World War II, and some of the members trace their ancestors to the New Hope congregation, Mays said.

If anyone has information about the New Hope Church or its members, please contact George Collins, director of Museum Program and Studies, at 423-636-7348.

Tusculum's Department of Museum Program and Studies administers the undergraduate museum studies program that prepares students for positions of responsibility in the museum profession and in not-for-profit organizations.

The department also administers the President Andrew Johnson Museum and Library and the Doak House Museum. The Andrew Johnson Museum houses a collection of books, papers, and memorabilia of the 17th president of the United States. The museum also houses the Charles Coffin Collection from the original college library and the College archives containing documents related to the history of Tusculum. The Doak House Museum, which was the home of the Reverend Samuel Witherspoon Doak, co-founder of the college, hosted more than 7,000 school children from Northeast Tennessee last year for a variety of educational programs related to the early 19th century