'Learn to Think'

This motto of Mary Sharp College (1851-1896) can serve Americans well in 2026.

'History is written by the victors.’ - U.S. Sen. George Graham Vest, August 20, 1891.

Mary Sharp College in Winchester, Tennessee, had the best motto ever.

The story I tell below is true. It’s personal, but for you, it’s pragmatic and practical. I write for those who think No Kings Day represents all Americans.

It doesn’t, but I understand why some think it should. I’m asking Americans to think.

Here’s the True Story.

My maternal great aunt (3x), Miss Mary Cherry, began teaching elementary students in September 1860 at the newly founded ‘Winchester Female Institute’ in Winchester, Tennessee.

Episcopal Bishop Leonidis Polk (1806-1864) founded Winchester Female Institute in 1860 to combat ‘the liberal influence’ of Mary Sharp College in the South.

When the Civil War broke out (April 12, 1861), Bishop Polk laid aside his clerical robe and became a General in the Confederate Army.

A photograph of CFA Lt. General Leonidas Polk, taken two years after Polk founded Winchester Female Institute (September 1861) in Winchester, Tennessee.

The 1860s community of Winchester, Tennessee, deep in the heart of the American South, serves as a microcosm of a deeply divided United States in 2026, and brings us some wisdom.

• Americans of the 1860s survived the awful American Civil War (1861-1865).

• Americans of the 2020s can survive any future Civil War that comes our way.

All that is needed is for all Americans to ‘Learn to Think’ - (the motto of Mary Sharp College).

Winchester, Tennessee

My maternal ancestors, all Anglicans from London, settled in Winchester, Tennessee, moving from New York State before the Civil War broke out.

Winchester was known during the 1850s for its remarkable Baptist college called Mary Sharp College (MSC), named after the ardent 18th-century abolitionist Mary Sharp.

Dr. Z.C. Graves, who served as the president of Mary Sharp College for most of its history, believed that ‘female students should study the same subjects as male students, like Greek, Latin, and trigonometry, as well as music and art.’

Dr. Graves declared that ‘an educated mind has so many resources within itself, it has not to depend on outward circumstances for happiness.’ MSC’s curriculum was modeled on the course of study at elite eastern male schools like Brown University and offered more rigorous academic coursework than most colleges for women during this era.

I happen to agree with Dr. Graves’ philosophy.

However, my ancestors helped found a ‘rival school for women’ in Winchester, Tennessee, to combat what they perceived to be as a liberal bias at Mary Scharp College.

The Winchester Female Institute

The Winchester, Tennessee, Home Journal Newspaper, August 9, 1860.

My aunt (3x), Miss Mary Cherry, taught elementary girls at the Winchester Female Institute in Winchester, Tennessee, 1860-1863.

My maternal aunt (3x), Miss Mary Anne Dawes Cherry, sat at the front of a classroom at the Winchester Female Institute, and taught young girls as our nation was on the very edge of a cultural earthquake.

Six months later, the United States Civil War would begin.

What fascinates me about my aunt is not just when she taught (before the Civil War), but where she taught (in the heart of the American South).

Winchester, Tennessee, had a deeply divided community of faith.

Between the two schools for girls in Winchester, one can see a nation dividing.

ONE Town, TWO Visions, Cultures, and Nations

The modern downtown Winchester, Tennessee, disguises the 1860s divide.

Mary Sharp College

Mary Sharp College, 1851 to 1880, Tennessee State Museum Collection (2003.34.1.16)

Named after an ardent abolitionist, Mary Sharp College, the college was:

• The first women’s college in America to grant degrees equal to those of men

• Academically rigorous

• Reform-minded

• Quietly aligned with the moral currents that opposed slavery

If you attended Mary Sharp College, you received something different from a typical Southern education.

• Your education would be considered ‘progressive’ in its day.

• Your education would be considered on the cultural fringe.

• Your education would contain a ‘northern spirit,’ contrary to the South.

That’s why a second school for girls opened in Winchester.

The Winchester Female Institute

Trinity Church, Winchester, Tennessee, founded the Winchester Female Institute in the fall of 1860. My great-grandfather (3x), Charles T. Cherry, served as the Chief Warden of Trinity Church, Winchester, Tennessee, in the 1860s and 1870s.

A Different Spirit Entirely

The Winchester Female Institute did not emerge from the same stream of thought as Mary Sharp College, though they both were established in Winchester.

Anglican Bishop Leonidas Polk, a planter, Cherry family friend, and soon, a general in the Confederate Army, founded the Winchester Female School as an alternative to the education provided by Mary Sharp College.

The Winchester Female School curriculum involved:

• Music

• Elocution

• Refinement

• Religious instruction rooted in the Episcopal tradition

This new school sought to preserve Southern society and culture.

Mary Sharp College pointed toward:

• Equality in education

• Moral reform

• A quiet challenge to the Southern status quo

The Winchester Female Institute pointed toward:

• Order

• Tradition

• The preservation of Southern culture as it was

Two schools. Same town. Two different visions. Two alternative futures.

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In 1861, the Civil War Began

When my great aunt stepped into her classroom in September 1860, she could not have known what was coming.

The nation was moving toward a Civil War.

Within months:

• States would secede from the Union.

• Separate armies within one nation formed, pitting brother against brother.

• Bishop Polk himself would trade his clerical robes for a general’s uniform.

The classroom and the battlefield are not as far apart as we might think.

My Personal Reflection

Wade Burleson (Photograph: The Houston Chronicle))

I sometimes think of my aunt Mary Cherry when I reflect on events happening in 2026.

She was a teacher, starting in a brand-new school, in a divided town, on the brink of a divided nation.

My aunt was not writing speeches. She was not leading armies. She was shaping minds.

And that is where history is always decided first.

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We tend to think history turns on battles. But more often, it turns on beliefs - quietly taught, carefully formed, and passed from one generation to the next.

In 1860, in Winchester, Tennessee, two schools stood within reach of each other. They did not fire a shot. But they represented two different answers to the same question:

Which school represents the Truth?

Your answer will depend on which philosophy you support.

I write this post to help you THINK (as Mary Sharp wanted everyone to THINK).

Whether you agree or not with the premise of the ‘No Kings’ movement, the most important question is, ‘Who wins this battle for the education of American students?’

I work hard to ensure that the Truth is part and parcel of our children's education.

This American story of two Marys in the same town in the 1860s helps me see the need.

Sources & Notes

• Advertisement for Winchester Female Institute, The Home Journal, August 9, 1860

• History of Mary Sharp College (Winchester, TN)

• Biographical records of Leonidas Polk

• Civil War timeline (1860–1861 secession crisis)