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Remembering Scott County’s ‘forgotten’ school superintendent
It is well established that Scott County’s first superintendent of schools was J.C. Parker, the Helenwood attorney who would later be elected Scott County Judge. And it’s well established that the county’s third school superintendent was Laban Riseden, the Black Creek attorney whose daughter, Maude Hughett, would go on to be the first female graduate of the University of Tennessee’s College of Law. So, too, are all the school superintendents who have come since — appointed by county court until 1924, when they began to be elected by popular vote.
But Scott County’s second school superintendent has always been something of a mystery. He has traditionally been identified as Lafayette Spaule, and when the Scott County Retired Teachers Association presented the portraits of past school superintendents that still hang in the board room of the Central Office in Huntsville back in 1981, Spaule was the only one they did not have a picture for.
As the Independent Herald first reported in 2024, we can now reveal that Scott County’s second superintendent of schools was actually Dr. Lafayette Sproule — and he was tied to one of Scott County’s most famous 19th century families.
The identification of Sproule comes from an old hand-written document of the U.S. Freedmen’s Bureau, which existed from 1865 to 1872 to deal with freedmen and property that had been abandoned or seized during the Civil War. That document lists the county school superintendents of Tennessee during the years of its operation. And for Scott County, it lists Dr. Lafayette Sproule, living in Huntsville.
Dr. Sproule, who was a physician, was married to Didama Marcum — sister of Civil War heroine Julia Marcum. Sixteen-year-old Julia, as we all know, successfully defended her family’s farm from rogue Confederate soldiers when they showed up intending to arrest and, perhaps, hang her father, a well-known guide who snuck Union loyalists from East Tennessee through the backwoods of Scott County and north into Kentucky, where they would enlist in the federal army.
Sproule grew up in Whitley County, Ky., the son of Hiram and Pheobie Sproule. He was one of at least eight children, though little is known about his upbringing or education. He was living in Whitley County when the 1860 census was taken, and married Didama Marcum in Pulaski County, Ky., on June 15, 1865.
Didama was Julia Marcum’s older sister. Despite the inspiring actions of Julia on a September night in 1861, the Marcum family’s story is one of tragedy. They lived in the Smith Creek area near Buffalo, and their farm was a prosperous one. But Hiram Marcum’s fierce loyalty to the Union made him a marked man. Julia lost an eye and a finger when the rebels showed up to capture Hiram, and was nearly killed. Four months later, her first cousin, George Marcum, was killed when Confederate soldiers returned to the farm. His nephew’s death was enough to convince Hiram Marcum to enlist in the Union army, while the rest of the family fled north into Kentucky, settling on the Green River in Casey County, Ky., before moving to Flat Lick Creek, near present-day Somerset in Pulaski County, Ky. They never saw Hiram again; he died of illness in Nashville before the war ended. And their mother, Permelia Huff Marcum, died in August 1865, just after the close of the war. The Marcum family never returned to their Smith Creek farm; it was sold by Scott County after the war ended to satisfy unpaid property taxes.
But Didama Marcum did come back. At some point after her marriage to Dr. Sproule, they moved back to Scott County, and Dr. Sproule was appointed by the Scott County Court — which we know today as Scott County Commission — to serve a two-year term as superintendent of schools.
We don’t know exactly when the Sproule family moved to Scott County. But Julia Marcum moved in with Didama and her husband after their mother’s death in August 1865. She wrote in her 1926 autobiography that she moved back to Tennessee to teach for 12 years after the Civil War.
The 1870 census lists Lafayette and Didama Sproule in Williamsburg, Ky., along with their children, Laura (age 4) and Charles (age 2), and Julia Marcum. However, at that point, Julia — by her own writing — was teaching in Scott County, and Lafayette Sproul — according to the U.S. Freedmen’s Bureau — was serving as Scott County’s school superintendent.
It’s unclear how Sproule was elected school superintendent. He would have been an outsider who was relatively new to Scott County in 1869, and Scott Countians generally distrusted outsiders. It could be speculated that Julia Marcum’s heroic actions during the war, which were well-documented, played a role in that decision. It wasn’t just the Marcums who were fiercely loyal to the Union. Most Scott Countians sided with the North, and the county even declared its independence from Tennessee after Tennessee voted to secede in 1861.
By 1880, the Sproule family had moved to Casey County, Ky., and then back to Williamsburg, Ky., at some point between then and 1900. Julia Marcum moved to Williamsburg, as well. Didama Marcum Sproule died on Sept. 17, 1908, while Lafayette Sproule died on Oct. 10, 1912. Julia Marcum died on May 9, 1936. All t hree are buried at Highland Cemetery in Williamsburg.
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Our Newsletters:
• Monday morning: The Daybreaker (news & the week ahead)
• Tuesday: Echoes from the Past (stories of our history)
• Wednesday: Threads of Life (obituaries)
• Thursday evening: The Weekender (news & the weekend)
• Friday: Friday Features (beyond the news)
• Sunday: Varsity (a weekly sports recap)