Schools  of  Shelby  County  Indiana

Brandywine  Township


Beechwood Manual Training Academy


          This training school is under the direction of the Seventh Day Adventists of Indiana, and was established at Boggstown, Shelby county, October 29, 1902.  It was first named after Boggstown, but in 1907 took on the name of the beautiful natural grove wherein it is situated at the present time.  At first this institution occupied three rented buildings.  The first principal was  Prof. B. F. Machlan, who had but twenty pupils the first school year.  The work of erecting suitable school buildings went forward.  William Applegate donated the seven-acre lot and contributions all over the conference were sent in.  Nearly every conference worker was interested; it was no uncommon thing to see ministers, Bible workers, canvassers, farmers, and in one instance a dentist, laboring together, with one common object -- the building of a school where might be taught the Indiana youth.
          Before the close of the first year it had been determined to locate at Beechwood instead of Boggstown.  This was done and conference tnets weer procured and set up in the grove and there utilized as recitation rooms, dormitories, etc.  A well had been provided that was one huncred and twenty-six feet deep.  The autumn of 1903 still found the academy buildings unfinished and Professor Machlan's family still living in tents, where they remained until after snow fall.  The students, however, lived in new quarters.  About the grounds the unsightly stumps were blown out of the ground by means of dynamite and the campus profided in the spring with beautiful flower beds and shrubs.  Nurseries donated, or sold at a reduced rate, peach, pear, cherry and apple trees; also grape vines, currants, and berry bushes, and a fine orchard and vinyeard was the happy result.  Today this spot is among the most truly charming within Shelby county.  The academy buildings were completed in 1904; a well-house was built, and a gasoline engine installed and an eight room cottage profided new for the professor.
          The year 1905-09 opened with a faculty, as follows:  Prof. B. F. Machlan, principle;  H. F. Benson, preceptor;  Mrs. Lou Kirby-Curtis, science;  Nettie A. (Dunn) Saxby, preceptress;  Mrs Mertie I. Machlan, sewing and dress-making;  Mrs. Cora L. Strickler, music; and  Elizabeth Bailey, matron.
          At the close of that year H. F. Benson went to Japan as a missionary and there entered a Japanese college to master the language of that county.  There has been changes in the faculty, but the work goes on and at this writing there are over sixty pupils and all doing good work.  This school is located near Fairland, in Brandywine township.
History of Shelby County, Indiana, Edward H. Chadwick, B.A., 1909, page 258.
Phyllis Miller Fleming
Note from Sandra Howley:  Beechwood Academy was south of Boggstown.  When you go out of Boggstown from the park where the school used to be, the road curves to the left and winds to a T.  This is Academy Road and 100N.   The Academy was to the west of this intersection.  There is a grove of trees there now.   At one time there were several buildings, but none still stand today.

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