In our last post we learned about the Barnes family and the establishment of a new community around their plantation and their school Strata Academy. We're going to pick back up today and focus on the school. In 1856 Strata Academy was founded in southwestern Montgomery County by Justus McDuffie "Mack" Barnes. Mack had just returned home with a new degree from Bethany College, and his father decided to help him set up a school. The first year Mack had thirteen students and classes met on his father's farm, but Strata Academy thrived. Within a few years they built a new building to the east of the family home, and in 1872 that site became a campus when Mack hired his first partner. Samuel Jordan also became Mack's brother-in-law, and in 1879 they Colonel M.L. Kirkpatrick married the other Barnes daughter and became the third brother-in-law and third teacher and partner at Strata Academy. The next three years saw serious sickness, including the deaths of three students, which prompted the trio to look for a new site for the school. In the end they bought 500 acres on a ridge about six miles to the south, just across the border into Crenshaw County. The move provided an opportunity to rebrand, and so in 1881 Strata Academy became Highland Home Institute. In 1889 the name was changed again, to Highland Home College.