Meneese School, district 96, stands in the northwest corner of section 34, Southern township.
John Maneese (so it was spelled in the earlier days) and his son James came to Phelps prairie in 1811, the year it received its name. The settlers built a blockhouse in West Marion Township, to protect themselves from roving bands of hostile Indians. James Maneese was a hunter rather than a farmer, and as soon as danger was over, he moved down on Saline River where the game was plentiful. He lived a solitary life, and was twenty-three years old before he heard of doctors. He learned of their existence and usefulness when he was sent for one, and expected to be given some machine, but led home a man instead.
Meneese’s lane was part of the route followed by a road from Frankfort to Wilcox’s ferry on the Ohio in 1839. John Bowles, Roderick Reed, and Joel Norris were appointed road commissioners by the legislature, and made their report at Bainbridge September 16, 1839. They ran the road “commencing at Frankfort, Thence with the road as formerly laid out from Frankfort to Jonesboro to (through) Bainbridge, from Bainbridge south East with main street to the ford of the branch supposed to be one quarter of a Mile from Bainbridge, Thence south by Lewis Durock’s to the Crab Orchard, Thence passing through said Meneese’s lain. Thence through John Bowies’ lain to the line dividing Franklin and Johnston Counties, intersecting the State road as formerly Opened in Johnston County.”
(Extracted from Pioneer Folks and Places, Barbara Barr Hubbs, 1939 which is on sale at the Williamson County Museum)