History of the Sherman Private School
In 1869, when William Pitt Petty became the minister of the Sherman Methodist Church, he conducted a school in the Odd Fellows Building with the help of J.E. Wharton, Captain LeTellier, Miss Via Younge, Miss Mollie Owen and Bob Shannon.

Subjects taught were spelling, reading, writing, English grammar, geography, arithmetic, natural philosophy, mental philosophy, history, composition, physiology, Latin, Creek, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, surveying, book-keeping, astronomy, rhetoric and chemistry.
The school was called the Odd Fellows Male and Female High School.

In 1870 John C Blackburn sold land to Mulberry to the Sherman Male and Female Academy; the trustees of which were George C. Dugan, J.C. Richards, J.B. Stinson, and J.D. Woods.  A two-story frame building was begun immediately.  Downstairs there were two class rooms in front and a large study hall behind them.  Each room had a platform for the teacher's desk and chair.  On the second floor, where the younger children were taught, there were three class rooms.  Situated on a four-acre campus, painted gray, and with a cupola on its roof, the school building made quite an impressive appearance.

J.C. Parks, who had been principal  of one of the public schools in St. Louis and had written a mathematical text book, was secured as the first president of the school.  His other teacher were Captain leTellier, who had known Parks before and was apparently a disciple of the Parks method of mathematical study.  Mrs. Butler, and Miss Younge.

The following the "Male and Female Academy" became a "Female Academy."  At this time LeTellier opened his school for boys, thereafter known as the Sherman Private School, or familiarly as "the Cap'n's."

There are many old landmarks in Sherman that are reminders of her early days, and suggest to the old inhabitants of the town its early struggles, and also its tendency to favor educational institutions from its very beginning as a town.  Probably none of these are regarded with more affection than the school conducted by Capt. J.H. LeTellier, who came to this town thirty-four years ago, and has been identified with its educational interests ever since the day of his arrival.  This being the first school founded in Sherman.

In 1871 Captain LeTellier landed in Sherman, coming here from Kaufman, where he first landed when he came to the state, and within one week from the time of his arrival he began teaching in an old school building that occupied the ground where the T & P freight depot now stands. ~ ~ ~ Sherman Daily Democrat , May 6, 1905

 LeTellier's school was a large frame building on South Travis Street.  Students from out of town roomed in the neighborhood and tuition was $3.00 per month at first. 

Fond of boys, the Captain liked to join them in their sports during the two fifteen minute recess periods of the school day.  He would often entertain them with stories of his war experiences and would sometimes play his guitar and sing.  An outstanding feature of the academic year, as far as the students were concerned, was a pecan hunt in the fall, when the entire school would go into the Choctaw bottoms in wagons furnished by the fathers of rural students.

April Fool's Day was another tradition at the school.  The fiction was that the students played a trick on their teacher, but the truth was that LeTellier deliberately found reason to leave the classroom so that his boys could run off for a holiday.  The story is told of a boy in the lower classes who was competing for the spelling medal against two little girls who were pretty good spellers.  He knew that he would never beat them in a straight contest, but he had a scheme.  On April Fool's Day he remained behind when the other children ran out.  Then he demanded that the Captain examine him in spelling so that his two competitors would receive zero for the day.

LeTellier's students were always trying to get the better of him but rarely succeeded.  On one occasion the school went up in flames as the result of a student prank.  The Cap'n's boys thought surely this would provide them with a long holiday, but the Captain made arrangements to use a two-story building "up town," and school went on as usual the following day.

LeTellier was assisted in his school by a faculty that varied from time to time.  In later years one of the principal teachers was Miss Clifford LeTellier. The school was discontinued with the death of Captain LeTellier on July 18, 1913.