CHINA GROVE — Where once students were forced to take refuge in the woods, now those eager to learn about the Historic Neely School can visit the restored building out in the open.

Neelytown Road sits right off Corriher Gravel Road in China Grove. After turning down Neelytown, visitors will soon happen upon an old school building that, until just recently, was not visible from the road.

The relocation efforts did not happen over night.

Bringing the school to its current location took a labor of love, as one family member, Derek Tyson, described it, because due to time’s passage and nature’s relentless reclamation of mankind’s efforts, the building had all but been taken back by the surrounding woods.

The school building was first constructed in 1908, and its secretive placement far from view was no accident. As Tyson explained, “Why did they put it back in the woods? Segregation. It was illegal, and they would have burned it down if they could have found it.”

The school’s name traces back to Tyson’s great-grandfather, Julius Neely, a man navigating the post-slavery South during the advent of Jim Crow discrimination. In fact, Neely was born to a former slave, Caroline, who had adopted the surname Neely from a plantation owner.

Neely was a fervent scholar of the Bible and was inspired by the missionary who founded Livingstone College in Salisbury that education was the pathway to true freedom. Wanting to ensure that his descendants had that opportunity, he and his wife, Katie McKenzie, built the Neely school, netted safely within the confines of friendly woods, for their seven children, who were prohibited from attending the local public schools.

Its location was so secretive that long after Neely was gone and his descendants ran and played in the surrounding area, many of them did not even know the school was back there.

Since its humble beginnings, the school educated 1,300 students who might not otherwise have received an education.

To pay homage to their ancestor’s work, several members of the Neely family made it their goal to enshrine the school in a way that would not be lost to history. The Historic Neely School Foundation was formed and has spent almost two decades working to get to where it is now.

On Saturday, family members, guests and visitors congregated on the grounds of the relocated school for an open house. During the event, many of them trekked back through the woods to see just how far students would walk to get to the hidden building.

Inside the school on Saturday was Tyson’s aunt, Mary Neely Grissom, who attended the school as a youngster.

“Nobody knew we were down there (in the woods),” Grissom said. “My grandfather (Julius Neely) said he wanted us all down there and showed us where we could be.”

“My granddad wanted us to have a building, and he said I am going to get something for you all so you can go to school. He was here almost every day making sure we were alright.”

Grissom’s daughter, Marice Freeman, was also there on Saturday. She’s the vice president of the foundation.

“Part of why this project even occurred is because mom had repeated dreams that she needed to go and save the school,” Freeman said. “Before 2010, when they decided that they were going to go down and see if it was still standing and restore it, a part of that was because Mom kept having dreams about it. She was like, ‘I wonder if our school is still standing.’”

Freeman said that those talks occurred at a family reunion when Grissom and others from that generation asked the same question.

“My generation had no idea it existed,” Freeman said. “We kind of played in these pastures and fields (as children) but had never been that far into the woods.”

Following the revelation of the school’s existence, the next step was to figure out who owned it.

“We went to the clerk of court, and their exact question was, what property? They did not even know there was a school on the property,” Freeman said.

It turned out it was owned by a cousin. Once the Historic Neely School Foundation was established, its members were able to arrange to get that portion of the property from the cousin so that the foundation could own the school.

“Then, we worked with preservationists to determine if it would be suitable to be able to pick it up and move it,” Freeman said. “We did not feel like it would be worth the investment to restore it to leave it so far in the woods that no one would want to go see it.”

The bones must have been pretty good, as Freeman explained because it was structurally sound enough to move to its current location.

With the school building now easily accessible, Tyson and Freeman said they hope to see it become an educational destination for school-aged children from Rowan County and surrounding areas to learn about how dearly one man prized education and the lengths he went to make sure that his family would get one.

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Later this year, the Historic Neely Foundation will celebrate Julius Neely’s 150th birthday. The event is scheduled for Saturday, July 20. It will take place at Baker’s Mill Event Center, located at 1360 Poole Road in Salisbury, from 6:30 to 10 p.m.

The event is slated to feature dinner, a live jazz band, a DJ, dancing and a silent auction. Tickets will be available soon.

To learn more about that event and the foundation, go to historicneelyschool.org.