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Cansler Family Reunion. Hugh Lawson Cansler (3rd row left), and his wife, Laura (3rd row beside her husband, Hugh), are surrounded by their family. Their son, Charles Warner Cansler, is standing far left. Laura Ann Scott married Lawson Cansler , a wheelwright and saddle maker from Monroe County. During the Union occupation of Knoxville, Laura received permission from General Ambrose Burnside to teach free blacks. In 1864, she created the first black school in Knoxville.

Consider the times in which Laura Ann Scott Cansler, Knoxville's first African American schoolteacher, lived.

Born in the western North Carolina hills some fifteen years before the Civil War began, Cansler was a free black woman. (Her tombstone and 1926 obituary say Cansler was born in 1846; some accounts say 1844). She grew up an avid reader. She was educated, taught by her parents, teachers and a revered Knoxville minister.

When she was about six, the Scott family moved to East Tennessee. William and Maria Scott were heading for Oberlin, Ohio, so their children, Laura and her brother, William, could study. But the family found a home in Friendsville. When Confederates controlled East Tennessee during the first part of the Civil War, the Scotts moved to Knoxville. It was for safety, wrote Laura's son Charles Warner Cansler in his 1939 book "Three Generations: The Story of a Colored Family of Eastern Tennessee." Earlier raiding Rebels invaded the family home, taking blankets, quilts and son William. William escaped two nights later.

By 1866, with her own young family growing, Cansler was teaching former slaves in a night school. It was work she loved. "These older people are so willing and eager to learn," Charles Warner Cansler quoted his mother saying. "Though some of them are seventy years old and more, they crowd in early each night and want to remain even after the hour for closing school. The great ambition of most of them is to learn to read the Bible."

Chances are if you live in Knoxville, you’ve seen the name “Cansler” around town. Well, the story behind the matriarch of that name is a fascinating look at education in Knoxville.

Laura Ann Cansler left an undeniable mark on Knoxville in the 1860s.

“She was a person who was not only active in teaching school but she was very much involved with the women’s temperance union and she was very much involved with civic activities. She was a well rounded lady,” said Robert Booker.

A drive around Knoxville will show the Cansler name, from a city street to the Cansler Family YMCA. Her family was well known for being education advocates.

Booker, a historian, has written several books on Knoxville’s African American history. He says the Canslers contributed so much to Knoxville.

“Laura already begun to do things in her own right by 1863. During the Civil War, Gen. Ambrose Burnside occupied the city and she got permission from him to open a school for free blacks. And thus she became Knoxville’s first black school teacher,” said Booker.

Laura Cansler School was called Burnside School and it was named for General Burnside, a Civil War general and U.S. senator.

“She operated her school for a number of years on Detroit Avenue which was in the University of Tennessee area before urban renewal took that street out,” said Booker.

In 1917, her son Charles, who was considered a mathematical wiz, would push for the then mayor of Knoxville to open a library for African Americans. It was called the Free Colored Carnegie Branch of the Lawson McGhee Library.

In 1952, a Knoxville school was dedicated as Cansler Elementary. Fast forward to 2016 and it’s still carries on Laura’s memory and spirit.

Cansler Elementary School soon became the Cansler Boys and Girls Club. Now, it houses The Wesley House Community Center. Students playing and learning in a building dedicated to a woman who fought for free blacks to be educated at a time when society thought otherwise.

More than a century later, Cansler remains a name Knoxville should not forget.

Charles Warner Cansler dedicated his book to his mother. In that dedication, he wrote that Laura Ann Cansler "with simple tools but with large faith, wrought well in her day and generation."

(Beck Center) (Park City By Becky French Brewer, Douglas Stuart McDaniel), (University of Tennessee Libraries). (Knoxville News Sentinel By Amy McRary) (WATE.com By Tearsa Smith)