Hiwassee College’s early history is linked very closely with the founding in 1826 of Tullagalla Academy, a school for boys, located in the Fork Creek Community some five miles from the site of the present campus. At about this same time, a group of Methodist settlers set aside land near a bubbling spring for a camp meeting place that eventually came to be called Bat Creek Campground. Over the years, a church and other structures were erected and used by persons who assembled annually for “camp meeting services.” By 1845, the enrollment of the academy exceeded its capacity to accommodate the students so the school moved to Bat Creek Campground and utilized the facilities available there.