Burritt College, Educational institution in Spencer, Tennessee.

Burritt College was a school in Spencer, Tennessee, chartered in 1848 and named for activist Elihu Burritt. Its main building, erected in 1907 after a fire destroyed the previous one the year before, stood on a campus that grew under president Thomas Wesley Brents. The school closed in 1939.

The college was founded in 1848 and became one of the first coeducational institutions in the South under the direction of the Churches of Christ. It opened doors for women to attend higher education when this was rarely available in the region.

The name honors Elihu Burritt, a Massachusetts activist for peace and universal education. Coeducation began in 1850 under president William Davis Carnes, who defended it as God's law and then barred all communication between the sexes outside classrooms or supervised events. Carnes also banned swearing, gambling, smoking and drinking, expelling anyone caught with alcohol.

The campus stood in Spencer, in hilly Van Buren County, and the school's isolation shaped daily life: in 1864 the Union Army used the main hall as a barracks and turned dormitories into stables. After the war, trustees sold part of the campus to pay for repairs. The main building burned on March 5, 1906, and classes moved to the campus church and private homes until a replacement was finished in 1907.

William Davis Carnes barred swearing, gambling, smoking and drinking, expelling anyone caught with alcohol. He asked local law enforcement to hunt down moonshiners around Spencer and destroy their stills; in apparent retaliation, his house and the girls' dormitory burned in 1857. He then resigned to lead East Tennessee University.