SHELBYVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — Beautiful Jim Key is one of the most famous names connected to Shelbyville. The horse was trained by Dr. William Key, who reportedly taught the horse how to spell, count, and perform through repetition.
“He could write his name, he could spell and subtract, add and divide up to the age of a 12-year-old,” Thomas Johnson Jr. told News 2.
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“Dr. Key was a slave in Shelbyville, Tennessee, and later taught Jim how to do all of these things,” Johnson said. “And you may ask, ‘Well, how did the a slave learn how to do all of these things? Well, he was under a master that taught him.”
Johnson first became connected to the story as a child when he helped his father rebury the horse in 1968.
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“I remember my father said, “Junior, get up. We got to dig a grave for a horse.’ So, digging a grave wasn’t unusual because that’s what my father did on the side of his regular jobs, but digging a grave for a horse, that was something unusual.”
Years later, while looking through memorabilia belonging to local collector Thomas Glover, Johnson realized his own family was part of the horse’s history…