Mars Hill College - Laurel Yearbook (Mars Hill, NC)

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colleges or seminaries of learning, a power which the College still has ' but which it has never used. The newly chartered college flourished un- der the guidance of the Reverend Marsh, drawing students from a widen- ing circle. The storm of war then broke upon the community and rudely dis- placed the tranquillity of learning. Some donned the gray and followed the stars and bars: other clad in blue marched off under the stars and stripes. When Mr. Marsh found the position untenable and resigned in 1861. the Reverend Pinkney Rollins succeeded him and attempted to keep the school open. The enrollment dwindled, however, until only a few young women were in attendance. In 1863 the college succumbed to the war. While troops were quartered on the campus, two buildings were burned and the original building was badly damaged. During this raging of fiendish war, faith led John Robert Sams and others frequently to the devastated school building where they sought through prayer the susten- ance of Christian Education and the restoration of their school for the youth of the land. When settlement was made with the builders oi' the first building there was found to be a debt of eleven hundred dol- lars, and not a cent in the treasury. The debt was soon turned into a judgment against the Piesident and Secretary of the Boaid cf Trustees and the Sheiiff of Bun combe Countx came and levied on a fine voung Negro named Joe and caiiied him to Asheville Jail foi safe keeping till the day of sale it xx as then that the eleven men put then heads togethei and met the its s These simple statements give the facts behind what has become a campus legend. When the story was revived in the 1920's and given to Robert Ripley for his Believe It or Not feature and to other press serv- ices it went aiound the world and has oc casionally made good copy since At Mais H111 how vei the incident has come to svmbolize the human values which have gone into the colleee Y , Y . - ' 4 , , . S Q . . , G., N' ' a T N ' ' ' . . -. ' ' rx ' A O. .V 1 A-.tis

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4,,..- Y' .4- ' L 'V' ,n - . - pp 1 ,QT ' f ' I., 4 ii 711 J-A, K 5- iiikiil 'Z' I '9 an f-. - 1-' To be permanent a college cannot be built. It has to grow. ,121 in ' gfifj .- 3 I To thrive it must be indigenous to the area in which it is planted. iz X' .H ,-5, ,fly f To he strong it must send its roots far into the soil and with- r , W - 5 ,- stand the winds, floods, and droughts. To serve fully it must ' 'C 'V' 1- .. identify itself with its constituents, sharing their aspirations. -.Q ' - their struggles, their successes. ' thx il 'I - Mars Hill College. now the oldest educational institution on if its original site in Western North Carolina. and the first school 'A ' 34 l established in the state west of the Blue Ridge Mountains bv Baptists, has grown up with the region in which it is located. Founded by pioneers, it has weathered a century of changes from frontier conditions to the present modes of life. It has shared the vicissitudes and hopes of those who planted it and , ' ' i l of those who have sustained it, through the hardships of back- 915 ' l woods life, war, reconstruction, panic. and prosperity and has ,, continued in the vanguard of the educational, social, and spirit- M .B A .,,. . W I ual progress of the area. , X V I Y' t It was conceived and built by a small group of pioneer citi- 'L i zens of limited means. the sons and grandsons of the first 'I X ' settlers of the community, who wanted a school in which they I 'wif l could educate their children according to the principles of their I faith. li A A rapid campaign was waged until two thousand dollars was i . - -. -' , . -. . -. . , T . . . 1 ' . . . V- subsciibed when the contract was let to 'qhacklctoi d and Clay Edward Cmme mppm, lem and TN Dwwl, U ton, contractors at Asheville. North Carolina. The bricks were 41,,W,.,. light, U,nmbu1,,d Um. hL,nd,.,V.d d,,1p,1., . made by slave labor and the lumber was sawed on one of the each to the erection ui the first building of the Old vel-tical yygltey gayynjillg. college Rev. William Keith tupper righti and ' J. W. Anderson contributed fiftv dollars each. When 52.500 was subscribed, the contrast was let 3 tor the building. l l l ! ..- Y Y 1 I I l Willlain Albert Gallatin Brown, John B.Ma1'sh. president 1856-1858 president 1858-11361 Pinkney Rollins. Meriwether Lewis. teacher 1860-1861. president orcsident 1368-1371 1861-1863. 1865-1366 l 1. After the original building was completed, the trustees. twenty-five in number. found them- selves in debt to the contractors in the sum ot' 61.875, which was, when prorated, S75 to each. The contractors, not willing to dally about the matter. proceeded against a single member of the board. J. W. Anderson, who had a like-lv Negro man named Joe. They seized Joe and lodged him in Asheville jail until the claim was settled a few days later. In 1856 the school opened its doors as the French Broad Baptist Institute, taking its name from the French Broad Association, which at one time included most of Western North Carolina and a small part of East Tennessee. The first 1 president was W. A. G. Brown. a consecrated Christian and scholarly gentleman. He was suc- ceeded in 1858 bv the Rev. J. B. Marsh. of Bing- hamton, New York. On February 16, 1859, the school was chartered by the General Assembly as Mars Hill College, not that it pretended to do college work. The charter gave the College the Q K power of conferring all such degrees and marks i v--s of literarv distinction as are usually conferred in

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WAR CLOUDS OATHERED. . . i The year the Southern armies surrend- eredg Mr. Rollins again opened the doors of Marg Hill College and youth, through pov- 6115... d desolation, resumed their study. Part '?i?Q,g bitterness was rife, however, and some 1 sf tryed to the classroom .still bearing their arn . g gi, Reverend Jo g Ammons took charge o ,gege years. Then a cultured old gentTe'rna'n'of ia, Meriwether Lewis, directed the colle ' sisted by the youthful John Robert Sams. Reconstruction, poverty, and the bitterness of strife between adherents of the Ku Klux Klan and the Union League finally forced the college to close its doors again in 1872. After these devastating years and still under the direction of John Robert Sams, the dilapidated building housed a branch of the Oxford Orphanage from 1873 to 1875. VVithin two years the College revived and struggled onward through a decade of changing leadership under J. B. Lunsford, James Frank Tilson, William P. Jervis. and Zebulon Hunter, who suddenly and unex- pectedly closed the College on March 28. 1890. A few weeks after the resignation of Mr. Hunter, Miss Helen McMaster of Co- lumbia, South Carolina, who was in Ashe- ville recuperating from illness, volunteered to come to Mars Hill College to teach the children in the vicinity. Miss McMaster was the harbinger of a better day for Mars Hill College. Soon after she began as tutor to the children of a few select families, more than forty students of all ages clamored for admission to her classroom. When the term she was engaged to teach drew to a close, the trustees and patrons beseeched Miss Mc- Master to remain and assume the headship Ax- . ' I Q 3 4' .i 1 V Ati' ' X X41 Y McMaster Hufham 51. s - 2 R - f , Wx J 5 1 .wth ' . l l , , gil? , if K , . , in H4 M ,if 1 R X, , , ,, , 1 l 'UNL H' we 55- ... 7. Above: Five local men whose faith and devotion kept the college alive during the difiicult years from 1866 to 1888: upper left, John Ammons: upper right, James B. Lunsford: center, John Robert Sams: lower lett, J. Frank Tilson: Lower right, W. P. Jervis. Left: Pictured with Miss Helen McMaster and Dr. John E. White, who rendered significant service during this period, ts Thomas M. Hufham, President of the College, 1890-1893.