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

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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.

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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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' it ll lpl, lifi ,J li vi 'ii' 'll kill till' tu ,ll i'liii.il:' X l ull Aww , N 'lil . lx , 1 1 y it, 1 1 llfis ii' .wt! 'l 1 H 'F wg From 1890 to 1897 six men served , WQV' ' l , , 'A ' ,tx l as president in succession. Pictured 1 5 ,ti m - ,, mil N V at the right are four of them: J. M. 5' 'ilvi'iM4, ...M fy ,' V cm-ek. J. H. Yai-borough. C. P. sapp, Q -..,.m -t - fb ,A PM , and A. E. Booth. -J ll'ul'yi 1' ,V-l' M ,limi silky, 1' i A . . 6 Cheek Yarborough Sapp Booth of the school. She refused the administration, but agreed to continue as teacher if the trustees would employ a qualified educator as president. The trustees met her request and elected the dynamic Thomas M. Hufham, who was later joined by the distinguished spiritual leader, John E. White. Un- der these leaders Mars Hill College took a forward step. This advancement in learning continued for the next half decade, despite the burdensome finan- cial problems. under succeeding presidents T. M. Cheek, the Reverend J. H. Yarborough, C. P. Sapp, A. E. Booth. and W. P. MHLl1'j'. In April, 1897, the Reverend B. W. Spilman was making a tour of Western North Carolina in the interest of the Sunday School Department of the Until 1890 playing ball of any kind on the college grounds was strictly forbidden and could not be participated in except by special permission of the chairman of the board of trustees. One reported for violating this rule was given demerits. To play a game of ball the students would have to repair to some field away from the campus. Professor White organized the first athletic team to represent the col- lege in 1890. rr' . ., 1 ' K 3' 1 Baptist State Convention when he visited the Rev- erend T. M. Honeycutt, a trustee of the College. They were joined by John Robert Sams, also trustee, and they talked of the future of the col- lege. Dr. Spilman suggested they try to lay hands on a tall young man down the hill by the name of R. L. Moore. Following this suggestion, in the summer of 1897, the Board of Trustees called Rob- ert Lee Moore and Edna Corpening Moore, filled with the courage a vigor of youth, to accept the academic opportunities and the financial responsi- bilities of Mars Hill College. The heroic young couple found the college plant to consist of only two inadequate buildings and less than four acres of land. Dr. Moore's high regard of the college faculty 1899-1900. The first ministerial conference was organized in 1900 by the Reverend Walter E. Wilkins, a member