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

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I I THE BEGINNING.. 9-av ' M, ,. ,--nu-P ' - .,:f:--- -. ----E' .l..-- I I E, , EE, .......:f J F..-.4--o ........--1 , I , wh , ..--.. 7' '- ' - J GRE I PAST

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'UfffZ'6W0?ZD Y55' 6' HOLDING FAST TO THAT WHICH IS GOOD REACHING FORTH UNTO THOSE THINGS VVHICH ARE BEFORE

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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