Centennial Spotlight: Early Avery County teachers
Michael Hardy / (news@averyjournal.com)
Every week in 2011, The Avery Journal-Times is celebrating the 100th birthdays of Avery County and Banner Elk with a Centennial Spotlight compiled by members of the local community. This week, we continue to provide answers to the 100 questions about Avery County posed in our print editions in January and February.
Avery County has been blessed with some very special educators in the past. Many of us who grew up here have probably known some of them – a favorite English or history teacher, or maybe a coach. In the early 20th century, right before Avery County was formed, it was a difficult process to become a teacher. Colleges and universities were far away and expensive. “Aunt Arizona” Hughes recalled attending as many local schools as possible before heading off to Fairview Collegiate Institute in Buncombe County. Following her stay at Fairview, she attended the normal school in Bakersville where she earned her teaching certificate. “Aunt Arizona” later went on to teach many years at Riverside Elementary.
Many of the past's important educators were not just educated afar. While the legendary Aunt Arizona grew up here before seeking her education elsewhere and then returning home to teach, other educators came from far afield, sometimes at the behest of a religious organization, as a number of local schools were connected to different churches. Edgar Tufts was born in Kirkwood, Ga., and lived in central Florida before entering Washington and Lee College, followed by studies at Union Theological Seminary in Hampton-Sidney in Virginia. Tufts arrived in “Banner’s Elk” (as it was known until relatively recently) in spring 1895 and set about establishing a Presbyterian church. He returned in spring 1896 to finish the church building he had started.
Tufts, joined by his new wife, returned to live in Banner’s Elk. Soon, an upstairs room in their home was utilized as a school. Young people in other communities heard of the school and began arriving in town looking for a place to board. Tufts consulted with the ministers of the Concord Presbytery and received their support, then raised funds, both locally and across the state and nation. In September 1900, Elizabeth McRae Institute opened with two teachers and 12 girls.
In 1903, Rev. Joseph P. Hall, a Tennessee native and brother-in-law to Edgar Tufts, opened Plumtree School for Boys, a counterpart to what was soon known as Lees-McRae Institute in Banner’s Elk. In 1927, the dormitory for Plumtree School for Boys caught fire and burned down, and a decision was made to consolidate the two schools into what is known now as Lees-McRae College.
It was that dormitory in Plumtree which housed the first home of the doctors Sloop. They lived upstairs, practicing medicine, while the other portions of the building were finished. Later, they moved to Crossnore, and spearheaded an effort to build a new, graded school, extending the normal four-month term to nine months. The Sloops were both trained medical practitioners and hailed from the Piedmont section of North Carolina.
“When Doctor and I came to Crossnore,” wrote Mrs. Sloop in her autobiography, “we were already interested in the education of the mountain children, for the schools were nearly all one-teacher public schools, and often you couldn't find a teacher who had really been trained to teach.” Later movements were undertaken to build a high school, and later an elementary school, in the Crossnore area.
Contemporary to the schools in Banner’s Elk and Plumtree was Aaron Seminary in Montezuma. Chartered in 1890, the school was under the patronage of the Methodist Episcopal Church (North), but promised not to “be sectarian, so that any one can feel at liberty to patronize it.” In the 1892 Blue Ridge Conference Journal, J. D. Roberson proudly proclaimed that there was “no other school of like grade of any kind in the state within a radius of 75 miles,” but lamented that the “illiteracy around us is appalling: the dearth of schools and competent teachers cries for assistance.”
Much of North Carolina's education changed in the first decade of the 20th century. Charles B. Aycock was elected governor in 1901, running on a platform that placed importance on public school education. Only around 200,000 of the state's 660,000 school-aged children actually attend school. Aycock believed that elementary schools should be supported by local taxes, should be open for four months out of each year and should be within walking distance of local students. It would not be until 1907 that a rural high school law was adopted. Up until this point, all high schools were either church-supported schools, private schools or academies. By 1908, there were almost 160 high schools in 81 of the state’s 98 counties.
Avery County was created in 1911, inheriting some schools from its parent counties. Other schools were created later on. In 1913, an annual report was issued by Avery County Board of Education. From this small booklet we learn that Roby T. Lewis served as chairman of the board, with Joseph P. Hall, A. P. Brinkley, Frank A. Edmonston and J. A. Aldridge as the other board members. There were eight school districts: Altamont with five schools, Banner Elk with four schools, Beech Mountain with six schools, Cranberry with seven schools, Linville with 12 schools, Roaring Creek with three schools, Toe River with six schools and Wilson Creek with five schools. According to the Census, the number of school-aged children in the county stood at 3,689. However, only 2,618 children were enrolled in Avery County schools, with only 1,496 actually attending school.
Elk Park School, under Principal J. E. Pearson, had the longest term, with students attending class 162 days. Plumtree School, under Miss Anna Morrison, had the least-attended school, with students attending only 40 days. There were two schools for African-Americans in the county: Cranberry District and Toe River District. Cranberry, under Alice Jones, had a term of 80 days with an average attendance of 19, while the Toe River School, under T. C. Chambers, had a term also of 80 days and a average attendance of 25 students.
Slowly the educational system evolved. Once better roads were put in and busses could be provided, the idea of a school in every community was replaced with consolidated schools with larger groups of teachers. Mena Hughes VonCannon recalled in an interview with Becky Alghrary, that after teaching two years at the school in Minneapolis (1929 and 1930), the “superintendent came by and said they were condemning the building, so I got a job at Elk Park.” VonCannon taught at Elk Park one year, and the same thing happened. She moved to Banner Elk for a year, and that building was condemned.
“We had to teach at different places like in the churches and Grandfather Home and the children were scattered everywhere. Over at Elk Park we had to teach in the janitor's office,” she recalled.
Soon, Works Progress Administration (WPA) was building new consolidated schools.
Some of the early school schools survived, like Lees-McRae, now a four-year private college. Others, like Aaron Seminary, only exist as faded photographs, or a story passed down through a Montezuma family. Even the consolidated schools built by WPA have been replaced with newer, modern structures. Like the teachers who once taught there, many of these schools are now lost in the past.
Avery County has been blessed with some very special educators in the past. Many of us who grew up here have probably known some of them – a favorite English or history teacher, or maybe a coach. In the early 20th century, right before Avery County was formed, it was a difficult process to become a teacher. Colleges and universities were far away and expensive. “Aunt Arizona” Hughes recalled attending as many local schools as possible before heading off to Fairview Collegiate Institute in Buncombe County. Following her stay at Fairview, she attended the normal school in Bakersville where she earned her teaching certificate. “Aunt Arizona” later went on to teach many years at Riverside Elementary.
Many of the past's important educators were not just educated afar. While the legendary Aunt Arizona grew up here before seeking her education elsewhere and then returning home to teach, other educators came from far afield, sometimes at the behest of a religious organization, as a number of local schools were connected to different churches. Edgar Tufts was born in Kirkwood, Ga., and lived in central Florida before entering Washington and Lee College, followed by studies at Union Theological Seminary in Hampton-Sidney in Virginia. Tufts arrived in “Banner’s Elk” (as it was known until relatively recently) in spring 1895 and set about establishing a Presbyterian church. He returned in spring 1896 to finish the church building he had started.
Tufts, joined by his new wife, returned to live in Banner’s Elk. Soon, an upstairs room in their home was utilized as a school. Young people in other communities heard of the school and began arriving in town looking for a place to board. Tufts consulted with the ministers of the Concord Presbytery and received their support, then raised funds, both locally and across the state and nation. In September 1900, Elizabeth McRae Institute opened with two teachers and 12 girls.
In 1903, Rev. Joseph P. Hall, a Tennessee native and brother-in-law to Edgar Tufts, opened Plumtree School for Boys, a counterpart to what was soon known as Lees-McRae Institute in Banner’s Elk. In 1927, the dormitory for Plumtree School for Boys caught fire and burned down, and a decision was made to consolidate the two schools into what is known now as Lees-McRae College.
It was that dormitory in Plumtree which housed the first home of the doctors Sloop. They lived upstairs, practicing medicine, while the other portions of the building were finished. Later, they moved to Crossnore, and spearheaded an effort to build a new, graded school, extending the normal four-month term to nine months. The Sloops were both trained medical practitioners and hailed from the Piedmont section of North Carolina.
“When Doctor and I came to Crossnore,” wrote Mrs. Sloop in her autobiography, “we were already interested in the education of the mountain children, for the schools were nearly all one-teacher public schools, and often you couldn't find a teacher who had really been trained to teach.” Later movements were undertaken to build a high school, and later an elementary school, in the Crossnore area.
Contemporary to the schools in Banner’s Elk and Plumtree was Aaron Seminary in Montezuma. Chartered in 1890, the school was under the patronage of the Methodist Episcopal Church (North), but promised not to “be sectarian, so that any one can feel at liberty to patronize it.” In the 1892 Blue Ridge Conference Journal, J. D. Roberson proudly proclaimed that there was “no other school of like grade of any kind in the state within a radius of 75 miles,” but lamented that the “illiteracy around us is appalling: the dearth of schools and competent teachers cries for assistance.”
Much of North Carolina's education changed in the first decade of the 20th century. Charles B. Aycock was elected governor in 1901, running on a platform that placed importance on public school education. Only around 200,000 of the state's 660,000 school-aged children actually attend school. Aycock believed that elementary schools should be supported by local taxes, should be open for four months out of each year and should be within walking distance of local students. It would not be until 1907 that a rural high school law was adopted. Up until this point, all high schools were either church-supported schools, private schools or academies. By 1908, there were almost 160 high schools in 81 of the state’s 98 counties.
Avery County was created in 1911, inheriting some schools from its parent counties. Other schools were created later on. In 1913, an annual report was issued by Avery County Board of Education. From this small booklet we learn that Roby T. Lewis served as chairman of the board, with Joseph P. Hall, A. P. Brinkley, Frank A. Edmonston and J. A. Aldridge as the other board members. There were eight school districts: Altamont with five schools, Banner Elk with four schools, Beech Mountain with six schools, Cranberry with seven schools, Linville with 12 schools, Roaring Creek with three schools, Toe River with six schools and Wilson Creek with five schools. According to the Census, the number of school-aged children in the county stood at 3,689. However, only 2,618 children were enrolled in Avery County schools, with only 1,496 actually attending school.
Elk Park School, under Principal J. E. Pearson, had the longest term, with students attending class 162 days. Plumtree School, under Miss Anna Morrison, had the least-attended school, with students attending only 40 days. There were two schools for African-Americans in the county: Cranberry District and Toe River District. Cranberry, under Alice Jones, had a term of 80 days with an average attendance of 19, while the Toe River School, under T. C. Chambers, had a term also of 80 days and a average attendance of 25 students.
Slowly the educational system evolved. Once better roads were put in and busses could be provided, the idea of a school in every community was replaced with consolidated schools with larger groups of teachers. Mena Hughes VonCannon recalled in an interview with Becky Alghrary, that after teaching two years at the school in Minneapolis (1929 and 1930), the “superintendent came by and said they were condemning the building, so I got a job at Elk Park.” VonCannon taught at Elk Park one year, and the same thing happened. She moved to Banner Elk for a year, and that building was condemned.
“We had to teach at different places like in the churches and Grandfather Home and the children were scattered everywhere. Over at Elk Park we had to teach in the janitor's office,” she recalled.
Soon, Works Progress Administration (WPA) was building new consolidated schools.
Some of the early school schools survived, like Lees-McRae, now a four-year private college. Others, like Aaron Seminary, only exist as faded photographs, or a story passed down through a Montezuma family. Even the consolidated schools built by WPA have been replaced with newer, modern structures. Like the teachers who once taught there, many of these schools are now lost in the past.
Additional Images
);)
);)
);)
);)