USA > North Carolina > Haywood County > Mount Zion United Methodist Church : a history, 1850-1982 : Upper Crabtree Community, Haywood County, North Carolina > Part 1
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Mount Zion United Methodist Church A History: 1850-1982
BX8481
N6
R6
1982x
Frances Rogers
Z. Smith Reynolds Library Wake Forest University Circulation Department
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WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY LIBRARY BX8481.N6 R6 1982x EWFF Rogers / Mount Zion United Methodist Church : a history, 185
3 0399 0373996 I
WAKE FOREST COL THE Z. SMITH REYNOLDS ]
RES
WAKE
LEGE
RO HUMANITA
1834
CALL NO.
ACCE
BX8481
N6
R6
1982x
FROM THE NORTH CAROLINA COLL
Mount zion
United Methodist Church
A History: 1850- 1982
Upper Crabtree Community Haywood County, North Carolina
Compiled and Written by : Frances Nichols Rogers
Francis n. Roques
Cover illustration by Hiram McCracken, Black Mountain, N.C. -- Original Mount Zion bell tower and steeple. Calligraphy by Lynn Palmer, Rush Fork, N.C.
r
BX8481 - NG RG 1982X
CONTENTS
Preface. .i Introduction. .ii
Connections
iii
YESTERDAY
The Log Church.
1
The Community. 4
The Civil War and Reconstruction Years
5
A New Day, A New Church.
10
The Construction.
13
The Century Turns.
20
The Bell
22
The Church Moves On 23
The Wesley Bible Class 26
World War II.
28
Renovations
29
TODAY
The Fellowship Hall and Educational Building. ... 31 A "Coming Home" 33
Programs
34
The Future
36
Footnotes. 38
Important People.
41
Sources.
50
WAKE FOREST UNI CA
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2013
http://archive.org/details/mountzionunitedm1982roge
PREFACE
In commemoration of the 132nd anniversary of the founding of Mount Zion, the 100th anniversary of the construction of the the present building, and in celebration of the new Fellowship Hall and Educational Building, this history has been written for presentation to the friends of the Church.
It is written in tribute to these members who lived between 1850 and 1900. They have long since gone on to a new life, but their efforts are visible today, and their dreams have become reality for each of us. It is the hope of the writer that this heritage will continue to bind us to the past and will strengthen us as we step into the future.
I would like to thank all the people who have helped gather the information in this book, especially Monnie James, Hilda Luther, Louie Noland, Peggy Briggs, Evelyn Sutton, Pauline and Cassius Rogers, Jim Best, Margaret and Ray Best, Hiram McCracken, John Rogers, and my husband, Terry. The resources of the Library of the General Commission of Archives and History of the United Methodist Church, and the Haywood County Courthouse have proven to be invaluable, and we appreciate their availability. Thanks, too, go to Susan Shumolis and Anne Parrish for editing, to Connie Leopard for typing, and to Dale Ratcliffe for his service of printing.
Frances Nichols Rogers Upper Crabtree, N.C.
i
INTRODUCTION
Mount Zion United Methodist Church is located in the Upper Crabtree Community of Haywood County, North Carolina. Surrounded by rambling mountains of the Appalachian system that cut through the western end of the state, the community is divided into four sections : Bald Creek, Liner Creek, Rogers Cove, and the valley along Crabtree Creek. Crabtree Bald overlooks the community to the north, while Chambers Mountain borders it to the south. Buncombe County lies to the east, and Lower Crabtree and Iron Duff communities are to the west.
Farmer, industrial workers, homemakers, and educators make up most of the population of Upper Crabtree. Tobacco and beef cattle are the chief farm products. The community is residential and farming with no stores, schools, or non-farm businesses. The three churches are scattered: Rock Spring Baptist is in the Liner Creek area, James Chapel Baptist is in Bald Creek, and Mount Zion is in the Crabtree Creek Valley.
Mount Zion is a point on the Crabtree Charge in the Waynesville District of the Western North Carolina Conference. The small church has a membership of seventy five in 1982. The century- old building is believed to be the oldest brick church structure in the county.
ii
CONNECTIONS
Mount Zion was first a church on the Waynesville Circuit of the Asheville District of the Holston Conference. The Circuit was moved to the Franklin District in 1866. When the Western North Carolina Conference was erected from the North Carolina and the Holston Conferences in 1890, Mount Zion was included in the new conference. In 1899, the Waynesville District was formed and Mount Zion has been a part of it ever since.
In 1939, the church became "Mount Zion Methodist Church," dropping the "Episcopal" and "South" when the three independent branches of the Methodist Church in the United States joined together. The Evangelical United Brethren merged with the Methodist Church in 1968, and "United" was added to the name. The current name is "Mount Zion United Methodist Church."
iii
Yesterday -
THE LOG CHURCH : 1850-1882
"Remember thy congregation, which thou hast purchased of old; the rod of thine inheritance, which thou has redeemed; this Mount Zion, wherein thou hast dwell ... " Psalm 14:2
Who dreamed the first dream of the Methodist Church for Upper Crabtree? Who felled the trees and notched the logs for the walls? Was it the outgrowth of meetings held in a little schoolhouse or in homes or in a brush arbor? Or did it spring from the Campground Meetings over in Clyde?
Complete answers to these questions elude us because of the passing of time. Yet, the stirring of old memories and research into conference and circuit records yield enough information to form partial answers.
On October 28, 1850, a two-acre site near the Big Rocks and close to the convergence of the three creeks of Upper Crabtree was deeded to the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, by Joseph McCracken in consideration of the sum of one dollar. W.M. Ferguson, William M. Penland, Marcus L. Boone, James L. Duckett, and D.C. Howell, trustees, were to "erect and build
1
or cause to be erected and built, a house or place of worship for the use of the members of the Methodist Episcopal, South. Although the identity of Joseph McCracken is uncertain, his signature of "X" was witnessed by Asbury Rogers and Enos McCracken.
The church, possibly the first in Upper Crabtree, was built of logs and named "Mount Zion Methodist Episcopal, South." Located where the parking lot is today, the sanctuary stood beside the main wagon road that threaded the fast-growing community. The community cemetery crested the hill behind the church.
The families of James L. Duckett, Silas Kirkpatrick, Jess Bradshaw, John Rogers, Marcus L. Boone, William M. Penland, and William Roberts were among the members. Names of other families are not presently known.
Rev. A.G. Worley, the Waynesville Circuit Pastor- in-Charge in 1849-1850, may have been influential in organizing Mount Zion. D.C. Howell, a prominent local preacher and farmer, organized many Methodist Churches in Haywood County during his lifetime. 2 As he is listed as a trustee on the 1850 property deed for Mount Zion, he could have led the group in Probably he preached often in the church. organizing.
Mount Zion was a point on the Waynesville Circuit a part of the Asheville District of the Holston Conference, in 1850. William Hicks, Presiding Elder,
2
held the position equivalent to the District Super- intendent of today. Edwin Wexler was appointed Pastor-in-Charge for the Circuit that fall and became
Mount Zion's first pastor. Young Wexler soon became one of the "most promising and honored sons sons' of the 3 Holston Conference.
"He seemed to be full grown from the start. This fact was due to a very superior intellect, a superior elocution, and a mind stored with the best thoughts and verbiage of some of the greatest thinkers and writers of the church. . . had absolute confidence in the Bible as the Word of God and in Jesus Christ as his personal Redeemer," writes R.N. Price who knew Wexler well. "Before the war, he was the picture of health ... but tuberculosis developed. He entered the army, hoping an outdoor life might check the progress of the destroyer. . . he died April 11, 1865."4
The Waynesville Circuit encompassed all of Haywood County and part of Swain, Jackson, and Transylvania counties. The membership of 1850 in- cluded 720 whites, 31 colored, 141 Indians. With the Circuit being so large, the Pastor could not often preach in every church. Local preachers and exhorters supplemented his work, and on occasion, so did the Presiding Elder. 5
3
THE COMMUNITY
Upper Crabtree was prospering in 1850. Income from weaving, soap-making, dressmaking, and other home industries, as well as that from the sale of handmade wagons and farm equipment helped citizens pay their taxes, purchase land, and buy staples. There were no medical services, schools, or post offices in the community yet.
Some of the residents must have felt crowded and restless for they followed the call of the Great West. Brothers Enos and Joseph McCracken, Jr. led twenty one relatives and neighbors from Crabtree to Montague County, Texas, in 1859. Their wagon train was made up of one buggy, one large hack, and two covered wagons. 6
One young family that attended Mount Zion, the family of Marcus Lafayette and Nancy Miranda Rogers Boone, moved to Dutch Cove, near Candler, N.C. in January, 1855. (Mr. Boone had served as a church trustee when the 1850 deed was made. ) Three months later Mrs. Boone died. Mr. Boone died in April, a few weeks later. Their two little boys were taken by Margaret Ratcliffe, a sister of Mrs. Boone's, to her home in Ratcliffe Cove where she cared for them. Cassius died as a young man. John Kadar grew up to be a leader in the Waynesville Methodist Church. He married a daughter of William Kerr, who was the Mount Zion (Waynesville Circuit) pastor in 1874.
4
THE CIVIL WAR AND RECONSTRUCTION YEARS
The War Between the States brought tears and turmoil to Mount Zion's people and their neighbors. Dozens of men and boys left Crabtree to fight for the Confederacy. Three of Mount Zion's sons provided leadership for the troops: Asbury Rogers served as Captain of Company A of the Sixty-Second Regiment; his brother, Dr. Hugh Manson Rogers, was the company surgeon; and another brother, Columbus Rogers, rose to the rank of Colonel in the Home Guards. 7 Two of their brothers were killed at Chicamauga. Lawson Kirkpatrick died from injuries, as did others. His brother, Milas, was wounded and had to walk with the aid of canes the rest of his life.
Several men from Crabtree spent two difficult years in Camp Douglas, the largest prisoner-of-war camp in the North. Lack of food, unsanitary conditions, and cold blasts from nearby Lake Michigan resulted in a high death rate. Some of them made it back home. But it was only those who went in with determination to live through it and get out, that made it, according to Asbury Rogers.
Undoubtedly, prayers and supplications to God were poured out, again and again, at Mount Zion during the War. Surely it was the faith that had its beginnings within those walls that strengthened the soldiers and regenerated them as they plunged into the horrors of war.
5
The Church continued to function during the War. The Circuit Quarterly Conference Minutes illustrate the hardships of the people of Mount Zion:
"November 28, 1863 ... James L. Duckett, steward ... Sabbath Schools suspended during the winter, but oral instruction not neglected ... Collected for the ministry: Shady Grove, $12; Mt. Zion, $10; Fines Creek, $10; Richland Institute, $10; Public Collection, $15; Claims of Pastor-in-Charge fixed at $1, 050.00 for the 1863-64 year ..
Apportionments and actual collections from Mount Zion were far apart, as shown in this table. 9
Date
Appt.
Collected
1864-65
?
$95.00
1865-66
$78
$ 4.60
1866-67
$50
$26.40
1867-68
$65
$ 7.00
1868-69
$54
$17.80
Dist.Parsonage $60
(Total D.P. was
$540.00)
1869-70
*
$14.25
1870-71
*
$25.25
1871-72
*
$24.00
1872-73
*
$39.00
1873-74
$ 8.00
1874-75
$25.70
1875-76
*
$22.50
James L. Duckett represented Mount Zion as a steward and/or a trustee of almost every Quarterly Conference between 1863 and 1871, when he moved to Colorado. Appointed as a trustee for the Mount Zion property in 1850, he held that position for twenty one years.
*Apportionments not listed
6
Mr. Duckett lived with his wife, Sallie McCracken, a daughter of John McCracken, on Bald Creek near the present entrance to Hidden Valley. They reared a family of thirteen children. The clf. Duckett Lane that ran along Bald Creek was named for him. It was the main road in the early 2800'S .
On the Circuit level, Mr. Duckett took a very active part. He was elected to attend the District Conference in Franklin in 1867 and in 1868. He was appointed with three other men to see about procuring a district parsonage in 1867. In 1869, he was appointed to "superintend the collection of subscriptions to pay for and secure the right of parsonage property ... in Waynesville."1º The following spring, he led a committee in selecting a suitable location for building Renno's Campground (near the present town of Canton ).
When Mr. Duckett moved to Colorado, Silas Kirkpatrick and his son, J. Taylor, were appointed by the Quarterly Conference to serve as "trustees of church property at Mount Zion ... in the stead of Bro. Layfayette Boone, deceased, and Bro. J.L. Duckett, moving away. "" 11
Mr. Silas attended many Quarterly Conferences after 1871. In the 1874 minutes, he is mentioned as a Class Leader.
J. Taylor Kirkpatrick was first mentioned in che minutes when he was received into full member- ship by the Conference on May 30, 1868. By 1871,
7
he was a Circuit Steward. Annually, he was re- examined and relicensed until 1872 when the circuit was divided. In 1873, he was elected to serve as a trustee for the new Ferguson's Campground in Iron Duff. At the recommendation of Rev. T.J. Pope in 1874, he was elected Sabbath School Superintendent of Mount Zion.
The minutes also reveal that Henry Smith was accepted into membership from the Baptist Church on April 15, 1876. He was the father of the late Boring Smith, and was twenty three years old when he joined Mount Zion.
Finally, the minutes tell of a Mount Zion member who moved to Waynesville and joined the church there -- Dr. Hugh Manson Rogers. Dr. Rogers was very active in that church and in Waynesville Circuit and Franklin District affairs, serving in many capacities.
The Waynesville Circuit was made up of seven- teen churches in 1864, including Mount Zion, Parker's Chapel, Fines Creek, Cataloochee, Shady Grove, Cross Roads, Waynesville, Henry's Schoolhouse, Shook Campground, Bethel, Panther Branch, East Fork, Mornin Star, Arnow Plains, Harmony Grove, Beaver Dam, and Richland Institute at Tuscola. Jacob Bierhardt, Preacher-in-Charge, reported in 1865 that the churches were "not very prosperous but are improving. In a Sabbath School report he mentioned, "a number of schools have been organized, but owing to the
8
distracted state of the country, I have been unable to ascertain how many are in successful operation. Some oral instruction has been imparted, but, owing to the confused state of the country the work has been hindered in almost every particular." „13
T.F. Glenn was pastor in 1867. He wrote, "on portions of the work the spiritual condition is very encouraging. I regret to state, however, that many of our societies are retrograding rather than advancing. The love of many having waxed cold. Trust a brighter day will soon dawn. "14 Two months later he went into more detail: "spiritual condition is by no means flattering ... prayer and class meetings are neglected ... sorry to report that there is a deplorable lack of spirituality amoung the membership. Trust that this state of affairs will not long continue. „15
They didn't. A spiritual awakening followed, evidently. Ten Sabbath schools and seventeen churches were operating in 1876, with 826 members in the circuit. An assistant preacher was requested in January and was supplied by April 15th. Two hundred converts were presented for membership in September. Such an increase resulted in the establishing of a North Haywood Circuit, in October, with J. R. Long as pastor. Mount Zion was moved to the new circuit and, thus, was no longer mentioned in the Quarterly Conference minutes.
9
A NEW DAY, A NEW CHURCH
Western North Carolina entered a new age in the decade of the 1880's. Although much of the country was in a economic slump, Haywood County joined her close neighbors in a period of re- vitalization. Soldiers who had returned from the Civil War had slowly pieced together their broken lives and started again. The fields and forests were once more producing abundances. Hope was reborn.
Crabtree had been one of the three major settle- ments in Haywood County prior to the War. Now it fairly bustled with growth. New ground was cleared each year, for poor farming methods took their toll. The creeks were slowly being channeled so more land could be farmed. New families moved in, and others grew. Some of the children attended school at the Crabtree Institute where they were educated by Re. D.T. Towles and Miss M.D. Towles. The Peru post office on Bald Creek now served the community. S. Ferguson had begun operating a copper mine where he may have employed several neighbors. W.M. West engaged in blacksmithing and W.M. Wilson in coopering. W.C. Hill ran a corn mill and a saw mill, as did V. McCracken who also ground wheat for flour. Dr. W.R. Ferguson and Dr. Robert Roberts served as physicians, and Dr. Ferguson also had a general store. A.J. Fincher, too, ran a store. Ministers residing
10
in the community were Rev. P.R. Young, a Baptist, and Rev. D.T. Fowler, a Presbyterian. 16
Stock still roamed the community, but there was much talk of passing a bill that would make fencing mandatory. Mark McCracken, a prominent livestockman, organized his neighbors and soon got the bill passed in Crabtree, Iron Duff, and Clyde. The whole county had passed it into law by 1893.
In Waynesville, a brick courthouse was being planned and there was talk of outlawing stocks and whipping posts. But the biggest boon to economy and the spirit of the people was the completion of the Southern Railway to Canton. Freight and passenger trains were busy making the run from Asheville (population 2,116) to Canton by the spring of 1882. By the next fall, the railroad reached Waynesville. Markets were now more accessible and Clyde became the major shipping point on the railway. The isolation of Western North Carolina ended. 17
In this context, the story of the brick Mount Zion begins. A fire, thought to have been the work ofan arsonist, consumed the log church somewhere around 1880. The story was told by Mrs. Asbury Rogers to her cousin, Rachel Ellen Noland, an avid oral historian. Mrs. Noland repeated the story to her granddaughter, Pauline Noland Rogers. As Mrs. Rogers remembers :
"There were two men coming up the road in wagons
11
when they saw the church was on fire. They rushed in, hoping to be able to save some of the furnishings. They were carrying out the pulpit when the top part of it fell off. I believe it was slanted and it set on top of the other part. One of the men grabbed for it, almost causing the other fellow and himself to be burned up. They lost the top, but the cabinet part and some song books were saved.
"The cabinet has been in the vestibule of Mount Zion ever since I can remember. It was too big to use as a pulpit when they put in the communion rail years ago. It's made out of solid walnut. My grandma told me not to ever let them get rid of it, because it's the oldest thing in the church." ,18
12
THE CONSTRUCTION
"Behold I lay in Zion, for a foundation, a stone, a tried stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation. " Isaish 2:16
Mount Zion was the first brick church in Crabtree and one of the first in Haywood County. It was to be referred to as "The Brick Church" for many decades. Early 1881 was evidently the beginning date of the brick-making, for it took a long time to make enough brick by hand to construct walls three and four brick deep.
The brickyard was near the main road which passed in front of the church. There the men of the church toiled with others of the community for months - digging, mixing, shaping, fixing - growing closer in friendship and understanding. The hole from which the clay was taken was visible for years and years.
The scene was a busy one! Horseback riders trotted by, calling out greetings to the laborers. Wagons rumbled past, laden with corn or wheat to be ground into meal or flour. ,Now and then, a small lad on an errand would linger, round-eyed and open-mouthed, to watch the fire-curing of the brick, or to help unload a sled of wood for the fire. Other children and adults scurried back and forth between home and the work-site, carrying food and drink to the thirsty men during the summer and hot coffee in the cooler months.
13
Ector McCracken was a teenager in 1882 when the church was built. He later told many stories about helping with the construction to his friend Robert "Bob" French Rogers, who was born that year. "Ector never got anything wrong in numbers or figures," Mr. Rogers said many times before he died in 1979. "He told me that the church was built the year I was born, and that Uncle Milas Kirkpatrick, Uncle Taylor Kirkpatrick, Uncle Columbus Rogers, and my own father, Asbury - he died when I was seven years old - helped work on the church. They helped the Shanks boys build it ... and Uncle Mark McCracken gave the land for the church." ,19
14
John Glance, Jess Bradshaw, and Zel Smathers, son-in-law of Columbus Rogers, were some of the other members who helped. John Rogers, seven year old brother of Mr. Rogers, along with John Kirk- patrick, Wilson Kirkpatrick, and Charlie Kirkpatrick were among the boys who carried food and water to the workmen. 20
Little Jeanie Rogers, daughter of Columbus, was one of the girls who carried water and coffee. When she was grown, she liked to tell her children, and later, her grandchildren about seeing a large snake at the "Big Rocks" when she was on such an errand.
Addie Kirkpatrick, daughter of Milas, related a similar story to her children. When she saw a copperhead stretched out on the "Big Rocks", she was very frightened and ran to tell the workmen. They all ignored her except "Uncle" Pal McCracken.
15
Taking the child by the hand, he led her back to the spot - and, sure enough, the snake was there.
"I'll never forget him," Addie said, "because he was the only one in the whole crowd that believed me . "21
Connaree Highfill remembers her father, Lawson Kirkpatrick, telling of his involvement:
"My father, when a 'late teenager', did his first really thrilling church activity at Mount Zion Church. His task was to go up and down the Valley of Upper Crabtree Creek, collecting money for the roof (cover) of the New Brick Church. He was quite successful. I remember only a few of the donors' names -- 'Uncle' Mark McCracken, Great Uncle Milas Kirkpatrick, our cousin Mr. John Roger's father, and Mr. John Best's father, and others. Everyone whom he contacted paid some on it. My father loved the work of the church all his active life ... as a young man he served as Superintendent of the Mt. Zion Sunday School." ,22
The names of the brickmasons have been confused with the passing of time. Joe and Adrien Schenck or "Shank" were assumed by many people to have been the masons since they worked in the Waynesville area at the turn of the century and later. However, Joe was only three years old in 1882 and little Adrien was only one. According to the 1880 census, Samuel, their father, and John, his father, were the only brickmasons in Haywood County with the name of Shank.
16
It is logical to assume they were the ones who worked at Mount Zion. John, who was sixty three year old in 1880, had been born in Virginia, but lived in Tennessee when Samuel and daughter Mary Ann were born. Samuel, who was twenty four years old in 1880, married a Haywood County girl, Anne Rhinehardt. Eventually, the original spelling of "Schenck" was reclaimed by family members. 23
The new church was built only a few yards away from the log church. The site was owned by Mark and Sophia McCracken, part of the old Russell McCracken place.
Mr. McCracken posted a bond of $40 in the office of the Clerk of Superior Court in 1883, "to be void when I shall make or cause to be made a good and sufficient deed of conveyance for the following piece of land to Winfield Ferguson, J.T. Kirkpatrick, and A.T. Rogers, as Trustees, to Mt. Zion Church M.E. Church South, deed to be made upon payment of twenty dollars.' .24
The document was filed for registration in 1885 and finally registered in 1886. The deed for the three-eighths of an acre lot was made in 1884 with D.C. Howell, W.T. Ferguson, J.T. Kirkpatrick, J.L. Ferguson, J.M. Boyd, Lawson Messer, and Charles B. Roberts listed as trustees. The Church now owned two and a half acres of land. 25
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