In the Mountains: The Salem School and Orphanage
The multi-part series “In the Mountains” delves into the history of the area surrounding Lees-McRae College. This first article examines a piece of Black Avery County history, and how the region’s past has affected its present and future.
In the late 19th century, many Protestant denominations encouraged religious leaders to minister to rural communities in the Appalachian Mountains. Many of these leaders recognized a need in their communities for improved educational opportunities, especially for groups who were often left out of traditional public schooling, like girls and non-white children.
Reverend Edgar Tufts, who in his efforts to provide for the education of young women founded the school that would one day become Lees-McRae College, was one of these influential preachers-turned-educators. Another was Reverend Ronald Payne Pell, the founder of the Banner Elk Presbyterian Church. He reached out to Emily Prudden, an educator who had already established multiple schools throughout North Carolina, to help him do the same in Elk Park.
Like Tufts, Prudden felt a strong call to support those who otherwise wouldn’t receive a quality education, and in 1894, began building a school in Elk Park specifically to teach African-American children. The Salem Mission, as this school came to be called, was short lived, but it was life-changing for the students who attended, and directly led to the development of local Black communities that continue to have an impact on the area to this day.
The Salem Mission. (Photos courtesy of the Mennonite Heritage Archives)
Phoebe Pollitt, a former professor at Appalachian State University, wrote in her upcoming book “Four Acres and a School: Emily Prudden, Appalachian Educator, that “[Prudden’s] decision to educate Appalachian African-American children living in remote coves and hollers of the Blue Ridge Mountains is unique. It marked a departure from the typical ‘highlands’ mission school pattern of providing ‘a more abundant life’ for poor white mountaineers.”
There is often a misconception that current Appalachian culture was shaped purely by white residents, predominantly English, Scotch-Irish, and German colonists. However, Black Americans, both free and enslaved, have lived in the area that is now Avery County for as long as white Americans have.
Northwestern North Carolina lacked the large-scale commercial plantations of other regions in the south, but it was not free of slaveholders. Many of the predominant families who founded the area owned enslaved workers, even if farming was not their primary economic activity.
Many Black free men and women also made their home in this area, finding ways to make a living in the mountains. According to U.S. Census records for 1860, the total Black population in the Blue Ridge Mountains was 8,271, including 1,053 free individuals.
Immediately following the Civil War, educational opportunities in the Appalachian region of North Carolina were scanty at best. “The lack of adequate schooling and illiteracy rates among African Americans in the decades around the turn of the twentieth century were abhorrent; the conditions for many white mountaineers were not much better,” wrote Pollitt.
According to Margaret Tufts Neal, who wrote “And Set Aglow a Sacred Flame,” students in the area were only in school for three months a year. Both white and Black children were undereducated, but tax revenue was used to fund public education and local governments were allowed to tax races separately. Most towns lacked a large enough population of African-Americans to generate sufficient revenue to provide an adequate educational experience to Black students.
Prudden sought to compensate for the lack of public education available to Black students. The Salem Mission wasn’t the first school established for African-American students in North Carolina, but it faced unique challenges. Prudden, who over her lifetime established 15 schools for both white and Black students throughout the state, had difficulty finding teachers willing to come work in the area. She sent out a call asking if any teachers or religious groups would be interested in coming to Elk Park. The Mennonite Brethren responded.
“The Mennonite Brethren are often interested in working with underrepresented groups,” said Conrad Ostwalt, a former Appalachian State University professor of religion. “They answered Prudden’s call for available missionaries.”
Henry and Elizabeth Wiebe, members of the Krimmer Mennonite denomination, bought the Elk Park school from Prudden in 1900 and named it the Salem Mission, after the church they attended in Kansas.
The Wiebes attempted to offer an education to all interested students, but were told Black and white children couldn’t attend school together. They determined that Black students had the greater need. The school also served as an orphanage and boarding house for students who either didn’t have a home or who lived too far to travel every day.
The Salem Mission ran for about a decade under the care of different teachers, including Gertrude Sapp and Alice Garnett, who were graduates of the school. Eventually, external pressure and the remote location of the school led to its closure. Sapp and Garnett went to teach at nearby Black public schools, while the white Mennonite missionaries turned their attention to working with adults.
The Mennonites were interested in establishing churches specifically for the Black population, but they wanted the Black communities to take the lead. The influence of these missionaries led to the creation of multiple Black Mennonite churches in the area. For over a century, these churches have been at the center of Black communities in Beech Bottom and Boone, providing a place of refuge and fellowship for the African Americans of Avery and Watauga Counties.
This article is the first in a series.
Further reading available from the Shelton Learning Commons:
“Appalachians and Race: The Mountain South from Slavery to Segregation,” John C. Inscoe
“Go Tell It on the Mountain,” Katherine Siemens Richert
“Appalachian Mountain Religion: A History,” Deborah Vansau McCauley
“History of Avery County, North Carolina,” Horton Cooper
