North Carolina's Mars Hill College and the War

   Mars Hill. That’s an interesting name for a place. In western North Carolina, in the rugged mountains of Southern Appalachia, is the small community of Mars Hill. It is home to Mars Hills University. Like so many other places across the nation, it has a deep and interesting war-time history.

   The area was a crossroads of sorts, with roads connecting Asheville to the south and Marshall, the county seat of Madison County, to the west. Local people wanted their children to have a better education. There was the Burnsville Academy to the west, but it was a several days’ walk, and was run by the Methodists. People in the area decided to form the French Broad Baptist Institute in 1858. They renamed the school Mars Hill College in 1859, choosing to remember a site in ancient Greece where the Apostle Paul debated the leading thinkers of Athens. The school had over 100 students in the 1860-1861 term.[1]

    In September 1862, the Rev. John Ammons, writing from Mars Hill College, implored fellow Baptists across the South to take up collections for missionaries and colporters for the Confederate army. “It is to you then, Pastors, that we appeal,” Ammons wrote. “Ask your congregations to give and they will do it. Let every pastor lay the matter before his congregation and take collections for Army Colportage for N. Carolina.[2]

    The College remained open the first two years of the war, under the tutelage of President Pinkney Rollins. Rollins was a closet Unionist, who after the war, made his views known. “[T]he rebels said he was a traitor, a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and most of them refused to patronize him.”[3] Whether it was Rollins’s political views or due to the continuous draw of Confederate forces upon the male population, Mars Hill College closed its doors at the end of term in the spring of 1863.[4] Shortly thereafter, at least 100 Confederate soldiers arrived and took over the buildings. Colonel James Keith and Lt. Col. Lawrence Allen, often associated with the 64^th North Carolina, used the campus as a base for a short amount of time. The two are often connected with the Shelton Laurel war. Most of the 64^th North Carolina was captured when Cumberland Gap was surrendered in September 1864 (read more about that here.)[5]

   The college campus also became home to the headquarters of the home guard of Brig. Gen. John W. McElroy. One amusing incident occurred when a Confederate officer at home on leave conspired with the home guard commander to test the effectiveness of the home guard. That night, the two officers positioned themselves on a nearby hill and “began to fire. The company became frightened; the commander shouted to his men ‘Fall out’, ‘Attention!’ Whereupon one, Ned Waldrop, stated that he would fight if the captain would let him get where he wanted to be. ‘Where do you want to be?’ responded the captain. “Behind the College building, sir,’ was the reply. It was soon learned that the attack was just a joke, or “training.”[6] 

Missing marker at Mars Hill University 

    On another occasion, one member of the home guard who was working at Mars Hill bragged to another worker about his unit killing three brothers and almost killing the mother. A few days later, the mother’s brother, James Norton, arrived at the site and killed the man. Norton was tried for murder, but acquitted.[7]

    Often, the home guard was away chasing dissidents from the Shelton Laurel area. In late April or early May 1864, one group of dissidents from Shelton Laurel, composed of fourteen men and three women, raided across West Fork, possibly into Buncombe County. They killed one man and beat another to “nearly to death.” The group was caught by the home guard at Mars Hill, with only one man and one woman escaping. “The women were armed with revolvers and took a hand in the murder and robbery,” the newspaper reported.[8]

   In late March or early April 1865, portions of George W. Kirk’s command, the 2^nd and 3^rd North Carolina Mounted Infantry (US) visited the college, ransacking the buildings and burning two of them.[9]

    The college rebuilt after the war and continues, as Mars Hill University. There was a North Carolina Civil War Trail marker on campus denoting the war in the area until recently. Maybe once construction is finished, it will return.

  

[1] Carr, “Mars Hill College,” 6.

[2] The Biblical Reporter, October 1, 1862.

[3] McLeod, From These Stones, 65.

[4] Carr, “Mars Hill College,” 5.

[5] Gaston, Partisan Campaigns of Col. Lawrence M. Allen, 16.

[6] Carr, “Mars Hill College,” 2.

[7] Inscoe and McKinney, The Heart of Confederate Appalachia, 270.

[8] Weekly Progress, May 17, 1864.

[9] Carr, “Mars Hill College,” 5-6.