The Rowell Bosse North Carolina Room: September 2014

Monday, September 29, 2014

Balsam Grove Named After Natural Surroundings

Settlers began moving into the valleys and mountains along the North Fork of the French Broad River in the early 1800s. Among the early settlers were members of the Bracken, Dunn, Galloway, Kitchen and McCall families.

Robert and John McCall were sons of Samuel McCall. Samuel McCall had settled his young family in the area around Cedar Rock, south of the current Fish Hatchery around 1803. Although Samuel McCall later moved the family west into Jackson County his oldest sons stayed in what would become Transylvania County.

Robert bought property along Shoal Creek and John purchased property along the North Fork in the 1820s. Like the other early settlers the McCalls were farmers. They planted vegetables and fruit trees, raised cattle, hunted the forest lands and fished the numerous streams around them while raising large families.

According to McCall family histories Robert married Rachel Glazener, daughter of Isaac and Elizabeth Owen Glazener, in 1824 and they had 13 children. John married Elizabeth Glazner, daughter of Abraham and Mary Ester Beasley Glazner, in 1827. John and Elizabeth had 12 children.

McCall's Mill

John and Elizabeth McCall’s oldest son, Bill operated a grist mill on the North Fork of the French Broad River for many years. The mill, constructed of round saddle-notched logs, is near the confluence of Shoal Creek and the North Fork. It has been restored and is located behind the Camp at Living Waters.

Macedonia Baptist Church was established in 1844 by members of the Bracken, Galloway, Glazner, Kitchen, McCall, Owen and Whitmire families who petitioned the Cathey’s Creek Church to hold church meetings closer to home.

Shoal Creek Baptist Church was organized in September 1867, although their first church building was not constructed until 1901. The current church was built in 1964, with an addition in 1983.

The first post office, established in 1875, was named for the balsam grove surrounding it on property owned by the Galloways. William Galloway was the first postmaster.

In the early to mid 1900s Joseph Silversteen’s Gloucester Lumber Company logged throughout the area. Railroad lines ran up Gloucester Gap and near Devil’s Courthouse to haul the timber back to Rosman. Many farmers in the community also worked for Gloucester Lumber.

Balsam Grove continues to be an active community today with a new Community Center, a Fire Department, a post office, Shoal Creek Baptist Church and McCall’s Grocery & Gas.

Next week’s “Picturing the Past” article will continue the history of the Balsam Grove area, featuring Dr. Gaine Cannon’s Albert Schweitzer Memorial Hospital and the people who helped build it.

Photographs and information for this column are provided by the Rowell Bosse North Carolina Room, Transylvania County Library. Visit the NC Room during regular library hours (Monday-Friday) to learn more about our history and see additional photographs. For more information, comments or suggestions contact Marcy at marcy.thompson@transylvaniacounty.org or 828-884-3151 X242.

Monday, September 22, 2014

Parents Paid For Children's Education

Quebec School, before taxes

The early families scattered throughout the mountains and valleys to the west of Rosman provided for the education of their children through subscription schools. Parents paid a fee for their children to attend. The tuition could be cash or produce from farms or gardens. These schools were often rough built facilities which were also used for church services. The normal school session ran from four to eight weeks.

Old Gloucester School

In the 1870s and 1880s public schools were built throughout the Gloucester and Hogback townships. These were typically one-room schools constructed by the men of the community. Tall windows on one side and end of the building provided light. They had wood burning stoves and students were responsible for chores such as sweeping floors, washing chalk boards, carrying wood and building the fire in cold weather.

They had handmade benches and tables and few supplies. Parents normally provided textbooks and passed them down through the family. Schools operated anywhere from two to six months a year, often toward the shorter period of times. Teachers were usually young, sometimes younger than some of their students, and paid very little. Classes consisted of anywhere from a handful of students to 50 students.

As the population of school age children changed schools closed and new schools open. Over the course of several years the same school may have been known by different names. One-room schools included New Prospect Church and Macedonia Church Schools, Pine Grove School on Diamond Creek (also known as Possum College), Owen, Vance Galloway, Pea Ridge, Hogback Valley, Puncheon Camp, Oakland, Montvale, Bohaney, Union, Robinson, Shoal Creek, Stover Camp and Old Log Schoolhouse.

When T.C. Henderson, who had attended and then taught in these schools in the Quebec area, became superintendent of schools he made plans to improve Transylvania County Schools through larger and better equipped school buildings, longer (nine month) school terms, better teachers with higher pay and public high schools.

Quebec was the first district in the county to vote a special tax on property in order to raise funds for a new school building in 1907, thus beginning the era of the shining white multi-room schoolhouse.

Lake Toxaway's multi-room school in the early to mid-1900s

In 1915 the new Lake Toxaway School replaced the old Pea Ridge School. Over the years the two-room school was expanded three times. By the 1950s there were multiple classrooms with nearly 100 students. It was the largest community school in the county and even had a cafeteria. The government subsidized a lunchroom, known as a “soup room” beginning in the 1930s. Lunches were five cents or could be paid for with corn meal, milk or vegetables.

The Balsam Grove School opened in 1922. Soup and sandwiches were provided to students here as well. Lunches could either be paid for in cash or with produce.

Joseph Silversteen sold property to the Transylvania County Schools and provided lumber for a three-room school in the Silversteen Community in 1923. The partition wall between the classrooms could be moved to form a large room for programs, meetings and gatherings. The third room served as the lunchroom and gym.

Silversteen School, 1946

By the 1946 T.C. Henderson’s “modern” school were inadequate, overcrowded, out-dated and in some cases unsafe. Probably the worst in the county was the Silversteen School, although it continued to operate for ten more years. Students were bused to Rosman for one year until the new T.C. Henderson Elementary School opened in the Fall of 1957.

Lake Toxaway, Quebec and Balsam Grove were the last community schools in the county to close. Students from Balsam Grove were sent to Rosman Elementary in 1957, those from Lake Toxaway and Quebec went to T.C. Henderson .

Monday, September 15, 2014

Football Team Was Integral to Integration

For over a hundred years black children in Transylvania County attended separate schools from white children. With limited resources the dedicated teachers of French Broad, Everett, Glade Creek, Shady Grove and the Brevard #2 Colored School (later Rosenwald) provided elementary age students with the education to move on to the next level.

Transylvania County did not have a high school for black students though. These students were bused to Ninth Avenue High School in Hendersonville. Some students went to live with family in other locations or attended boarding schools to further their education.

In 1960 the Transylvania Citizens Improvement Organization (T.C.I.O.) was created “to promote the civic, educational, political and economic opportunities for African American Citizens in Brevard and Transylvania County. The organization made an immediate impact by fighting racial discrimination in both private and public institutions, and by building coalitions with white citizens that created an avenue for all to support a cause that helped to shape the future of Brevard and Transylvania County.”

Their first objective was the integration of Transylvania County Schools. Beyond integration was the concern that high school students had to travel to Hendersonville to attend school even though their parents paid taxes in Transylvania County.

Although the Transylvania County Board of Education denied attempts to integrate the school system the door was opened a crack when 9 African American students were admitted to Brevard High School in 1962.

The T.C. I.O. decided to sue the Board of Education to fully integrate Transylvania County School. In Federal Court in Asheville Judge Wilson Warlick found in their favor and ordered Brevard High and Brevard Junior High to integrate in 1963.

However, it was not until the 1966-67 school year that the Transylvania County Schools became fully integrated. Transylvania County was among the first fully integrated school systems in the state of North Carolina.

One achievement Transylvania County Schools can point to is the integration of the Brevard High football team in the fall of 1963. Coach Cliff Brookshire invited the black students to try out for the team. Six made the team, paving the way for Brevard High to become the first integrated high school football team in North Carolina.

1963 Brevard High Football Team

Brookshire pushed all his players hard but equally. While there was some opposition both in Brevard and on the road the attitudes began to change with each win. Paul “Scruggs” Gardin, the first black player to see action, scored the first three times he handled the football. The team finished the season 10-1-1 and was the AAA Co-Champs. Brookshire’s leadership and the team bond helped students work through the difficult times on the field, as they traveled and in the hallways and classrooms at school.

Sources for this article included Reflections: TCIO Celebrates 40 Years of Community Service, Brevard...Standing Alone : North Carolina's First Integrated Football Team, The Untold Story and articles by Tyler McCall and Leslie Parker Borhaug in The Heritage of Transylvania County, Volume II.

Monday, September 8, 2014

Black Children Attended Community Schools

Education has always been a strong part of the African American community in Transylvania County. Originally African American children attended schools near the communities where they lived.

The French Broad Church and School began around 1866 on Frank Allison’s property southeast of the French Board River in the Everett Road area. According to Nathaniel Hall the school operated for about 15 years.

Everett School has located a few miles beyond the French Broad School on the old Everett Farm. The school operated until the end of the 1932-33 school year when it closed due to declining enrollment.

Glade Creek School, 1938

Across the river, at the foot of the hill below the present day Glade Creek Baptist Church, was the Glade Creek School. This was the longest running of the small rural schools for black children. According to a 1938 Transylvania County Schools insurance analysis the 1300 square foot building was wood frame with a metal roof. During the 1930s and 40s the enrollment ran between 28 and 54.

Glade Creek School closed when the new Rosenwald School opened in Brevard in the fall of 1948. A county school bus took the elementary age students to Rosenwald.

On the west side of Brevard the Shady Grove School operated for a few years in the late 1800s. It was located at the Shady Grove Baptist Church on Buena Vista Drive where the old Shady Grove Cemetery is today.

In Brevard the first public school for black children was located on Rice Street. This 2-room, 2-teacher log-cabin school was later exchanged with Frank Jenkins for land on West Main Street where a 4-room school was built around 1910.

Rosenwald School, 1938

In 1920 the school was expanded using a combination of Rosenwald and other funds. Julius Rosenwald was a philanthropist who established a fund to build over 5000 schools in the south for African American children. The 1938 Transylvania County Schools insurance analysis lists it as a wood frame building with a metal roof and having 4300 square feet. The school burned on March 12, 1941. For the next seven years there was not a school building for elementary age black children in Transylvania County. The African American community provided make-shift classrooms for their children in the basements and annexes of Bethel Baptist, Bethel A Baptist and Mills Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Churches.

Rosenwald School, 1948-1966

On September 2, 1948 the new Rosenwald School opened. It was constructed of stone, had six classrooms, a cafeteria, an office and indoor plumbing. However, the school board did not provide furnishings for the school. Students, parents and teachers moved the old desks and chairs from the church classrooms and funds were raised to purchase kitchen equipment and a piano. The fluorescent lights were provided by the Lions Club.

Ethel K. Mills, who taught at the Everett School and at the old Rosenwald School, was named Principal in 1948 and donated many years to enriching the education of Transylvania’s African American community.

Rosenwald continued to serve the African American elementary children through 1966 when Transylvania County Schools were fully integrated. Today the administration offices are in the building.

These schools only served the elementary students; next week’s article will continue the story of education for the African American population of Transylvania County.

Sources for this article included, The Colored People of Transylvania County, 1861-1961 by Nathaniel Hall, Reflections: TCIO Celebrates 40 Years of Community Service and a The Heritage of Transylvania County, Volume II article by Tyler McCall. For additional information readers may also be interested in The Brevard Rosenwald School: Black Education and Community Building in a Southern Appalachian Town, 1920-1966 by Betty Jameson Reed.

Photographs and information for this column are provided by the Rowell Bosse North Carolina Room, Transylvania County Library. Visit the NC Room during regular library hours (Monday-Friday) to learn more about our history and see additional photographs. For more information, comments or suggestions contact Marcy at marcy.thompson@transylvaniacounty.org or 828-884-3151 X242.

Sunday, September 7, 2014

Do You Remember "Miss Daisy"?

"Miss Daisy"

Daisy Norton, known by generations of library users as “Miss Daisy” died on September 7, 1964. Miss Daisy was a fixture at the Transylvania County Library since the days of the first library on the courthouse lawn. Miss Daisy began working at the library around 1936 along side of Miss Annie Jean Gash.

Miss Daisy was responsible for preparing the books for the shelves, mending any damaged books and circulation. Although Miss Daisy was quiet and rather shy, everyone who used the library knew and loved her.

When Mrs. Kapp became the head Librarian in 1944 Miss Daisy remained on as the little library grew. In December 1956 the library moved into a new building (today the County Administration Building beside the Courthouse). Miss Daisy continued to work at the library until June 1964.

Library, 1912-1956

Library, 1956-1974

Monday, September 1, 2014

Change Was Constant For Brevard Schools

From the late 1930s through the late 1950s Transylvania County began consolidating schools. The smaller rural schools that had been scattered throughout the county were gradually closed and children were bused to larger modern schools.

Brevard Middle Elementary School

In Brevard all grades attended classes in one building located on the corner of Morgan and Broad beginning in 1908. From 1919-1924 that building was just for the elementary grades.

Then in 1925 former high school on Morgan Street became the Elementary School. The old white school house was known as the Grammar School and served the lower grades. After the 1935-36 school year it was declared unfit and demolished. All elementary grades attended the school on Morgan Street for 2 ½ years.

Brevard Primary School

In August 1937 it was announced that a new school would be built using WPA labor on the corner of Broad & Morgan. The WPA also provided a large part of the materials and 70% of the cost. Known as the Primary School, it was used for lower grades for nearly 40 years.

When the last of Brevard’s three elementary level schools opened on Gaston Street in August 1948 it served grades 6-8. Grades 3-5 were in the Middle Elementary School and grades 1 & 2 in the Primary School. Later the distribution of grades changed to 3^rd and 4^th in the middle building and 5^th and 6^th in the Upper Elementary School.

On the north and east side of the county the elementary students transitioned into the Pisgah Forest, Straus, Penrose and Brevard schools.

The rock school house at Pisgah Forest was built using a combination of WPA and county funds. It opened in November 1942 and operated through the 1979-1980 school year. Blue Ridge Community College was located there from the early 1980s through the mid-1990s. Since 1997 the Davidson River School has been located in the building.

Penrose and Straus Elementary were both scheduled to open at the start of the 1951-52 school year but construction delays postponed the opening of Penrose until later in the fall. The old Enon and Little River schools continued to be used until it was ready.

Straus Elementary opened in September 1951 serving the growing population on the north side of Brevard, along with students bused in from the Cedar Mountain and Connestee school districts and later students from Pisgah Forest.

With the construction and opening of the current Pisgah Forest Elementary in January 1992 both Penrose and Straus were closed. Today the former Penrose School is part of Anchor Baptist Church & Ministry and Blue Ridge Community College is located in the former Straus School.

If you have old photographs of Penrose, Pisgah Forest or Straus Elementary Schools that you would be willing to share as part of the photograph collection in the Local History Room at the Library please contact Marcy. If you prefer to hold on to your photographs, bring them by and we can scan them or donate a copy.

In 1960 the first Brevard Jr. High opened in the old high school with grades 7-9 from Brevard, Straus and Penrose Elementary Schools. Although Penrose 7^th graders didn’t go there until 1966 when all 9^th graders started as Freshmen at BHS. From 1966-1974 Brevard Jr. High included only grades 7-8.

During the first semester of the 1974-75 school year 6^th graders from Brevard, Straus, and Pisgah Forest Elementary Schools attended their current school. To relieve overcrowding at Penrose Elementary 6^th graders from that school were moved to town.

In January 1975 Brevard Middle School opened for all 6-8 graders in the Brevard district. Brevard Elementary School also opened in January 1975.

Brevard Upper Elementary School

With all grades now in new buildings the two oldest of the downtown school buildings were torn down during the next few years. The former Primary School now houses the Tax Administration and Register of Deeds offices and the Upper Elementary School is the Community Services building today.

Transylvania County Schools began kindergarten classes in 1973 with two classes in Brevard and one at Pisgah Forest Elementary. The following year there was one class with 26 students at each elementary school, except Brevard which had two classes. This did not serve all kindergarten age children in the county so the lottery system was used to determine who attended.