Burnsville – This week’s historical roadside marker is at the Burnsville town square. Yes, it’s literally a square and not just a figure of speech, as Main Street encircles the little courtyard to make it a square island in the middle of the road.
There you’ll find a statue of Captain Otway Burns, a naval hero of the War of 1812, for whom the town is named, and a granite marker for John “Yellow Jack” John Wesley Bailey, who gave 100 acres to establish the town of Burnsville.
You’ll also find a state historical roadside marker for the Yancey Collegiate Institute. The institute “opened its doors on September 9, 1901. The idea for a Baptist Academy in Yancey County originated at a meeting of the Baptist Association at Crabtree Church in 1899. In that period, most secondary education could only be received through private academies because of a lack of public high schools in the state. Local citizens felt that their children deserved a proper education and endorsed funding by the Baptist Church,” according to the website Stoppingpoints.com.
The marker reads, “A Baptist preparatory school, 1901–1926. Two of the buildings later used by public schools. 1/2 mile northeast.”
Soon after the meeting, the elders of the association selected a two-acre location proposed and donated by resident S. M. Bennett and his wife. The land was conveyed on March 2, 1900, and construction began shortly after that. According to the website, “The Baptist State Mission Board and the Baptist Home Mission Board, along with private donors, provided the necessary funds to erect several brick buildings on the campus.”
In the fall of 1901, the initial building was completed, and shortly after that, a men’s dormitory was completed. The school was officially incorporated by an act of the NC General Assembly in 1903. “In 1905, builders completed a female dormitory named the Watson building after leading private donor E. F. Watson. The school offered a curriculum consisting of mathematics, reading, writing, and literature courses. Until 1917, the school offered only traditional high school courses. That year, the institute began offering a range of college courses in history, biblical studies, and classical languages. Many of the students who graduated from Yancey Collegiate Institute later attended Wake Forest College or Mars Hill College (also Baptist-founded institutes of higher learning),” says the website.
In his 1952 unpublished master’s thesis, “A History Of Yancey Collegiate Institute,” Appalachian State University student Edger Hunter explained that the Baptists were not the first to attempt a school, “the Methodist Church took the first step toward the establishment of a secondary school in the early 1850s.”
Hunter said, “For many years following its establishment, the Academy existed under very strenuous and often hazardous conditions. Although it was forced to close for two or three years during the War Between the States, it was able to survive many hardships until late in the 1890s.”
According to Hunter, it was a lawyer who was an ardent Baptist, E. F. Watson, who saw the need for the return of Christian education. “The need for Christian education was magnified by the moral and spiritual conditions throughout the county,” wrote Hunter. “In 1892, it was estimated that there were 300 illegal whiskey stills operating in the 311 square mile area that made up Yancey County. It was not unusual to see highly intoxicated people attending church services or other public meetings. At almost every public gathering, a flight would develop between two or more people. Mob fighting was very common. Murders were committed so frequently that it was unusual for court to convene all without a murder charge to be tried. Prostitution had become such a social problem that every community was faced with the danger of having its moral standards shattered.”
Thus, the need for a Christian education for the youth of the community was once again realized in the county with the creation of the Yancey Collegiate Institute.
“Student activities at Yancey Collegiate Institute included literary societies and athletics. The school provided venues for basketball, baseball, and tennis for both boys and girls. Male students could take part in boxing and wrestling,” according to Stoppingpoints.com.
“Yancey Collegiate Institute ceased to operate as a private institution in 1926 and became a public high school. In 1993, the institute, which had become Burnsville Elementary School, closed its doors. Presently, the site is home to the Blue Ridge Reading Team, a non-profit literary organization for several mountain counties. In 2003, the site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.”