So basically, in the 1920s, there was a Presbyterian missionary named Martha Robison, who was sent to the community of Higgins, where we’re in right now, to prepare a place for a permanent missionary. But after she had stayed here about six months and she was supposed to be leaving, she had just fallen in love with this community, so she instead decided to stay here and to try to bring a bunch of resources into the community. And she ended up staying here almost her entire life, so she was kind of part of a wider movement across America called the Arts and Crafts movement, and it was sort of the Appalachian aspect of that, and that she believed that by helping people to be immersed in culture and creating culture like traditional arts and crafts, that it would bring prosperity to a community and help people to thrive in a variety of different ways. So she basically got a grant from, I believe it was a relation of hers, but his name was Markel. He was a wealthy coal magnate from Pennsylvania, and he gave her a grant to be able to make three different buildings out of stone. The biggest one was going to become a craft school, and it was ended up being called the Markel School or the Markel Building. And so basically, people from all over the community gathered rocks from all across, and then people in the community built these buildings, including my great-grandfather. And in the Markel building, they had a regular—it was it was kind of a general—community center. In addition, they had the school portion where they taught how to make traditional Appalachian textiles. Because another interesting aspect of Higgins, and Martha Robinson’s niece ended up becoming a famous urban activist. Her name was Jane Jacobs, and she wrote in her book (I believe it was called “On the Wealth of Nations” or ” Wealth of Cities” or something like that). She wrote about Higgins as an example of what happens to communities that are disconnected from cities. Higgins had become very isolated by the time Martha Robinson had come to it, and people had been reduced to subsidence agriculture after previous and previously living in a very different way in the apparently in the early 1800s, and there was a large number of skills and agricultural techniques that were absent from the Higgins community that were prevalent in surrounding communities. And Jane Jacobs thinks that that’s because it was so isolated. So, for example, many of the people there had forgotten how to do weaving techniques that were common in other parts of Appalachia. They didn’t use the same agricultural techniques. They didn’t fertilize, for example, in the same way. So that’s part of what made Martha Robinson think that teaching these traditional arts and crafts would help people to recover something that had been lost, and in the process provide jobs to the region, which was really, definitely from her perspective, and probably just generally true, very economically impoverished. Most people there did not have almost any cash, and people were kind of living, you know, hand to mouth. So, in the Markel School, she taught people how to do traditional Appalachian weaving. My great-grandmother was later head of the weaving guild that was established after that, and they also did all sorts of things in the building. It was sort of a general community center. They had plays. They had sometimes they even had bands. Some of the children in the community went to farming schools and finishing schools. Kind of also through the Presbyterians. My again, my great-grandma, she went to finishing school where she learned about poetry and and plays. She put on a variety of different things. A lot of things were going on in the local Presbyterian church, which was also built in this area. It’s not currently used, but it was also constructed of stone, and I was able to find lots of specific things that they put on. One particular one that really stuck out to me is a candlelight Christmas service, where everyone went to that that stone church and had a Christmas service by candlelight and had a band play, and then they had a play put on by my great-grandmother. So it was a variety of different skills that were taught and also a variety of artistic things that kind of were brought to the community and this kind of served as this focal point. And these stone buildings were not common here. This was another thing where Jane Jacobs argues that this was something that was lost, presumably because, you know, people were able to build stone structures, and there were no stone structures. Whether they were lost or whether it was for some reason less efficient, I don’t know. But all the structures here were wood, and by the time that Martha Robinson arrived, she questioned the elders about why that was, and they said that it wasn’t possible to build stone structures, and that you could only build stone chimneys. That entire structure made of stone would collapse. So I think I spoke to both the the isolation of Higgins at that time, and perhaps something that was lost in terms of knowledge. But these buildings were all built from stone. They became a landmark in the region. I’ve been able to find postcards of the of the kind of the layout of this area, and it was a it was kind of a heritage site even at the time. It was seen as, you know part of this wider movement of the Arts and Craft movement, bringing back these traditional styles. And specifically here, they made a variety of specific rugs, as well as traditionally crafted brooms, and I can’t remember exactly what they look like, but they have a kind of intricate, designed handle. So, this really did seem like it brought a lot of people together in Higgins, and really was a source of optimism. People thought of it from some of the writings that have been preserved from this time. People did see it as a kind of fighting against potential decay of Higgins or the economic impoverishment. There were some people that spoke very much in terms of: “This is something that’s going to turn around, and that we they wanted to kind of fight for their way of life here.” Unfortunately, for some reason, ultimately the collective kind of failed. It may have been World War II. I’m not sure, but I think during World War II, a large percentage of the men in the region did leave, and I think that’s kind of when a lot of the stuff kind of started to fall apart. In any case, after Martha Robinson’s death and after World War II, or I think that’s the timeline. It seems that they lost the money to continue to support it, and the building ended up being acquired by the Adventist Church, which then repurposed it as a hospital. It had previously been a clinic, and it continued for some time to kind of serve as a community center. People had ice cream socials, you know. They had ice cream socials before, and that’s where my great-grandparents met. But they also had movie nights, which was a big deal back when there wasn’t too much in the way of movies. I think my grandpa said that they only got TVs in Higgins when he was like maybe 10 or so. Electricity came to Higgins in the, I want to say, the mid-40s, so that was a big deal and brought people together. Yeah, what does that probably cover it?
So basically, in the 1920s
Gathering: Egypt Township, North Carolina
Prompt: What do you remember about the history of this building?

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