Topics Related to Hello NC: Madison County

Musician and Storyteller Joe Penland draws on generations of his family’s traditions of passing down the history and folklore of his Appalachian Mountain home in Madison County.

This story is part of a new series from the N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, “Hello NC,” spotlighting the residents and customs and culture of rural communities in North Carolina, “jewels in the crown” of the state that may be unfamiliar to residents and visitors. The department hopes that this series will draw other North Carolinians to the places and people who will enrich their lives and enlighten them about their state.

The almost forgotten Anderson Elementary School in Mars Hill is being reborn. It evolved from a school for black children built in 1928 to enable African Americans still weighed down by the impact of slavery to seek a better life.

The black community remained in western North Carolina as slavery ended for the small population of enslaved there. A split in pro-Confederate and pro-Union sentiment locally-led many blacks to move from Yancey to the Union-leaning Madison County at the Civil War’s end.

On June 28, 1799, land agent and mapmaker John Strother measured the American Indian pictographs on Paint Rock in Madison County. Strother wrote in this diary on that day that the vertical formation was 107 feet tall and that the:

Pictures of some humans – wild beasts fish & fowls were to be seen plainly made with red paint.