Merriweather Lewis, classical scholar, poor disciplinarian; quit the college and the county due to stress.
John Robert Sams, from a Confederate family. Still in his 20s when made "official" president because "acting" president Lewis was a Presbyterian. (Note: Richard Dillingham's mother was a Sams)
Thomas Shepherd Deaver, founder of the Union League. He was the great grandfather of Bascom Lunsford and was a founding trustee of the college. He supplied lumber from his mill for the college's first building.
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"What I have acquired in understanding what took place at Mars Hill after the Civil War, has been told me by family and friends," says Dillingham.
Determined to learn more about this ballad, Dillingham visited Renfro Library and started digging in the Bascom Lamar Lunsford collection of ballads. "He had collected ballads in Madison County, and low and behold I found where he collected 'No Ku Klux Out Tonight' in Madison County, in 1925."
When the Civil War started, the majority of the residents in Madison County chose to side with the Union. Confederate soldiers stationed at Mars Hill would go out into the countryside to collect taxes. These "taxes" usually wound up being food, and locals began to despise the Confederacy for this practice.
This, mixed with the hopeless prospects of the Confederacy caused many to change loyalties from the Confederacy to the Union. Many Confederate families viewed this as an act of betrayal, and when these "traitors" received Federal pensions after the war, it stoked Confederate bitterness.
After the Civil War, Madison County, was ripe for a clash. The division of friends and family caused by the War did not spare Mars Hill. Hostilities ran deep and lasted. Mars Hill was essentially divided in half, and people were organized into two parties, the Union League and the Ku Klux Klan.
Thomas Shepherd Deaver founded the Union League to protect returning Union soldiers and freed blacks. Its members consisted primarily of free blacks, Union veterans, carpet baggers (Northern white men who moved to the South to profit from the chaos), and Republicans (who had supported Lincoln).
The Ku Klux Klan was comprised of Confederate veterans. It's important to note that although the KKK was founded to resist the elevation of Blacks to equal citizenship, Dillingham feels that, at least locally, not everybody joined it for that reasons. Many joined it because it was the only organization under which Confederate soldiers could unite in response to the Union League.
The Ku Klux Klan outnumbered the Union League and often used its numbers to intimidate, making threats of violence and vandalism against various League members, as well as showing up at Union League meetings wearing their frightful white hooded uniforms. Dillingham speculates that it is one such occasion that the ballad "No Ku Klux Out Tonight" describes.
At the time of the Ku Klux War, only the original building remained standing on the Mars Hill campus. The teachers' and students' dormitories had been burned down during the War. A small stone monument marks the site today, and it is believed that Thomas Shepherd Deaver's Union League held its meetings on it's second floor.
To get to the second floor, you had to climb a flight of stairs located on the exterior of the building. The refrain of "No Ku Klux out Tonight" runs "Old Shep Deaver, he took a flight." Dillingham believes this refers to Thomas Shepherd Deaver, who upon seeing the Ku Klux Klan riding in, ran up the stairs to warn the Union League.
Although much of the actual violence and vandalism that occurred during this time was carried out by outlaws and renegades unrelated to the Union League and the Ku Klux Klan, there were several instances of direct conflict between the two. One such instance involved Thomas Shepherd Deaver and his grist and lumber mills down by the Forks of Ivy Baptist Church. One night, a group of men from the KKK rode out to Deaver's mills and burned them both to the ground.
What precipitated the fall of the Ku Klux Klan was the ruthless persecution by the state of local residents accused of involvement with the KKK.
North Carolina at the time was governed by William Woods Holden, a man with Northern loyalties and no sympathy for Confederates. He hired the ruthless Colonel George Kirk, the same man who many believe burned down the two Mars Hill dormitories, to deal with the Ku Klux Klan in Madison County. According to Dillingham, many families were accused of Klan affiliation with little or no evidence and brought to court in Asheville---including a Mars Hill College president. The Federal court system in Asheville was comprised primarily of Carpet baggers, so these families rarely received a sympathetic hearing. Although this oppression initially recruited new members for the KKK, it eventually became so severe that people were driven away.
Governor Holden was eventually impeached. Colonel Kirk was called off the job, and although the Republican Party remained a force in Madison County, the Democrats controlled state government. Jim Crow segregation was eventually imposed on blacks and lasted until the Civil Rights Movement ended it in the 1960s. The Ku Klux Klan would never again reach the numbers it held immediately following the Civil War, although the environment would remain hostile for many years.
Dillingham says that when the college was first reopened in 1876 "Students carried pistols into classrooms, coming from both the Union [families] and Confederate [families], and tough men like James Bassett Lunsford (Bascom's Father), college president from 1876-1878 and a former Confederate soldier from Texas, were needed to maintain order on campus."
Eventually things settled down, but a researcher could expect to find significant correlation between the surnames of members of the Union League and the KKK in 1872 and of Republicans and Democrats registered in Madison County today.
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This view from the center of today's Quad shows the first campus building sometime before 1910, when it was torn down, but after 1892, when Founders' Hall (left) was built. The Ballad refers to the flight of stairs visible on the left side of the older structure.
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A Ballad of Mars Hill College:
At Mars Hill College on a moonlight night,
Old Shep Deaver, he took a flight.
Chorus: (repeat after each verse)
They ain't no Ku Klux out tonight,
They ain't no Ku Klux out tonight.
He run so fast, he run so free,
He run Old Baldy against a tree.
Old Rube Manning jumped in a tub.
Said, "Yonder comes the Ku Klux Club!"
Old Rube Manning, you may come out.
There ain't no Ku Klux here about.
Yes, Old Rube Manning, he got mighty bold
He run Line Massey in a groundhog hole.
There was Miles and he swore with a flirt,
He'd get Merlan a flashy shirt.
There was Wes and he swore by all
He'd get old Cindy a coal black shawl.
Old Rube Manning he got drunk.
He fell in the fire and kicked out a chunk.
Old Rube Manning heard the rebel yell.
He turned around and run like hell.
Bascom Lamar Lunsford is responsible for keeping this piece of history alive, by documenting it in his scrapbook. He first learned of the ballad from a local man called Doc Sams, because he peddled a medicinal salve around Madison and Buncombe Counties.
Richard Dillingham believes this ballad is about a night in Mars Hill when members of the Union League were led to believe that the Ku Klux Klan was not around. They responded to their absence with a "devilish" rampage of misbehavior. This goes on until they realize that the KKK is indeed around to maintain order. Upon this realization they turn and "run like hell."
Dillingham pictures this ballad beginning underneath an eerie full moon, during a Union League meeting at a two story building on campus. It starts by presenting Thomas Shepherd Deaver as a coward who, upon seeing the Ku Klux Klan, ran up the stairs outside the building to the safety of the Union League meeting. Another interpretation of this portion is that Deaver took the two story flight of stairs to inform the Union League that the coast was clear, that the KKK was not out that night.
Thomas Shepherd Deaver is by most accounts a distinguished figure in Mars Hill history. He was a successful businessman, deacon at the Forks of Ivy Baptist Church, and a prominent contributor to the growth of the Mars Hill College. He funded construction, and contributed wood from his lumber mill. He is remembered as being a sort of figurehead for the Republican Party in Madison County, and is accepted as the founder of the Union League. For obvious reasons he was despised by the KKK, and suffered persecution from them during the Ku Klux War.
The ballad continues with Thomas Shepherd Deaver riding his horse Baldy into a tree. The reason for his frenzied gallop could be either celebratory, or fear driven. Next it mentions "ol Rube Mannin."
This is a reference to Reuben Manning Deaver, a prominent business man in Marshall, avid member of the Union League, and son of Thomas Shepherd Deaver. The ballad implies that he was so afraid of the KKK that he was reduced to cowering in a bathtub. Upon hearing of their absence, he climbed out of his tub and began celebrating with alcohol, and by riding his horse at a wild gallop around Mars Hill, until he ran her into a ground hog hole. It later accuses him of public drunkenness, becoming so intoxicated that he fell into a fire and vomited. However, according to Dillingham Reuben Manning Deaver was a very sober man.
It also talks about two other men, Wes and Miles, who bought their Black "mistresses" a skirt and a shawl. Dillingham is unsure of who these men were, but feels that its probably safe to assume that they were either local Union veterans or Republicans.
The song concludes with Reuben Manning hearing a rebel yell. Upon realizing that the KKK is riding in, he ceases his misbehavior and "runs like hell," presumably back to his bathtub.
This ballad is full of salacious innuendo regarding the kind of men involved with the Union League, as well as Union Veterans and Republicans. Its historical accuracy is questionable, but it does illuminate the animosity between the KKK and the Union League.
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