CHAPTER V
First Years in the Episcopacy
When Bishop Cheshire assumed the episcopal oversight of the Diocese of North Carolina, he felt little confidence in his ability to fulfill the duties of the office. He did feel that by sincere and diligent application he could accomplish much for the welfare of the church. When elected assistant bishop he was, in his own words, "constrained to accept the call, not from any sense of fitness in myself, but simply because such a call seems to me to carry with it an imperative obligation to accept, unless the hand of God should plainly point in another direction: a dispensation was laid upon me."[30] Notwithstanding his expressed views, Bishop Cheshire was, in the opinion of most churchmen, better fitted for his office by ability, temperament, and training than any other man in North Carolina.
Bishop Cheshire met his first diocesan convention in May, 1894, at St. Paul's Church, Winston. He opened his annual address by saying: "I cannot bring into any order or method in my own mind, much less can I put it into words, the feelings which this occasion calls up. To no one can it seem stranger than it does to myself that I should occupy this place, and thus address you from the chair of Ravenscroft, of Atkinson, and of him so lately taken from us." He made no recommendations for important changes in the policy or work of the church, since he wished to become more thoroughly acquainted with the problems and needs of the Diocese before doing so. The Bishop urged upon the clergy then, as he was to do many times in the future, the necessity of keeping their parochial records in proper order, and observed that no businessman would employ a clerk for a week if he kept his books as many of the parish registers were kept. In concluding his address, the Bishop touched on three subjects which were to be collectively the theme of his episcopate: namely, the importance of regarding the Diocese rather than the parish as the unit of the church; the necessity of supporting all diocesan institutions; and the great need for continuing and expanding the missionary work of the Diocese. Time and time again he drove home the spirit and essence of these subjects, until the clergy and laity alike caught some of the fire of his enthusiasm and translated his ideas into living reality.
One of the first diocesan projects Bishop Cheshire undertook was the revival of the old mission of Valle Crucis, established by Bishop Ives about fifty years before. At the same time he planned to revive the mission work along the Watauga River. For this difficult work the Bishop had one man in mind who he thought was eminently qualified—Rev. Milnor Jones. His first meeting with Jones had been at the convention of 1883. Shortly afterwards, Bishop Lyman had asked Cheshire if he would carry to Jones a sum of money which had been raised to aid him in erecting a church at Tryon. The Bishop had added that he hoped Cheshire would spend a few days with Jones to observe his work. Cheshire complied with the Bishop's request, and spent a few unforgettable days with Jones, driving with him over the hills and valleys of Polk County to visit his scattered missions. At the time, he had been greatly impressed with Jones' influence with the mountain people. When he began to plan the revival of Valle Crucis, he remembered his experience with the picturesque mountain missionary.
Milnor Jones, however, was in Oregon when the Bishop was ready to commence his mountain work. In January, 1894, Cheshire wrote asking him to return to North Carolina. In replying to Bishop Cheshire, Jones wrote this characteristically laconic letter: "Where do you want me to go? What do you wish me to do? And what salary will you give? Not that the amount of the salary makes any difference; I only wish to know just what I have to go on." The Bishop answered as concisely: "I want you to go to Valle Crucis, on the Watauga River. I want you to revive the old Valle Crucis Mission, as your special work; and I give you for your field of operations Watauga, Mitchell, and Ashe Counties, to do what you can in them. I will give you six hundred dollars a year, payable monthly."[31]
Milnor Jones was a rough, plain-spoken individual with a remarkable faculty for understanding and winning the confidence of the simple mountain folk. He had a deeply religious nature, and a complete fearlessness in preaching the Gospel as he understood it. Bishop Cheshire found him an unusually effective man in laying the foundations of missionary work, but from that point he seemed to lack the power to build further.
Jones entered with enthusiasm upon his work in the mountains of North Carolina. When the Bishop began his visitations to the western counties in June, 1895, he found that Jones had made a promising beginning. Bishop Cheshire spent several weeks with him, visiting one mission station after another in the counties of Mitchell, Watauga, and Ashe. They preached, baptized, and confirmed in the most out-of-the-way places and under the most varied conditions. When they first visited Bakersville they held services in the courthouse, but upon their return for a second service some time later, they were refused the use of the building on the grounds that the courthouse was not safe for large crowds. The local newspaper, however, gave as the reason for the refusal the fact that the Methodists and Baptists held that "the Episcopalians had been preaching uncomfortable doctrine." The Bishop and Jones were not to be daunted; they held their service on the street in front of the courthouse. A large congregation gathered for the service. When the Bishop began preaching he did not think his voice would reach the assemblage, but after a few minutes he felt as if he could make himself heard "a mile away." He afterwards declared that "I never spoke with more ease, freedom, and enjoyment, or with a greater sense of the high privilege of being a servant and ambassador of my Lord."[32]
Another interesting episode in Bishop Cheshire's mission work in the mountains took place at Beaver Creek, Ashe County, in the summer of 1896. Here the Bishop and Jones were maintaining a mission school with two teachers in a building which had been leased for two years. When the Bishop went to the schoolhouse to hold a service, he was met by a mob of more than fifty men who "forcibly prevented" him from entering. The mob declared that the reason they were preventing him from holding his service was that they did not like "Mr. Jones' doctrine" and they understood that he, the Bishop, taught the same doctrine. In reporting the incident to the convention of the Jurisdiction of Asheville, the Bishop described it as "an experience which I certainly had never thought a possibility in my native state of North Carolina."[33]
In reviving the old mission at Valle Crucis Bishop Cheshire did not intend to follow the plan of Bishop Ives, which had been to establish a boys' school and a training school for the clergy. His primary motive was to evangelize the people of the mountain counties. He wanted to make Valle Crucis "an associate mission from which preachers and teachers should go out and keep up the work of evangelizing, instructing, and educating wherever an opening might be found or made."[34]
Milnor Jones, carrying letters of introduction from his Bishop, in the fall of 1895 visited the northern states to raise funds for his mountain work. He was successful in his efforts and, with the money thus raised, mission schools were established at Valle Crucis and at Beaver Creek. In the course of 1896 and 1897 a mission home, consisting of an eight-room house, was erected at Valle Crucis at a cost of twelve hundred dollars. It was built to accommodate a missionary, a teacher, and several pupils attending the mission school. Shortly after this constructive beginning Milnor Jones gave up the work at Valle Crucis. He confined his efforts to the small mission stations scattered over Mitchell, Watauga, and Ashe counties. The Bishop placed Rev. Samuel F. Adams in charge of Valle Crucis, and under his guidance and that of his successors the work progressed steadily.