The Ghosts of Students Past: Ayden Seminary and Eureka College

Arthur C. Clarke opened the forward of his 1968 novel 2001: A Space Odyssey by stating, “Behind every man now alive stand thirty ghosts, for that is the number by which the dead outnumber the living.”[1] Clarke’s statistics may be skewed due to his evolutionary calculations, but the main thrust of his thesis rings true. Behind every man and woman now living stand the ghosts of those who have gone before them. The same applies to institutions.

This has been a big year for Free Will Baptist higher education. The flagship institution of the National Association of Free Will Baptists, Welch College, sold her West End property and will begin soon the process of building a beautiful new campus in Gallatin, Tennessee. After several years of financial deficits due to unforeseen government regulation and the effects of the Great Recession (decreased student enrollment and financial gifts), the school reported an $180,000 surplus for 2014, not including the campus sale. They have also experienced an increase in student enrollment over the past two years. Welch administrators state that they intend to open on the new campus either during Fall 2016 or Spring 2017. The year 2017 will also mark 75 years of operation for the school. A living institution full of excitement and activity, Welch College stands in front of many ghosts. Two of these ghosts are Ayden Seminary and Eureka College.

Getting Started

Northern Free Will Baptists in the Randall Movement were starting educational institutions as early as the 1830s. However, the Palmer Movement, which consisted of southern churches, was not able to follow suit until the late 1890s. The Palmer Movement’s rural, small farm congregations had less financial ability to support a school than their more urban, affluent Randallite brethren. However, many “leading members of the Free Will Baptist denomination in North Carolina had long felt the need for a theological seminary for training ministers for the Gospel.”[2]

The 1890 Annual Conference in North Carolina appointed a committee tasked with promoting education among Free Will Baptists. They were soon asked to research the feasibility of establishing a school in Morehead City, North Carolina, which had been making overtures toward that end.[3] The committee decided against proceeding with Morehead City, and for the next five years the matter of a Free Will Baptist school was dropped.

However, it was readdressed with “much enthusiasm” at the March 1896 Union Meeting held with the Spring Branch Church in Pitt County, North Carolina.[4] The association immediately set up a stock company to raise funds for the foundation of a school. Shares sold quickly and within a few weeks, shareholders gathered to elect a Board of Directors.

The Board of Directors chose to establish the school in Ayden, North Carolina, which was only 90 miles east of the state capitol and was served by the Atlantic Coastline Railroad. The school’s auspicious early fundraising and location commitment was reinforced by much verbal support. T. F. Harrison wrote in The Free Will Baptist that the school “should be of great and profound interest to all F.W.B. inasmuch as our future success and advancement depend on an education.”[5] Harrison also noted that such a school would greatly benefit Free Will Baptist ministerium, which had often suffered from inadequate theological training.[6]

Early Years

The two-story, t-shaped building on Lee Street in Ayden was finished early in 1898, and the first students began enrolling soon thereafter. The Board of Directors hired J.E.B. Davis to lead the school and determined that the courses of study would focus on theological training for ministers. The school was named the Free Will Baptist Theological Seminary (usually referred to as Ayden Seminary). Like most late nineteenth century seminaries, Ayden Seminary offered high school courses in addition to post-secondary theological training.

After deciding to offer post-secondary theological training, the Board of Directors realized that they needed to find an educator capable of providing the caliber of education they desired. They found the man they were looking for in Sciotoville, Ohio. Reverend Thomas E. Peden was a Randallite minister; in 1895 he had led a contingent of Ohio, Kentucky, and West Virginia Free Will Baptists out of the Randall Movement due to fears about doctrinal laxity. Peden proved prophetic, since Randall Movement merged with the Northern Baptists only 16 years later.[7]

Peden’s leadership held “important consequences in shaping the future of the institution.”[8] During Peden’s administration the seminary developed a “traditional and classical” curriculum embracing several courses of study including training for teachers, English, theology, science, and the classics.[9] Theology courses included the training in the Butler and Dunn Theology textbook, Free Will Baptist faith, church history, “Greek Testament (Luke),” and homiletics.[10] Though the school emphasized theology, the Peden administration also incorporated various liberal arts courses to offer a well-rounded, robust education to its theological students.

Eureka College

During the last year of Peden’s administration, 1909, the seminary developed a college department in response to changes in American higher education at the turn of the twentieth century. Thousands of seminaries all over the country were being forced to make difficult decisions about whether to become purely theological training schools or adjust to a liberal arts college curriculum. Peden believed the seminary should embrace a liberal arts curriculum, though he was also committed to continuing the school’s theological training. Unfortunately, Peden resigned in 1910 due to his advanced age (77) and the college’s development stalled.

By 1918 the landscape of American higher education had changed so much that the seminary could delay no longer: would it develop a full-fledged four-year college degree program or not? Men and women all over the state of North Carolina began to push for the development of the college. However, it wasn’t until 1925 that the school began to offer first-year college courses. The name Eureka was chosen by the board from suggestions sent in by readers of The Free Will Baptist.

The December 15, 1926 issue of The Free Will Baptist was dedicated to the new school and included a historical sketch of Ayden Seminary, in addition to a description of Eureka’s goals. Ministry education remained very important for Eureka and therefore the Bible department’s curriculum was also included in the special edition of The Free Will Baptist. L.R. Ennis served as dean of the new Bible department and the curriculum reflected his training at Moody Bible Institute.[11] Unfortunately, even though much excitement surrounded Eureka College’s opening, too few students registered for courses. The college limped along, but student enrollment and financial giving never equaled school’s needs.

Unsubstantiated rumors of financial mismanagement further hampered fund raising, as did the onset of the Great Depression. Then on November 4, 1931 the main building of the school burned to the ground. Though insurance offered some coverage on the building, the proceeds had to be applied solely to the school’s indebtedness.

Conclusion

Ayden Seminary and Eureka College ceased to exist in 1931, but the dreams and ambitions of Free Will Baptist higher education remained alive. Michael Pelt’s reflection on the closing of the school speaks directly to the heart this story: “Such dreams do not die easily if they arise out of the genuine needs and aspirations of a people who feel that they have a purpose to fulfill.”[12]

As Eric Thomsen noted last week, one of John L. Welch’s key concerns in bringing the Cooperative General Association and the General Conference together to form a national association was the development of a “centralized educational institution” after “[t]he college building at Ayden…was destroyed by fire.”[13] In 1942 Free Will Baptist higher education was resurrected in Nashville, Tennessee. Free Will Baptist leaders (including L.R. Ennis who had served as the head of the Bible department at Eureka College) pulled together financial aid and students from all over the newly formed National Association of Free Will Baptists to found a denominational school. Welch College (formerly Free Will Baptist Bible College) was founded as a Bible college that trained minsters, missionaries, and church ministry leaders.

Yet from the beginning Dr. L.C. Johnson believed that Welch College should also offer a liberal arts education. Welch College has served Free Will Baptist for nearly 75 years and has trained generations of Free Will Baptist ministers, lay leaders, and Christian professionals. Yet behind it stand the ghosts of Ayden Seminary and Eureka College.

____________________

[1] Arthur C. Clarke, 2001: A Space Odyssey The Millennial Edition (1968 repr; New York: Penguin, 1999), xix.

[2] R. B. Spencer, “The Making of Eureka,” The Free Will Baptist 39, no. 27 (December 15, 1926): 3.

[3] William F. Davidson, The Free Will Baptists in History (Nashville: Randall House, 2001), 232.

[4] Michael Pelt, A History of Ayden Seminary and Eureka College (Mount Olive: Mount Olive University Press, n.d.), 3.

[5] R. F. Harrison, “Education,” The Free Will Baptist (May 27, 1896) cited in Pelt, A History of Ayden Seminary and Eureka College, 4.

[6] Pelt, 4.

[7] For more information on Thomas Peden see Robert E. Picirilli, Little Known Chapters in Free Will Baptist History (Nashville: Randall House Publishers, 2015).

[8] Pelt, 4.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Ibid., 4-5.

[11] Ibid., 14.

[12] Ibid., 18.

[13] Minutes of the Thirteenth Annual Session of the General Conference of the Original Free Will Baptists of the United States, Ayden Press, Ayden, North Carolina, 1933: http://www.onemag.org/general/general_southeast1933.pdf. Pages 13-14.

Author: Phillip Morgan

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