The Journey from the Turkey Creek Campground to The Leicester Community Center

by Greg Brookshire,                                                                                         

 Local Historian,  Author of Leicester, History of a Mountain Place, and  past President of the Leicester Community Center

   The grounds at the Leicester Community Center have an interesting story to tell.

   The 21 acres now including the Community Center, Lawter Court, and Camp Forest were donated to the Methodist Church by James Gudger on March 22nd 1827. The deed is in deed book 13 page 466 at the Buncombe County Register of Deeds. This brought about the birth of the Turkey Creek Campground.

   There was a large arbor with benches, a pulpit, and an altar where many people knelt down and came up shouting. There were separate meetings held for men and women.

    Around the large arbor were plank tents consisting of four rooms each. The beds were straw covered floors and bedding. The reception room had long benches and the kitchen had a fireplace for food preparation.

   Each year for about a week to 10 days in August people would come from all over to worship. They came in wagons, on horses and later on in buggies and carriages.

   Bishop Francis Asbury writes in his diary of visiting the campground in 1806 and preaching to 500 souls. The Holston Methodism Volume IV mentions a meeting in the fall of 1851 where preaching by Rev William Hicks over 100 people were converted in a 20 hour period.

   By 1893 the property was in poor condition and interest in the meetings had fallen. The event that would end the camp meetings happened that year.

   Two men inflamed by a quarrel got into a fist fight. The smaller of the two was taking a beating so he pulled a knife and stabbed the other man to death. Soon after that incident the meetings stopped altogether.

   Most of the property, still owned by the Methodist Church, was converted into two parsonages, one for the Sandy Mush Charge and one for the Leicester Charge. On May 1, 1957 The Leicester Charge requested that the land be split between the two charges.

   (Editor's note: What happened to the Camp Academy building? The building with its outbuildings was parceled out before the parsonages were built - around 1920? It is likely that neither charge had the funds - or the inclination - to do anything with such a large and demanding structure. At roughly this time Llewellyn "Ellen" Garrett and his wife Leona Lusk Garrett purchased the building and about two and a half acres and began its conversion into an apartment house.) 

   After this split of the old campground took place the Leicester Charge met at Dix Creek Methodist Church on November 10th 1957 and adopted a resolution to give the parsonage and property to the Leicester Youth Center. The parsonage trustees were: Hal Wells, Donald Austin, and J. Fred Hall.

   The Articles of Incorporation for the Leicester Youth Center were filed with the state of North Carolina on November 25th 1957. This document can be found in book C020 page 587 at the Buncombe County Register of Deeds.

   (Editor again: What happened to the parsonages? The Leicester Charge parsonage was demolished in 1957 or 1958 and the Leicester Youth Center (now the Leicester Community Center) was built on the site. The Sandy Mush Charge parsonage lingered for years when it and its 10.6 acres were sold to Robert and Rita Lawter on December 15, 1971. They still hold the majority of the acreage. The parsonage was saved by the Lawters who rehabbed the deteriorating structure into a more modern building and sold it along with .8 acres to another family. It still stands a few feet from the spring where the infamous murder of 1893 occurred.