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Dillsboro receives grant for Monteith Farmstead effort
Dillsboro has received a $5,000 Steadman Incentive Grant from the Historic Preservation Foundation of North Carolina.
Such awards are made to assist non-profit organizations in preserving historically and architecturally significant structures with funding made possible through the Marion S. Covington Foundation.
The Monteith Farmstead Restoration Committee applied for the grant to halt deterioration and stabilize the historic farmhouse situated on a 16-acre former farm.
The Steadman grant follows a 2007 $15,000 award from the Blue Ridge National Heritage Area for the development of a master plan to help steer the restoration project. BRNHA funding was matched by the Community Foundation of Western North Carolina, a Jackson County community grant and the town of Dillsboro.
Mathews Architecture of Asheville was hired to work with the Farmstead Preservation Committee to create the comprehensive master plan, which will outline strategies for the preservation and restoration of the historic property and for its adaptive reuse. In addition, the master plan will address design issues associated with the planned Appalachian Women’s Museum.
Dillsboro, with the assistance of an N.C. Parks and Recreation Trust Fund grant, purchased the fully intact farmstead in 2003, with the intention of restoring the associated buildings and creating a heritage tourism site, designated the Appalachian Women’s Museum. To date, the committee with the guidance of the Mountain Heritage Center and the history department at Western Carolina University has rescued and cataloged artifacts, collected oral histories and developed a written history on the farmstead and the Monteith family.
The Craftsman-style farmhouse, and 10 associated outbuildings, including a flower house, canning/wash house, slaughterhouse and barn were built in 1908 by Elias Brendal Monteith and his wife, Mary Magdalene Carson Monteith. The couple had two daughters, Edna, born in 1908 and Edith, born in 1915. The sisters never married and lived out the years, spanning the course of most of the 20th century, as the farm’s caretakers. Edna, like her father, was postmaster of Dillsboro, a position she held for 45 years, while Edith tended the needs of the farm.
The future Appalachian Women’s Museum will honor the Monteith sisters and other strong, independent women, such as Gertrude Dills McKee, the first woman elected to the state senate, who made a tremendous impact on their communities and were shaped by the cultural, political, and economic forces of the 20th century.
Dillsboro Merchant’s Association is holding a benefit auction for the Monteith Farmstead project on Saturday, Sept. 20, during Dillsboro’s annual antiques fair. The fair is an outdoor event and provides a street market for antiques vendors to sell a variety of wares. It includes food, live music and more. The auction will begin at 2 p.m. on Church Street, and auctioneer Johnny Smathers of Reminisce Antiques will sell donated items.
For more information, visit online at www.visitdilsboro.org.
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