Emily Prudden was an educational missionary. Her work creating schools in North and South Carolina eventually brought her to Caldwell County to establish the Oberlin Home and School. After getting the enterprise started she turned over the running of the school to May Pauline Abbott.
To raise funds, Miss Abbott told a newspaper reporter in her native Cincinnati about what she encountered down the mountains of North Carolina. Her assessment was not flattering. The subsequent article told how ignorant mountain people were. In it, she claimed people lived “for many years without communication with civilization.” The way she described the situation, the lifestyle resembled a backwards people totally ignorant of the world in which they lived. She asserted that most had never seen an American flag. She described people living a lifestyle akin to 1804, not 1904. “Think of it!” she implored, “In all my of homes last year I found one book!”
Unfortunately for her, the contents of the newspaper interview got back to Hudson. Local citizens were outraged, well at least some of them were. Hudson quickly divided up into two sides, for and against Miss Abbott, who was always described as “beautiful.” First came fist fights, then the matter got serious. She hired a bodyguard who verbally abused some boys who then spat in his face. Abbott had them arrested but a quick trial dismissed the allegations as “laughable.”
On Sunday morning, September 4th, the two sides exchanged insults on the streets of Hudson. Between the alcohol involved and the outrage, it didn’t take long for the bullets to fly. Back up on Lick Mountain, the battle commenced. From a range of about 75 yards, “each side emptied their chambers and reloaded,” reported one account. Several dozen rounds were fired. The only fatality was John Martin, who was accidentally hit in the back by his own father-in-law.
May Pauline Abbott was spirited away from the gunfire. As she left town, the local paper tried to interview her about the melee. She remained indignant, insisting that the Ohio paper sensationalized her views. She also called southern chivalry “a fake” based on her treatment, even though others associated with the school called her claims absurd and untrue. She left Caldwell County never to return.
The school closed temporarily but things were never the same. Next came a fire of suspicious origin (rats playing with matches was one, obviously facetious). By 1910 the school was moved to Misenheimer, NC and became a founding part of Pfeiffer University.
The incident reveals much about two things, the ongoing animosity between southerners and the rest of the nation in those days and a serious distrust of the educated by folks who still had to toil for a living. It’s a legacy with roots right here in our own neck of the woods.
Photo: The marker in Hudson. Many thanks to Byron Tolbert and the late Gladys Clark for their help in this story.
