How we became a museum…………

The Mt. Pleasant Collegiate Institute was comprised of seven buildings erected between 1852 and 1933, when the North Carolina Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America established the Western Carolina Male Academy) and 1933 (when the Collegiate Institute closed its doors for the last time.

The structures in the Collegiate District include the handsome Main Building (1854-1855) currently the museum;  the Society Hall (1858-1859), a two story greek revival structure, currently under restoration;  the 3 story brick building, or New Dormitory (1925); the Mathias Barrier house (1833); the President’s House (1855); and the boarding house (1868), a two story frame dwelling.

The Synod resolved to establish a facility for educating young people of the faith in 1852.  The new institution was placed in Mt. Pleasant and was named the Western North Carolina Male Academy.  It began on 16 acres purchased from Mathias Barrier.

Two years later, pleased with the progress of the academy, the Synod decided to raise the educational level and renamed it North Carolina College.

Growth and success were cut short, however.  The student body numbered 101 in the fall of 1861, but quickly dwindled as young men left for the battlefield.  The Endowment fund was cut nearly in half when repudiation of the Confederate debt turned the school’s war bond holdings into worthless papers.

The college, however, reopened in 1866 and for the rest of the century struggled financially.  The College never regained its antebellum footing and finally closed it doors in 1901.

Reverend L.E. Busby established a private school on the grounds.  After one year, the Mt. Pleasant campus reopened as a preparatory institution and gained the new name of the Mt. Pleasant Collegiate Institute.  The first session began in 1903.  Four years later the institute introduced the modified military system.  The Institute continued operation into the early years of the depression.  Again, because of lack of funding, the school closed its doors after the class of 1933 was graduated.

In years to come, the property was sold at public auction to pay off its many debts.  In 1973, a group of citizens, in the hope of saving the Main Building from the abuse and neglect of years of standing empty, formed the Eastern Cabarrus Historical Society.  They purchased the building and began the long task of restoring it.  In 1981, after many years of working to earn the money to preserve the building, the Museum opened its doors to the public.

The 30 dorm rooms have been turned in to a treasure trove of Eastern Cabarrus history.  Each room is like walking back into time, with displays of art, quilts, antiques, etc.  The original guard room is now filled with the office furniture of the Colonel and his office now contains a research library.  Another old classroom is now a Victorian parlor.

Outside, the grounds have been restored to their original beauty and the front entrance steps have been completely rebuilt.  The Museum is a tribute to the boys who went to school here, to the families who lived in Eastern Cabarrus Country and Mt. Pleasant and to the volunteers who worked endlessly so that all of this may be preserved for others to see.