Watauga County's Reaction When Rowan County Sends Them a Missionary, 1900

From the editorial page of the Watauga Democrat, June 7, 1900, Robert C. Rivers, editor and proprietor

Miss Lucky from Rowan county is in our midst as a missionary. She is looking up the benighted and illiterate communities with the hope of doing them good. No doubt this lady came here with the purest and best of motives, but we must say—and are proud that we can say it—that if she is looking for a destitute community in Watauga county she will never find it. Our people, in some parts of the county, are deficient, educationally, but they are all in touch with the gospel. We don’t think that there is a single person in Watauga county but could, with little effort, attend Sabbath school every Sunday—and most of them do it. The Sunday School literature of the different churches is used all over the county, and we must think that Watauga, according to its size, has as many churches as any other county, and as a rule, they are so well attended.

We always welcome strangers who come in our midst, and the more of them the better, but we have never yet felt that we needed missionaries. The same great God who rules and watches over the great cities gave the Bible to the inhabitants of the mountains and minds to read it. Yes, our people live well and die well and what more can we ask.