Richmond Joyce | Feb. 3, 2026

Welcome to the first inaugural edition of Answer Richmond! Inspired by the Asheville Watchdog’s “Answer Man” column, Echo writer and photographer Richmond Joyce is here to answer all your historical queries.

Over a hundred years ago, a bell cast in New York State was brought to Harlan County, Kentucky to ring out over hills and hollows within the unincorporated community of Smith. The Northern Presbyterian Church sponsored an institution called the Smith Community Life School, founded on the tail end of the Progressive Era. When this school closed in the early 1920s soon after the departure of their matron, Helen Dingman, their bell made its way down the Great Appalachian Valley into the hands of a little farm school on the Swannanoa River.

Close-up image of bell with chiming mechanism in stone tower with text reading “MENELLY BELL CO. TROY, N.Y.” on Warren Wilson College (WWC) campus in Swannanoa, N.C., on Jan. 23, 2026. (Echo News/Richmond Joyce)

Between the pedestrian bridge that stretches across Warren Wilson Road and the Vining dorms on our campus, there is an often overlooked stone structure. Many students and faculty alike pass by this landmark, but when was the last time they stopped to inspect that old hutch? For those who have given this location love, have they ever looked closely at the plaques and inscriptions that adorn it?

Despite being housed in a protective enclave, after a century, any good bell will start to show its age. While this bell surely once echoed loud across these hills, those days have long since passed. Its chiming is barely recognized today, and its old epitaph can barely be read in the dim shadows of the stone tower which surrounds it.

Close-up of bell with patina and visible chiming mechanisms on Warren Wilson College (WWC) campus in Swannanoa, N.C., on Jan. 23, 2026. (Echo News/Richmond Joyce)

“GIFT TO COMMUNITY LIFE SCHOOL SMITH, KENTUCKY OCTOBER 1919”

The Smith Community Life School in Harlan County, Kentucky, is in many ways a mirror of our own parent institutions. What is today Warren Wilson College (WWC) only picked up the name we know in 1942, 48 years after the school was started. This name change came with the closing and/or conglomeration of the Doorland Bell School, the Mossop School for Girls, and the Asheville Normal Teacher’s College (ANTC).

The prior institution located in the current WWC campus was known to the community as the Asheville Farm School for Boys (AFS), which opened in November of 1894. Similar to the Smith Community Life School, AFS began as an even earlier uplift effort by the Northern Presbyterian Church and their Women’s Board of Home Missions, which focused on bringing schoolhouse style education to the Appalachian mountains.

The story of the bell’s life before it landed here in the Swannanoa Valley is poorly documented, as is all of the Smith Community Life School. But at some point in the last one hundred years, likely through a connection to the Presbyterian church, it made its way to us. And upon arriving at the AFS, the bell was designated to belong with a structure which stood near where the tower now stands. This building was the Elizabeth Williams Chapel, built by students in the 1930s.

Vertical image of bell with patina in stone tower on Warren Wilson College (WWC) campus in Swannanoa, N.C., on Jan. 23, 2026. (Echo News/Richmond Joyce)

The Elizabeth Williams Chapel predates the modern Warren Wilson Presbyterian Church by more than 30 years. It was built in the same timeframe as the Log Cabin, which still stands today. However, the chapel was dismantled in the 1960s due to structural concerns and disrepair. Timbers and hardware from this building can still be found today on our modern campus though, in the old bucked and hewn logs which comprise the Garden and Blacksmith cabins.

Elizabeth Williams, the chapel’s namesake, was the first long-term teacher at AFS. Originally from New England, Williams uprooted her life to move to the Swannanoa Valley in 1895 through the Presbyterian Board of Home Missions. She would remain there from the age of 30 until her death and beyond. Williams would die in 1942 at the age of 77. She never married or had children, and she outlived her siblings. Nonetheless, she died surrounded by a community she fostered, and a community that loved her.

She is buried with her brother and sister, who followed her down to AFS, on the property of what today is the One Focus Church, just two miles down Bee Tree Road.

Image of gravestone heading “ELIZABETH B. WILLIAMS 1865-1942” at One Focus Church in Swannanoa, N.C., on Jan. 30 2026. (Echo News/Richmond Joyce)

Today, there is no building or space on campus named for AFS’s longest reigning matriarch. Like the Smith Community Life School, a legacy has been confined to a single tower hundreds of miles away from where it was conceived.

Helen Dingman, Smith Community Life School’s founder, and Elizabeth Williams might never have met in their lifetimes, but their legacies are intertwined within the heavy bell we walk past day-in and day-out. These two women in their lifetimes left behind their Northern homes to follow the ridges and valleys southward in an effort to bring education opportunities to a region of America that was being abused for resources in the Progressive Era. The efforts of these women can be seen in action everyday on the WWC and Berea College campuses—the latter being where Helen Dingman would end up teaching after leaving Harlan County.

Today, this well-worn bell still rings out for us to enjoy on misty mornings and golden afternoons. A legacy of education and devoted faculty can be found in the tale of this old patinated bell. It deserves to be acknowledged as a part of our campus and our history here at WWC and not simply walked past. This bell has seen a century worth of knowledge seekers, and we, just as all those before us, have become part of the history it recalls with every pendulum swing and echoing refrain.

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