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Highlands’ Mayors
Written By: Donna Rhodes | Issue: 2018/05 - May
Ran Shaffner’s “Heart of the Blue Ridge” is a delightful read for history buffs, but, interestingly enough, 14 appendices also tell insightful stories in their own dossier kind of way.
“Appendix 1: Mayors of the Town of Highlands” lists 44 names (not including current-Mayor Patrick Taylor) going back to 1879. It’s a fascinating glimpse into the becoming of Highlands.
Highlands’ first mayor was George A. Jacobs, who lived near the base of Cullasaja Falls. He and his wife Mollie ran the first boarding house in Highlands. He was also Highlands’ first Justice of the Peace. The North Carolina Assembly decreed an act establishing him as the first appointed mayor of Highlands. Three firsts.
He served four years, but was in office only four days of his second term when the first ballot-vote elected Squire Hill mayor in 1883.
For the next four elections Hill and H.M. Bascom traded terms. Several succeeding mayors alternated the office with each other: Bascom’s name appears four times; Dr. H.T. O’Farrell, William Davis, and Wilton H. Cobb, three; and Ebenezer Selleck, Will W. Edwards and A.C. Patterson, two. Three Pottses governed Highlands: S.E. “Gene” Potts, Charles C. Potts, and J. Steve Potts.
H. M. Bascom was one of the more popular mayors. He’s connected to The Bascom, a Center for the Visual Arts, which was established in the Hudson Library with money from his estate’s sale. It was named Bascom-Louise in honor of him and his daughter, Louise Bascom-Barratt.
Louise loved to tell stories of her dad. At age 12 he rode through the Illinois countryside spreading word of President Lincoln’s assassination. It was hardly the midnight ride of Paul Revere. As he tried to cross a bridge over a swollen whitewater river, his horse shied, reared, and sent them both tumbling into the raging flood below. Luckily they swam ashore relatively unharmed. That anecdote demonstrates the grit of a 12-year-old boy, which served him well later in politics. Highlands was lucky enough to call him Mayor 1884–85, 1885–86, 1900–08, and 1909–11.
For more chronicles, visit highlandshistory.com, email [email protected], or, during the season, check out The Highlands Historical Museum, 524 North Fourth Street.
