Preservation of Shook House

Geoff Cantrell
Columnist, Asheville Citizen Times
Posted: Mar 21

Sometimes a family has to come together to get things done, even if the family is several generations removed and scattered to the four winds.

That's the case with the Shooks, one of the founding families of Haywood County, and their ancestral home in Clyde. Kinfolk by blood and love are getting together this Saturday from across the nation.

They are in the beginning stages of saving the whitewash wooden building that sits dilapidated at the corner of Morgan Street and Carolina Avenue, a far cry from the elegant structure it once was.

To the casual observer, it is just another aging building long past its prime. But the Shook House has historical significance far more important than its age, although it was built around 1795 and lays claim to being one of the oldest frame houses still standing in Western North Carolina.

The Shook House played a pivotal role in establishing the Methodist denomination in the new country, particularly in the South. Within its walls are the echoes of God's love, redemption and austere worship. I don't think I'm going too far out on a limb in saying without the Shook House, there might not have been a Lake Junaluska Assembly.

This was the place where Francis Asbury, the first American bishop of the Methodist church, came to preach and to rest after his travels through the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky mountains. Asbury, who first came to the Shook House on Dec. 1, 1810, after an arduous day's journey from Cataloochee that included getting lost, described the trip in his journal "What an awful day!" Asbury would return to the Shook House many times over the years for revivals and prayer services, often in a third floor room set aside for such purposes. "The upper room on the third floor is preserved from that time," says Wilma Simpson of Olympia, Wash., one of the weekend gathering's organizers. "Even the pulpit is intact. I get a very special feeling when I walk into that room."

The Shook House takes its name from Jacob Shook, a Pennsylvania farmer who moved here after getting a land grant for his service in the Revolutionary War. He forged nails and cut broad boards a foot wide to build the house at a time most homes were simple log cabins.

Shook would also help organize the first Methodist church in Haywood County, and donated land for neighbors to build a Baptist church. The house was remodeled and rebuilt many times over the years, and ownership passed from the Shook family to the Smathers family in 1850. Today the deed to the house is shared by three Smathers heirs, Simpson tells me, and a caretaker watches over the property.

Ownership isn't as important an issue as preservation is, she says. "A lot of people, myself included, have wanted it used again for some kind of church work, as it once was," says Brenda Hudgins, an Asheville resident who is helping spearhead efforts.

I wish them luck, and plan to be there myself Saturday. After weathering more than 200 years, the Shook House needs help from all its extended family to make it through the 21st century.

Geoffrey Cantrell's column is published every Wednesday.

Contact him at 232-5922 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Asheville Citizen Times, Mach 21, 2001

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