On April 15, 1909 Pleasant and Mary Isaacs sold a seventy five acre tract of land to the Board of Domestic Missions. Purchased for $1,000, thanks to a gift from Miss Mary bussing of New York, the land was mostly sedge and the soil very poor. The fifteen acres of the land that was flat was covered in a cornfield. What Pleas and Mary could not know at the time was that the cornfield to which they said goodbye would grow and bear fruit of a different kind. The seeds of this fruit would be cast and fall on good soil in many places across the globe, places Pleas and Mary might never have imagined.
It was on this fifteen acres that Annville Institute was born and upon which the original Lincoln Hall was built. The plans for the original Lincoln Hall were dreamed up by William Worthington, Isaac Messler and Max Nelson. These plans were sketched on wide wrapping paper which had been purchased at Rader’s store for the purpose. Under the hand of Max Nelson, the original sketches for Lincoln Hall came to life. These sketches, however, were not the beginning of Lincoln Hall or what would come to be known as Annville Institute. The beginnings came, as most beginnings do, with an idea, and inspiration, a mission.
In 1882 the women of the Reformed Church in America organized the Women’s Executive Committee which would come to be known as the Women’s Board of Domestic Missions. In 1889 the eyes of this far seeing committee were turned to the mountain people of the South and the Kentucky mountain section was chosen as one of the fields for missionary work. Jackson County was selected as an area of great need due to its isolation and lack of infrastructure improvements. Though the people of the county at the time were considered strong and intelligent, lack of opportunity and education had caused them to fall behind many other places more able to offer such things as opportunity and education. The Board of Domestic Missions did not have at its heart the idea of promoting Christianity alone. It was also their goal to improve the lives of the people, particularly the less fortunate through education and training.
It wasn’t long after those first wrapping paper sketches were drawn that the construction of Lincoln Hall was started. In the beginning of the construction, it wasn’t easy to obtain construction materials. Mule teams had to be taken to East Bernstadt to acquire lumber and other materials. The trip took 2 days, there and back so it could only be made three times a week and only when the weather was dry so that the Rockcastle River could be crossed. The coming of the Bond Foley railroad changed all that and made the continued construction of Lincoln Hall and the other buildings that would become Annville Institute much easier to construct as lumber was just a mile or so away.
School opened on the Annville Institute Campus in the Spring of 1910, a mere year after the purchase of the property. Lincoln Hall was at the time, and would continue to be, the heart of learning at the school. The building consisted of six classrooms and a large room on the second floor for meetings and church services. The humble beginnings of Annville Institute would belie what it was to become as the years sped by.
On March 21, 1921 the original Lincoln Hall burned to the ground but the idea, the inspiration, the mission had already taken deep root and by the Autumn of the following year the New Lincoln Hall was dedicated, once more, to the education and betterment of the community. The New Lincoln Hall provided more classrooms and ample space for the 7,000 volumes contained in the library which were moved there from Tracy Hall, another of the campus buildings that had been constructed in the years since 1910.
Annville Institute continued to operate until 1978, when decreases in funding and admissions declined in part to improved roads and modern school systems. What is now known as the United States Department of Education would come into being just a year after the closing of the school. It would be impossible for one story to cover all that Lincoln Hall and Annville Institute came to be in its 68 year history but perhaps the heart of its mission can be captured somewhat.
As stated before, the mission of the Institute was never just to promote Christianity but to improve the lives and futures of the community members it was created to serve. By all just accounts, the mission upon which the ladies of the Board of Domestic Missions embarked all those years ago bore the fruit they set out to grow. The school thrived, always having to turn away some who wished to enroll but whose numbers were too great to be accommodated. What went into the forming of Annville Institute and Lincoln Hall was important, but more important was what came out. Thanks to this Institution, children were educated who could not have otherwise afforded an education. Though tuition was charged, scholarships were given to the most needy and students were given the opportunity to work at the school to cover their tuition. The school also accepted barter from parents who could ill afford to pay cash. New methods of agriculture were taught to the community which improved their ability to feed themselves with some left over to sell. The school's poultry operation gave away free chicks to members of the surrounding community each spring. Character development and Civics were stressed. Higher education was encouraged and supported with graduates attending such schools and colleges as Eastern Kentucky State College, Berea College, Rutgers University, University of Chicago, University of Minnesota, Vanderbilt, John Hopkins, to name a few.
Annville Institute didn’t stop with improving minds, it also improved the health of the community, sending nurses out on mule teams in the early days to teach home health, wound care, and first aid in addition to Bible study. A small hospital existed on the campus called Rest House. This hospital served not just students but also community members. Social programs provided fellowship and entertainment to the community as well. Films were often shown through the schools Bell and Howell projector. These showings were attended by students, staff and community members alike.
These are just a few of the ways in which the Institute gave of itself to the community it served. Many names and faces flow through the history of this remarkable institution; names too numerous to mention and faces too numerous to show. In the sixty-eight years of its history, Annville Institute and, at its heart, Lincoln Hall, touched and improved the lives of hundreds of students and citizens of Jackson County. Tim Merama, son of Jack and Nancy Merama who lived and worked at Annville Institute from 1962 -1974, had this to say about his time there, “As a kid growing up in Annville in the 1960s, it seemed like every inch of it (Lincoln Hall) was packed with the tools of learning –lab equipment, typewriters, chalk boards, mimeograph machines, books, and so many classrooms. As big as it was, I know it can’t possibly contain all the memories of the students and teachers who used it every day. Physical things pass away. But the education that was imparted in that beautiful building has affected generations of families in Jackson County and beyond. And it will continue to do so.”
Though Annville Institute itself closed in 1978, Lincoln Hall and the surrounding campus continued to be a place of learning. Summer Bible Camps were offered and new educational opportunities such as the Annville Christian Academy came to life there. Jackson County Ministries, now known as Grace Covenant Ministries has its center there and the many of the ideals and missions embodied in the original Annville Institute still prosper.
One Wednesday, July 30, 2025, Lincoln Hall caught fire and by Thursday, the 31st, it was gone, much like its predecessor of the same name. Many were and are still in mourning as this building contained much more than wood and stone; it contained memories of the laughter, learning and love that permeated its walls for decades. But, what it also contained, again like its predecessor, was an idea whose roots cannot be touched by fire. There is already an effort underway to gather funding to rebuild Lincoln Hall on the very spot that now knows mostly ashes. The memories of those who knew the embrace of those old walls live on as well and it is believed that those memories will move the many who possess them to help with the raising of that dear old friend from the ashes. As those who mourn the loss of that historic hall will come to understand, buildings such as that one are not made only of wood and stone. They are made of shared hope, dreams, imagination, learning, love, laughter, sorrow, and joy. Those things are still there and from those things a future will be built, one that hopes to keep at its heart the same great ideals that always stood at the center of Lincoln Hall.
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