1890s and 1900s

Both Unitarians and Universalists had attempted to establish congregations in Western North Carolina as early as the late nineteenth century. Thomas Wolfe’s maternal uncle, the Rev. Henry Addison Westall, preached for three years to a “sparse congregation of Unitarians” who met in an “Upper Room,” probably of the Odd Fellows Hall on Broadway Street.

Itinerant Universalist preachers occasionally came to the mountains even before the Civil War. Inman Chapel, Forks of the Pigeon, near Canton, North Carolina, was built in 1902 by the Rev. James Anderson Inman, brother of “Inman” of Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain fame. He also fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War and was imprisoned in Chicago.

1950s

A group of ten spiritual seekers and free thinkers looking for a religious alternative to the community’s conservative Christian churches organized themselves as the Unitarian Fellowship of Asheville on May 9, 1950. The Rev. Lon Ray Call, minister-at-large of the American Unitarian Association, addressed the group at a meeting at the George Vanderbilt Hotel.

The Fellowship clearly met a need. The first issue of their newsletter, dated April 1951, reported a doubling of membership in its first year from ten to twenty-two (and a bank balance of $48.96). At the first annual meeting that May, this committed group determined to become a church and voted to establish a Building Fund.

For two years, members conducted services on Sunday evenings in the basement of the First Congregational Church, and in March 1952 established a church school, meeting Sunday mornings at the Leicester home of George and Muriel Cornell. That December, they moved to one large room and four small ones in the old YMCA building on Grove Street, where they could hold both services and church school classes on Sunday mornings.

The fledgling group enticed summer resident Rev. Horace F. Westwood to speak at Sunday services during the summers of 1953 and 1954. The experience strengthened the congregation’s determination to have a full-time minister. In June 1955 the Rev. Daniel Welch came out of retirement to become our first pastor.

Membership continued to grow, and in December 1956, the congregation bought and converted a large house at 120 Vermont Avenue in West Asheville to use for services and classes. The Fellowship celebrated its first service there January 6, 1957, and soon established a Laymen’s League, a Women’s Alliance, and a Liberal Religious Youth group. During these years, members of our church were active in the League of Women Voters, the YWCA, as well as in efforts to integrate Asheville racially and to establish an Asheville chapter of the American Association for the United Nations. Women members of the church were active in efforts to provide clothing and serve breakfasts to African-American children, as well as assisting African-Americans to vote, and in that process discovered voting irregularities. Jack Boyce, the first president of the fellowship, was active in an effort to bring Eleanor Roosevelt to speak in Asheville. Her address on the United Nations on November 27, 1956 filled the auditorium of the YWCA to overflowing.

Church members remained active in desegregation efforts during the late 1950s and early 1960s. One of our first social action awards was presented to an adult advisor to the Asheville Student Committee on Racial Equality, who organized to integrate area schools, business and restaurants.

The George Vanderbilt Hotel

First Congregational Church

Rev. Welch

120 Vermont Avenue

1960s

In May 1962 the growing congregation, with a membership of 67, was awarded church status by the Unitarian Universalist Association. Rev. Welch took a second retirement in April 1963, after eight fruitful years. The Rev. Richard Gross succeeded him as minister from July 1963 to March 1967, when he left to take a position with the North Carolina Heart Association. By that time church membership had grown to 140. During the next year and a half, the church was without a minister, and membership and attendance dwindled.

In September 1968 the congregation called the Rev. Dr. Tracy Pullman, who had recently retired after a 27-year ministry at the Universalist Church of Detroit. Pullman had been an important figure among Universalist ministers and was one of the more liberal reformers of that movement. A month after his arrival, in recognition of the 1961 merger of the American Unitarian Association and the Universalist Church of America, the Asheville Unitarian Church changed its name to the Unitarian Universalist Church of Asheville.

Rev. Gross

Rev. Dr. Pullman

1970s

Architect and church member William O. Moore designed a sanctuary, activities building and religious education building, although construction of the latter had to be postponed. Ground was broken for the new building in July 1971.

Shortly thereafter, Paula Sandburg, widow of the poet Carl Sandburg, announced a gift of $25,000 toward building the social hall, to be named in his honor. When her husband died, she had called the Asheville church to see if there was a minister who could perform his funeral. The Rev. George C. B. (Pete) Tolleson of Charleston, SC, then the summer minister for the church and later a member of the congregation, was delighted, as a devoted fan, to officiate at Sandburg’s funeral in the St. John in the Wilderness Episcopal Church in Flat Rock, near the Sandburg home in July 1967. Mrs. Sandburg and her daughters, Margaret and Janet, joined the church and were fairly regular attendees in the early 1970s. The family donated several of Sandburg’s books to the church.

Rev. Hammond

The first service in the new sanctuary was held on May 7, 1972. The building was dedicated October 17 and received a Merit Award for Moore from the North Carolina chapter of the American Institute of Architects three years later. The striking new building and Dr. Pullman's presence attracted many new members to the thriving church. When Dr. Pullman retired in June 1974, he was named Minister Emeritus in tribute to his service.

The Rev. William Hammond came to the church that September after serving ministries in Chicago and Grosse Pointe, MI and Minnetonka, MN as well as UUA District Executive for Michigan and Indiana. After his arrival, activities increased both within the church and in the community. The Young Adult group, renamed The Unicorns, became very active, and the Women's Alliance became the Noonlighters, an adult group for both sexes. Other programs included mini-classes, sharing suppers, and Friday night potluck suppers. The Social Concerns Committee (now Social Action) sponsored a Vietnamese family.

In 1977 a campaign was launched to enlarge Sandburg Hall and add classrooms. Robert Habel chaired the Long-Range Planning Committee, and George Love and Lois Thompson co-chaired the Building Completion Committee. The Unicorns generously matched an anonymous donor’s gift of $10,000, and the addition opened in September 1980, just in time for the church’s 30th anniversary. Also, during this time, in 1979, the church hired its first director of religious education, Janet Harvey.

1980s

Upon Rev. Hammond's retirement in August 1983, the congregation named him Minister Emeritus. In September 1983, the Rev. James Brewer became the church's fifth minister. Following a long experience in human relations internationally, especially in South Africa, Rev. Brewer returned to the parish ministry in 1980, serving as interim minister to Unitarian Universalist churches in Chicago, Toronto, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and Westport, Connecticut before coming to Asheville.

Rev. Brewer

1990s

The Rev. Brewer retired in August 1990, and the congregation voted him Minister Emeritus the following January. The Rev. Dr. William Houff was interim minister during the yearlong search for a new settled minister. A former research chemist, Dr. Houff was also a committed social activist, photographer, outdoorsman, carpenter, and author of a well-received book on spiritual growth, Infinity In Your Hand.

Rev. Dr. Killoran

The Rev. M. Maureen Killoran was called as UUCA’s sixth settled minister in May 1991. Reared a Roman Catholic in Toronto and first trained in social work, the Rev. Killoran became a Unitarian Universalist in 1967. She came to Asheville after having served five years as minister of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Salem, Oregon, her first settlement. During her ministry here she continued her education and received her doctorate in ministry. Under Rev. Killoran’s leadership the congregation grew significantly, eventually exceeding 600 members, and expanded its Sunday worship offerings from one to two services.

During this period the size and complexity of the religious education program grew significantly. In November 1991 the church ordained its director of religious education, Janet Harvey, as minister of religious education. After the Rev. Harvey left in 1994, Laurel Amabile of Yarmouth, Maine, was hired as director of religious education. Under Mrs. Amabile, the religious education program grew to nearly 200 children and youth and saw an increase in involvement by families, children and youth in worship and social action projects. These included an all-church partnership with the Helpmate program and the two-year Leadership Ethical Action Program, conducted in partnership with The Mountain’s Milestone Learning Center. That program culminated with a “CommUnity Asheville 2000” festival held in downtown Asheville on June 2, 2000. Mrs. Amabile left in July 2000 to become religious education consultant for the Thomas Jefferson and Midsouth districts of the UUA, and Rebecca Young was hired as director of religious education.

Under Rev. Killoran’s leadership the church also provided support and advocacy for gays and lesbians in the community, holding one of the area’s first World AIDS Day services, organizing an Interweave group in the church and being recognized by the UUA in 1995 as a Welcoming Congregation. For a period of time, the church provided space for the Metropolitan Community Church of Asheville, a Christian church for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

In the late 1990s, the growing church explored options for growth and assisted in the founding of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the Swannanoa Valley in Black Mountain. In September 1980 some UUCA members and others had formed the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Hendersonville, and the Unitarians and Universalists of Transylvania County formed in Brevard in 1990.

2000s

Dr. Killoran retired in December 2002 and was named Minister Emerita; she chose to focus her work on community ministry as a life coach and also served several interim ministries. The Rev. Dr. Neil Shadle, a retired professor of ministry from Meadville/Lombard Theological School in Chicago, relocated to Asheville and served as interim minister from January 2003 through June 2004. A consultant for many years to Unitarian Universalist churches, Dr. Shadle provided pastoral guidance and support to the congregation as it dealt with issues of transition and preparation for a new era, assisted the Board in reorganizing the church staff, spearheaded the development of an endowment and planned-giving program, initiated an all-church Program Council, advised the leadership in defining a more comprehensive mission for the Committee on Ministry, strengthened the effort in membership recruitment and orientation, and introduced a planning process for the exploration of a covenant group program.

In this period of transition there were changes in staffing and in staff structure. Marilyn Martin of the office staff was named church administrator, Lenora Thom, director of the Asheville Choral Society, was hired as director of music, and Kirstie Fischer, youth advisor, was named director of religious education.

The Rev. Mark Ward, a 2004 graduate of Meadville Lombard Theological School, was called as the church’s seventh settled minister in April 2004 and began his ministry in August 2004. A lifelong Unitarian Universalist who had been active as a lay leader, he came with twenty-five years’ experience as a newspaper journalist, primarily in Milwaukee, WI. Rev. Ward served his ministerial internship at the First Unitarian Society in Madison, WI, one of our denomination's largest churches, and was installed and ordained by the church in February 2005 at a ceremony held at the Diana Wortham Theater.

Rev. Mark Ward

Under Rev. Ward's leadership the church developed a “Covenant Group” program of small group ministry and, with new growth in membership, returned to two weekly Sunday worship services in the fall of 2005. A major project was completed in the summer of 2006 that included renovations to Sandburg Hall, the Religious Education space and the Sanctuary. Rev. Ward continued the church’s witness for social justice by announcing from the pulpit in February 2006 that, to show his opposition to the state law preventing same-sex couples from legally marrying, he would not sign marriage licenses until the law was changed. In 2005 the Board voted to make the church a Life Member of the NAACP. In 2007 the congregation hosted Building Bridges, a community anti-racism program.

The Rev. Sarah York, a member who had been ordained by the congregation on May 30, 1982, was hired in July 2007 as part-time Assistant Minister for Pastoral Care. She had served congregations in California, Massachusetts, Florida, New York, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and London, England. Rev. York is the author of Remembering Well: Rituals for Celebrating Life and Mourning Death, Pilgrim Heart: The Inner Journey Home, The Holy Intimacy of Strangers, and a meditation manual, Into the Wilderness.

The congregation continued to grow, exceeding 750 members and friends and some 250 registered in religious education, with more than 400 people, adults and children, in church on an average Sunday. Lack of space became a major issue, especially for the Religious Education program. In the fall of 2008, a short-term solution presented itself. The building at One Sunset Parkway, originally built in 1926 to house the Women’s Club of Asheville and then owned by the Glad-Tidings Church —directly across Charlotte Street from the campus—was for sale. The Board made a purchase offer, which was accepted. However, in the meantime, the national economy had fallen into a severe recession. Following a congregational meeting to discuss the purchase, a decision was made by the Board, at the recommendation of the Strategic Planning Committee, not to pursue the purchase of One Sunset Parkway. Although the state of the economy was the primary deciding factor, some members felt that the congregation was not enthusiastic about the project.

In January 2009, the Board determined that UUCA should remain at its current Edwin Place location and maximize use of the campus to enable the congregation to grow and offer appropriate programs. They appointed members of a Campus Development Steering Committee that, in August, recommended that the Board select Padgett & Freeman Architects to lead the congregation through the design phase of the campus development project.  After a series of meetings for members of the congregation to voice their opinion, a design concept for an addition to the current building and renovation of the sanctuary to improve handicapped access was approved in October 2009.