There are a few ways to get to the tiny town of Highlands, North Carolina, and none of them are easy. Each road—whether up from the lowlands of South Carolina or Georgia or from the mountains of Western North Carolina—is fraught with innumerable sharp curves. Sheer cliffs, grand vistas, and mighty waterfalls distinguish spots along each route as well.
An exterior view of First Presbyterian Church of Highlands, N.C. Courtesy of Deena Bouknight
Finding one of these routes and making the trek is worth it. Since the days of transportation by horseback and stagecoaches on rough dirt roads, people have ventured in droves to the “high lands,” what became the Highlands, to escape heat, humidity, and mosquitoes in the spring and summer, partake in autumn’s multi-hued leaf splendor, or revel in winter’s snowcapped peaks and adult-sized icicles suspended from roadside embankments.
Quaint and Historic
Looming on a small hill at the edge of Main Street is the 1885-established First Presbyterian Church of Highlands, where Highlanders and visitors alike are drawn in by the architecture and the music. In fact, the faint, reverent sound of a pipe organ emanates regularly from the sunny, cream-colored clapboard church with medieval-style doors. Open the doors to the church, and the music fills the high-ceiling spaces and reverberates off age-old pews, made from white pine felled in the 1800s.As was the case for me in early January, travelers to Highlands will learn that the echoing music heard on the three-stoplight Main Street is thanks to Angela Jenkins, who sits at the keyboard of the massive, hand-painted and stenciled pipe organ. Ms. Jenkins is the fourth generation of her family to grace the church doors and sit in its pews; and, it was at the age of 9 that she first began playing the piano during Sunday School. Her grandmother was her first piano teacher, but Ms. Jenkins gravitated to the organ early on.
Angela Jenkins beside the pipe organ she plays at the First Presbyterian Church of Highlands. Courtesy of Deena Bouknight
“The organ just became a natural part of me,” Ms. Jenkins said. “I started filling in as an organist for the church services at the age of 14, and I’ve never left it.”
In fact, she is in her 48th year of playing the church’s organ, having barely missed a Sunday, except for occasional travel and sickness.
“I especially love it when visitors hear my playing and wander into the church,” Ms. Jenkins said. “That way I can take a break, give them a tour of the church, and tell them about this beautiful little town called Highlands, where I have been privileged to grow up and live.”
The 100 year-old reed organ that was once played at the church. Courtesy of Deena Bouknight
She shows them the church’s original stained-glass windows, ordered from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and she takes them outside and points to the belfry, explaining that the 550-pound bell was made in the 1800s at foundries in Troy, New York. Ms. Jenkins shows them early, hand-woven collection baskets hanging one wall, and takes them to a hallway to see a 100 year-old, small, elaborately carved and adorned reed organ once used by an organist long before her time. The mahogany pulpit is not nearly as old, made in the 1960s, yet its distinct features draw attention to the area’s natural beauty, with carvings of two popular hiking spots: Highlands Falls and Whiteside Mountain. And, in front of the pulpit is the communion table, featuring a plaque honoring Ms. Jenkins’ maternal grandfather, Charles Anderson, once an elder in the church.
The carving of Highlands Falls on the pulpit in First Presbyterian Church of Highlands. Courtesy of Deena Bouknight
A Dedication to History
While Ms. Jenkins most cherishes the stenciled pipe organ, the church’s interior focal point, it isn’t an antique. Twenty years ago, the current organ replaced older organs and was designed—with Ms. Jenkins’ oversight—to resemble and play like a late 19th-century pipe organ.She tells visitors to this off-the-beaten-path spot about the town’s pluses: four distinct seasons and historic buildings, some made of local stone, that elicit personal memories for her due to her family’s connections.
The historical character of the First Presbyterian Church of Highlands is officially recognized on the Federal Register of Historic Places. Courtesy of Deena Bouknight
Ms. Jenkins’s fingers have made music at the church for close to half a century, and it is a “gift” she is thankful to offer as an ongoing blessing to passersby visiting from near and far. Individuals who find themselves in Highlands, listen up—and be drawn into a beautiful history lesson.
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