Asheville Archives: The life and work of Lucius B. Compton

On June 9, 1911, a brief notice appeared in The Asheville Citizen. That evening, under a large tent at the corner of Patton Avenue and Haywood Street, the Rev. Lucius B. Compton was to host a revival.

In less than a year, the religious leader’s reputation as “an attractive speaker,” would earn the Haywood County native a growing and devoted audience. But despite his emerging popularity, much of the minister’s work remained hidden in plain sight.

On Sept. 5, 1914, The Gazette News wrote:

“There is an institution in this section, located about four and a half miles west of Asheville, known as the Eliada orphanage founded nine years ago by Rev. Lucius B. Compton, which is doing a work that perhaps is little known to the people in general, owing to the quiet and orderly way in which the workers are devoting themselves to their tasks.”

The article appeared in print in the midst of Compton’s latest revival, which attracted an estimated 100 visitors. By then, the services were no longer held downtown, but on-site at Eliada Orphanage (today’s Eliada).

In the same day’s paper, Ulysses Lewis, an Atlanta-based attorney attending the religious gathering, offered his thoughts to The Gazette News. “Mr. Compton is a remarkable man of God,” he declared. “He is a man of great force and earnestness, and while he does not care for grammar nor rhetoric, grips his hearers with mental and spiritual power[.]”

By 1919, attendance more than tripled, as 300 visitors converged on Asheville, seeking salvation at the annual revival. According to the Sept. 2 edition of The Asheville Citizen, folks came from 14 states, as well as parts of Canada. Many set up tents on the property, while others stayed at nearby boardinghouses and hotels.

“The camp site itself presented animated scenes,” the paper read, describing a yoke of oxen corralled next to “the purring motor of a big twin-six.” Other means of transportation included “bicycles and motorcycles, costly cars and expensive automobiles, buggies and carriages, covered wagons and open carts” scattered throughout the campground.

The paper went on to note that Eliada housed roughly 50 boys and girls. “Of their activities little is given out,” the article stated. “Mr. Compton is not a friend of the reporters. He knows nothing of the arts of a press agent.”

Despite his apparent opposition to the media, Compton eventually opened up to reporters. On Aug. 23, 1931, local author Virginia Terrell Lathrop interviewed the minister for a feature in the Sunday edition of the Asheville Citizen-Times.

“I knew if God didn’t care for us, we couldn’t last,” Compton told Terrell Lathrop while discussing Eliada’s start.

The orphanage, Terrell Lathrop informed readers, began in a single-room cabin situated on 4 acres. By 1931, she wrote, it was “an institution of five buildings … [on] 230 acres of ground,” with over 270 children having passed through the home.

Compton’s string of good headlines shifted in 1943, when he was indicted by a Buncombe County grand jury on four counts of assault with intent to commit rape. On June 18, Compton resigned as president and general manager of Eliada.

That October, Judge Felix E. Alley dismissed charges of intent to rape, due to insufficient evidence. The lesser assault charges remained. The trial for one of the four counts took place that month. The accuser, a 14-year-old girl, testified that Compton touched her breasts on three separate occasions before trying to induce her into an abandoned cottage on the Eilada property.

While on the stand, Compton described his affections toward the children at Eliada as “a little abnormal.” He continued, “There is not one of them that I have not held on my knee and kissed many times. I have never in all my life had an evil thought or desire when I put my hands on one of those children.”

The day after both testimonies, Compton was found not guilty. All additional charges were dropped by the prosecution, The Asheville Citizen reported. Upon the defense’s request, Judge Alley declared a direct verdict of not guilty in all three untried assault claims.

Compton was reinstated as the president and general manager of Eliada in early November.

Five years later, on Dec. 13, 1948, the minister died at the age of 73. “Although he had almost no formal education, Mr. Compton was known as an outstanding Bible scholar,” his obituary read. At the time of his death, Eliada housed an estimated 68 students, the paper reported. “More than 1,000 young people have grown to maturity under his guidance,” the paper reported.