How 'Old Jonesville Day' Came To Be

　
The Jonesville Historical Committee, sponsor of Old Jonesville Day, came into being because John W. Mathis and Charles and Cecelia Mathis gave the historic home of James H. and Myra Messick Mathis, grandparents of John and Charles, to the Yadkin County Historical Society in 1998. The society hoped to make the home, located high on the Yadkin River bluff at the town’s West Main and Elm streets, a museum of the Yadkin Valley and headquarters for the society’s northwest branch.

A group appointed by the society chairman to oversee the project evolved over a period of time into the Jonesville Historical Committee. Anyone with an interest in Jonesville’s past, whether a resident of the town or not, was invited to join the committee to take part in Jonesville historic preservation efforts, beginning with the Mathis House but including other possibilities. Members of the historical society were also members of this committee, but it soon became apparent that Jonesville people did not want to put money into any project in which the committee was not in full control.

‘Worthless’

Among new members joining the committee were two individuals adamant in not wanting to raise money for restoration of a “worthless” old house that might require unlimited funds to accomplish and certainly not wanting to fund a Yadkin County Historical Society project. The two were able to persuade the committee to forget about the Mathis House as a museum and to pursue other ideas, but still to make efforts to raise money for historic preservation and a place to store and showcase local historic memorabilia.

In 2003, the Jonesville Historical Committee scheduled a Sunday afternoon historic event in the Yadkin Valley Senior Center and invited local singers, musicians and church choirs to provide musical entertainment as, hopefully, a lot of people would come by to witness Jonesville history and art collected by the town, churches, businesses and families.

The result was a gigantic exhibit of historical and artistic memorabilia that seemed to thrill the multitude that walked into the senior center to see for itself what the historical committee had come up with. The event opened at 2 p.m. and closed at 5 p.m., and for all three hours, there was a steady stream of curious people filing through the exhibits.

With the initial event a success, the committee decided to name the occasion “Old Jonesville Day” and to have it again in 2004, but to switch the day to Saturday, to make it an all-day affair utilizing Lila Swaim Park and--to the historical and artistic exhibits--add crafts and food vendors, fun things for children and a demonstration of border collies rounding up sheep.

A Live-In Museum

Meanwhile, the Yadkin County Historical Society was able to sell the Mathis House to a minister and his wife, both of whom possessed a special knack for historical preservation.

By time for the 6th annual Old Jonesville Day was held in 2008, the minister and his wife--Glenn and Frances Sanford of Lexington, together with Glenn’s sister and brother-in-law, Richard and Sidney Love of Mt. Pleasant--had completed restoration of the old home into a live-in museum and named it the Mathis House on the Yadkin Circa 1890. They scheduled open house in connection with Old Jonesville Day, and more than one hundred visitors toured the dwelling, which was beautifully furnished, much in the same way James and Myra Mathis maintained it from early in the 20th century until 1940.

Site of the house is approximately the geographic center of Elkin and Jonesville. The house’s double-decker porch commands a grand view of downtown Elkin and an ancient Indian Fish Trap just west of the modern-day link over the Yadkin River between Jonesville and Elkin, the Gwyn McNeil Bridge.