William Carey Dowd (1835-1860) was born in Tarboro, NC. The second son of Patrick Dowd, a prominent Baptist minister, William attended Eastalia high school and enrolled in the University in 1854. He became a member of the Dialectic Society and graduated as class valedictorian in 1858. Appointed as a tutor of Latin in 1858, tuberculosis forced him to resign after one semester. He traveled to Florida and Red Sulphur Springs, VA, to recover his health but died on June 30, 1860, in Christiansburg, VA, on his way home to Tarboro [The North Carolina University Magazine 10 (September 1860): 110-12, NCC].