Caldwell, Joseph, 1773-1835
Page 1
Chapel
Hill
Septr 5. 1811
Dear Sir,
I have to acknowledge your obliging letter upon the subject of our
troubles here.
2 The
Faculty have endeavored to the best of their judgement to adapt their measures
to the emergences of the times. Reconciliations and amnesties have been so
often tried; and
boards of Trustees have been so often called, that
we were resolved if possible to make an experiment upon some plan which might
prove more efficient. If this shall not succeed, we know that others have
failed, and the difficulties with which we have to contend will only be more
fully exhibited.
Page 2
A very submissive petition was at last sent in by the suspended
students; but to restore upon such a ground, after all that has passed lately,
and all that we know of this
college, could not but strike us as quite nugatory.
3 It
might have answered for the present day; but this
college is not ephemeral, or at least ought not to
be, nor ought it to be conducted as if it were.
I am making out a plain account of the disturbances and proceedings
of the Faculty, for the publick information. It will be so much a narrative of
events, that I believe the students will not deny the verity and justice of it.
It cannot be sent now. I began it on tuesday, and have been very much
interrupted since. It will be
Page 3
ready for insertion
in the next paper.
4
Please to give my thanks to
Mr McPheeters
for his kind and
animating letter. You
have judged
rightly when you supposed we stood in need of cooperation in the measures we
adopted.
I would write to
Mr McPheeters
but am abridged of time
at present. I shall probably be at
Ralegh
at the time he suggests.
Envelope page
Endnotes:
2. The "troubles" of 1811 began when students set out to
interrupt a disciplinary hearing by rolling stones down the hallway and setting
off gunpowder charges. A disturbance also occurred in
Steward's
Hall. According to
President Caldwell
, students "entered in a disorderly
manner, dashing the victuals everywhere, breaking some of the plates, tossing
others out of the door, joining in the most boisterous vociferations, and
shrewing at the servants till they were forced to leave the room"
(
"Account" 148). Five students were suspended. When two of them were
not readmitted upon petition, protests of larger proportions followed. One end
of
Old East
was barred, and classes were disrupted by students' throwing planks and stones.
One evening after curfew, two students emerged from
Old East
just as a block of wood stuffed with gunpowder exploded in the inside corridor.
A black boy found in a corner of one student's room said that he nearly had
been shot. When the suspension of these two additional students was announced
before the student body in the chapel (
Person Hall), thirty-eight students, better than a third of the student body,
stormed out in protest. All were suspended for six months, among them six
seniors.
3. The faculty usually accepted petitions from contrite students.
In this case, however, the faculty—Professors
Caldwell
and
Andrew
Rhea
and Tutors
William Henderson and
Lewis
Williams
—rejected a petition for reinstatement signed by
twenty-three students. The
Joseph Caldwell Papers, SHC, contain a September 5,
1811, letter from
Caldwell
to
College of New Jersey (
Princeton) President
Samuel
S. Smith, informing him that the thirty-eight students named in the
letter had been "suspended from this
university the space of six months from the present
date, which term will expire on the first day of March next ensuing." The
faculty also directed "that notice of this proceeding in this
university, together with the names of all the
persons against whom it is had, be transmitted forthwith to all the Colleges
within the
United
States." Some of the students returned to the
University after their six-months' suspension and
completed their degrees. Three of the six seniors obtained their diplomas a
year late, in 1813.