1795-1819: The Establishment of the
University
Erika Lindemann
When the
University of North Carolina opened on a cold,
dreary January 15th in 1795, not a single student was present. Gov.
Richard Dobbs
Spaight, other distinguished guests, and a single faculty member,
Rev.
David Ker
,
inspected the finished building and went home. The two-story brick College, now
known as
Old East,
and the unpainted wooden house of the "presiding professor"
were the only buildings defining the campus. A pile of yellowish red clay had
been dug out for the foundation of the chapel (the east wing of
Person Hall), and a
wooden structure known as
Steward's Hall would soon be built to serve students
their meals. But the first student would not arrive for almost a month.
Though the opening ceremonies must have been brief, the
Halifax, NC, newspaper
North-Carolina Journal
confidently reported "That the exercises of the institution have
begun, and that youth disposed to enter at the
University may
come forward with an assurance of being received" (
Connor 1:368). For some
North
Carolinians, the opening of the
University was
a beginning. For others, it marked the end of an almost twenty-year campaign to
establish a college at public expense for the citizens of
North
Carolina. That goal had been frustrated twice before, in 1754 and again
in 1770, when first the funding and then the charter of a public seminary failed
to win the approval of the British Crown. With the beginning of the
American
Revolution, however, the
North Carolina
Provincial Congress was able to take action on the proposal without
the King's permission. Meeting in
Halifax, NC, on December 18, 1776, delegates to the
state's constitutional convention approved
Article 41: "That a school or schools be established by the
Legislature, for the convenient Instruction of Youth, with such
Salaries to the Masters, paid by the Public, as may enable them to instruct at
low prices; and all useful Learning shall be duly encouraged and promoted in one
or more Universities" (
Connor 1:14). Borrowing language from the constitution of
Pennsylvania,
North
Carolina's delegates wrote into their state's constitution a right to
public education.
Article 41 was the constitutional cornerstone of the
University.
On the eve of the
American Revolution, the colonies boasted only nine colleges, most
of them affiliated with religious institutions and only one of them in the
South.
1 Families with the
means to educate their children schooled them at home or sent them to colleges
in the
North or overseas. The first attempt to implement
Article 41 occurred in November 1784, when a bill
was introduced into the
North
Carolina General Assembly to establish a state university. The bill
was rejected, in part because the state was still dealing with financial
hardships brought on by the war but also because sectional politics made
legislators wary of an institution that might promote aristocratic privilege.
Political, religious, and economic divisions between eastern planters, who
tended to be
Anglican and conservative
Federalists, and the small farmers and merchants of the
back country, who were
Presbyterians,
Lutherans, and members of other
Protestant sects and who regarded themselves as liberal Jeffersonian
Republicans,
would characterize the early history of
North Carolina politics
and in turn influence decisions with respect to the
University.
Finally, on December 11, 1789, the
General
Assembly granted the
University its
charter.
The man credited with securing the necessary votes was
William Richardson
Davie
. Born in
England,
Davie
was a graduate of
the
College of New Jersey (
Princeton),
had served as a Continental line officer in the
Revolutionary War, and was a
North
Carolina delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1787. He had
been a member of the committee that wrote the
North Carolina
constitution of 1776. A
Federalist and deist,
Davie
worked
persuasively among legislators who had had little formal education themselves to
urge their support for the
University. In
the introduction to the bill,
Davie
appealed to the
legislators' sense of responsibility for securing the state's future:
"it is the indispensable duty of every Legislature to consult the
happiness of a rising generation, and endeavor to fit them for an honourable
discharge of the social duties of life, by paying the strictest attention to
their education" (
Connor
1:34).
Though the
University had a charter, it had no funds. On
December 21, 1789, the
General
Assembly passed "An Act for the Endowment of the
University," granting to the
University all
property that would escheat to the state. Potentially a rich endowment, the bill
entitled the
board of trustees to property reverting to the state when its owners
died, including large tracts of land given as bounties to soldiers who had
served in the
Revolutionary War. These tracts, amounting in some cases to 20,000
or 25,000 acres, eventually could be sold to support the
University. In
the short term, however, the
University
needed cash, so
Davie
and
James Hogg
, a
Scottish immigrant who had settled near
Hillsborough, NC, began to raise
subscriptions and donations. Their efforts were frustrated when the legislature
required them to turn all contributions over to the state and permitted them to
spend only the interest on behalf of the
University.
Finally, in December 1791,
Davie
persuaded a reluctant legislature to approve a
loan of $10,000. Years later, when this loan was given outright to
the
University, the gift constituted the only direct
appropriation that the antebellum institution would receive from the
legislature.
In 1792, the
trustees selected a site near the center of the state. They agreed
that it should lie within a fifteen-mile radius of
Cyprett's Bridge across
New Hope Creek on
the road that ran from
New Bern, the colonial capital on the east coast, past the new
capital of
Raleigh
to
Pittsboro.
The charter required that the site be no closer than five miles from
"the permanent seat of government, or any of the places holding the
courts of law or equity" (
Connor 1:38).
Hogg
, a member
of the site-selection commission, wanted the
University
located in
Orange
County and began talking to his neighbors. He raised generous pledges
of 1,386 acres of land and approximately $1,600.
2 The commissioners unanimously
accepted these gifts and recommended
New Hope Chapel Hill to
the
trustees. The
trustees accepted the recommendation and granted
the donors the privilege of educating one student at the
University
free from tuition.
Apart from the generosity of its neighbors, New Hope Chapel Hill
boasted other attractive features. In a time when travel was difficult, the site
was relatively accessible. It lay at the intersection of two important roads, a
north-south road running from Petersburg, VA, through Hillsborough, NC, and on south to
Pittsboro,
and a major east-west road beginning in New Bern near the coast, passing
through the center of the state, and continuing westward toward Greensboro and
Salisbury.
At the intersection of these two roads sat an old Church of England chapel of
ease, which gave the place its name. Geographically, the University
would be about twenty-five miles from Raleigh and twelve miles from Hillsborough. Located on a
promontory in a forest of oaks, the site also had abundant springs, and its
climate was regarded as healthy.
By late 1792, the
trustees had begun planning the campus. They
contracted with
James
Patterson to erect a two-story brick building, 96 1/2 feet long and
40 feet wide, with sixteen rooms and four passages. It was to be completed by
November 1794 for the sum of $5,000. On October 12, 1793, a bright
autumn day, the commissioners of the
board of trustees met at
Chapel
Hill to lay the building's cornerstone. An address was delivered by
the Rev.
Dr.
Samuel McCorkle
, a
Presbyterian minister and graduate of the
College of
New Jersey (
Princeton), who ran the successful
Zion-Parnassus Academy near
Salisbury.
McCorkle
, the only preacher-teacher on the
board of trustees, had
initiated the 1784 bill to establish the
University and
had been an advocate for both public and private education in
North
Carolina for many years. The ceremonies ended with "a short but
animated prayer." Then the assembly adjourned to an auction of some
twenty-nine lots that had been laid out for a village next to the
University.
The students began arriving in mid-February 1795. According to tradition, the
first student was
Hinton
James of
Wilmington, NC, but as word spread that the
University was
in session, other students quickly followed. It must have been a chaotic first
term,
Professor Ker
trying to conduct a variety of classes, while intermittently examining in-coming
students to determine their placement and finding many of them unprepared for
college work. By the end of June 1795, forty-one students had entered the
University. By the following September, the number had risen to
seventy-four.
As the college grew,
Old
East soon became crowded. In 1798 the cornerstone of
South
Building was laid, but the funds ran out before it could be completed.
The
trustees obtained permission of the legislature to conduct two lotteries
in 1801 and 1802, which yielded a total of $5,080.81 (
Battle 1:127). Appeals for
donations and gifts brought in additional funds, but it was not until President
Joseph
Caldwell
made a personal pilgrimage through the state that sufficient
monies could be raised to complete the building in 1814. In the early years,
preparatory school students had roomed with the
University's
regular students, but by 1802 the students were so numerous that a separate
wooden building was erected for the school, which moved across
Franklin Street
from the college. The preparatory school was abandoned in 1819, by which time
the establishment of other good classical schools in the area had made it
unnecessary.
Despite student rebellions, a lack of funds, and persistent difficulties in
securing teachers, by 1820 the University
clearly had survived infancy. The faculty had grown from one to five professors,
and approximately 185 students had earned degrees. Perhaps as many as 300
additional students had attended classes for a year or more. The University's library contained over 1,500 volumes; the society
libraries, approximately 1,000 volumes each. The campus had expanded to five
buildings— Old
East, Person
Hall, South Building, Steward's Hall, and the president's
house—and the town was growing. Student unrest persisted but was not
quite so public. More important, the University had
survived the sectional politics attending the birth of the state and the War of 1812. North
Carolina was still relatively poor and largely indifferent to education.
Eastern North
Carolinians, who represented less than ten percent of the total white
population, controlled the legislature, which made the laws, selected the
governor, and appointed other state officials. But despite political and
financial obstacles, the University
decidedly had begun the work hoped for it by those who had written their
confidence in its necessity into Article 41 of the state's constitution.