Erika Lindemann
By 1830 the
University of North Carolina had graduated 460 students.
Roughly the same number had attended the institution without receiving degrees.
Tuition had doubled since the
University opened its doors, rising from $15 in 1795
to $30 in 1830. Room and board had cost $35 a year in 1795, but
by 1837, students paid at least $11 per month or $110 a year for
meals. Faculty salaries had more than doubled, from $600 for the
presiding professor in 1796 to
President
Caldwell's
$1,600 salary in 1830. Other faculty members were
making approximately $1,450 per year; tutors were paid $400 per
year (Trustees Minutes, Vol. 5, June 22, 1830, UA).
An advertisement in
Chapel
Hill's first short-lived newspaper
The Harbinger
provides a concise description of the
University in 1833:
University of North Carolina.—Seniors 16, Juniors 23,
Sophomores 35, Freshmen 28, irregular students 7; total 109—from
N.
Carolina 87,
Virginia 13,
Tennessee, 4
S.
Carolina 2,
Alabama 2,
Maryland 1.
Number of Professors 5, one vacancy.—Expenses per session: tuition
$15, room-rent 1, servant hire 2, board 6 to 8 per month; washing,
mending and bed, 8; deposit, most of which is returned, $3—The
annual Commencement is on the fourth Thursday in June.—First vacation,
six weeks from the fourth Thursday in June; second vacation, four weeks from
the 15th of Dec. (December 15, 1833:3)
During the 1830s enrollments increased only slightly, from 107
students in 1831 to 151 by 1839.
1 The number of
faculty members remained the same as in the 1820s—a president, five
professors, and two or three tutors.
Nicholas Hentz
resigned in 1831, so French was not taught until 1836, when
A.
Burgevin became the professor of modern languages.
Burgevin,
a native of
France and a
Roman
Catholic, stayed only a few months, and little is known about him, not
even his first name. In 1833
Walker
Anderson
was elected professor of natural philosophy and astronomy,
offering relief to
Elisha
Mitchell
, who became acting president as
Joseph
Caldwell's
health declined.
On January 27, 1835,
Professor
Caldwell
died. In considerable pain for several years with what may have
been kidney stones, he had decreased his teaching and administrative duties for
at least a year prior to his death. His passing saddened students, faculty, and
friends of education throughout the state. His presidency had been the stable
influence needed to establish the reputation of the
University, and
Caldwell
saw it through difficult financial and political
times. He raised money to expand its library and build
Old West and
Gerrard
Hall. In 1832 he constructed at his own expense the
University's first observatory. For almost forty years he managed to
navigate sectional controversies that might have lost the
University friends and supporters.
Some historians believe that
Caldwell's
step-son
William Hooper
saw himself as the next
University
president. In December 1835, however, the trustees elected
David Lowry
Swain
to that post. To some, the choice must have been puzzling.
Swain
was not a "learned man" or a clergyman. He
was young, only thirty-four. Although a
Presbyterian, he doubtless had been selected because of
his experience as a politician, not an academic.
Swain
had served as
North
Carolina's governor from 1832 to 1835. He had been elected to the
board of
trustees in 1831 and, as governor, became its ex officio chair. Board
members evidently thought that he could manage the
University well and perhaps improve its popularity among the
state's political leaders. In hindsight the choice was exactly right, for
Swain's
political skills would be needed to bring the
institution through the three decades leading up to and through the
Civil War.
By January 1836
Swain
and his family had moved to
Chapel
Hill.
A year later
William Hooper
left the
University to become president of the
Furman
Institute in
South
Carolina. In 1838
Hooper's
professorship of ancient languages was abolished
and separate chairs of Greek and Latin were established,
Manuel
Fetter
filling the former and
John
De Berniere Hooper
,
William Hooper's
son-in-law, the latter. That same year
William
Mercer Green
joined the faculty as chaplain and professor of rhetoric
and logic.
Charles
Marey taught French and topographical drawing for a year but was
dismissed for drunkenness in 1839.
Elisha
Mitchell
, appointed under
Caldwell
, continued to teach chemistry, geology, and
mineralogy;
James
Phillips
, another
Caldwell
appointee, mathematics and natural
philosophy.
Two or three tutors rounded out the faculty during the 1830s.
Selected from among the distinguished graduating seniors, the tutors
increasingly assumed responsibility for the instruction of first- and
second-year students, a practice that anticipates by some fifty years the use
of teaching assistants in undergraduate courses. The tutors specialized in
either ancient languages or mathematics, and the senior tutor usually served as
the
University's librarian and as secretary of the faculty,
taking minutes during faculty meetings.
Though funds for new construction were minimal,
2 an inexpensive
project to beautify the campus began shortly after
Swain
arrived. He conceived of surrounding the campus with
stone walls built from the granite rocks that lay on and just below the ground.
Constructing these "stone fences" became the work of
Elisha
Mitchell
, whose many duties included supervising the buildings and
grounds and who came from
Connecticut,
a state where such walls, constructed without mortar, are a feature of the
landscape. Begun in 1838, the three-foot high walls continued to be built
intermittently for six years. Townspeople found them so attractive that they
began replacing the unsightly rail fences surrounding their own homes with
stone walls. The walls were not only distinctive, but also functional. They
kept out "wandering cattle, hogs, and sheep, which were allowed by law to
roam at large" (
Henderson 125). Today, they are one of the most prominent
features of the
University's campus.
Endnotes:
1. Faculty minutes for November 22, 1839, record the names of 22
first-year students, 40 sophomores, 49 juniors, 31 seniors, and 9 irregular
students, for a total enrollment of 151 students (
3:308-15, UA).
2. The number of campus buildings at the beginning of the decade
stood at five:
Old East,
Person
Hall,
Steward's
Hall,
South
Building, and
Old West.
Two new buildings were finished in the 1830s, an observatory and
Gerrard
Hall. Construction of the observatory began in March 1832 and was
completed in August 1832 (
Henderson 101).
President Caldwell
built it himself, with $430 of
his own money, though the
trustees reimbursed him a few days before his death. It
burned down in 1838.
Gerrard
Hall, a new chapel begun in 1822, was not completed until 1837 for lack
of funds.