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Collections >> The First Century of the First State University >>
Primary document
Title: William R. Davie's Description of the Site of the University,
September 25, 1793: Electronic Edition.
Author: Davie, William Richardson, 1756-1820
Funding from the University Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill supported the electronic publication of this title.
Text scanned (OCR) by
Brian Dietz
Images scanned by
Bari Helms
Text encoded by
Brian Dietz
First Edition, 2005
Size of electronic edition: ca. 12K
Publisher: The University Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
2005
The electronic edition is a part of the University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill digital library, Documenting the American South.
Languages used in the text:
English
Revision history:
2005-11-10, Brian Dietz finished TEI/XML encoding.
Source(s):
Title of collection: University of North Carolina Papers (#40005),
University Archives, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Title of document: William R. Davie's Description of the Site of the
University, September 25, 1793
Author: [William R. Davie]
Description: 2 pages, 2 page images
Note:
Call number 40005 (University Archives, University
of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
Editorial practices
The text has been encoded using the recommendations for Level 5 of the TEI in Libraries Guidelines.
Originals are in the Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Original grammar, punctuation, and spelling have been preserved.
DocSouth staff created a 600 dpi uncompressed TIFF file for each image. The TIFF images were then saved as JPEG images at 100 dpi for web access.
Page images can be viewed and compared in parallel with the text.
Any hyphens occurring in line breaks have been removed, and the trailing part of a word has been joined to the preceding line.
Letters, words and passages marked as deleted or added in originals have been encoded accordingly.
All quotation marks, em dashes and ampersand have been transcribed as entity references.
All double right and left quotation marks are encoded as ".
All single right and left quotation marks are encoded as '.
All em dashes are encoded as —.
Indentation in lines has not been preserved.
For more information about transcription and other editorial decisions, see the section Editorial Practices.
The text has been encoded using the recommendations for Level 5 of the TEI in Libraries Guidelines.
Originals are in the Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Original grammar, punctuation, and spelling have been preserved.
DocSouth staff created a 600 dpi uncompressed TIFF file for each image. The TIFF images were then saved as JPEG images at 100 dpi for web access.
Page images can be viewed and compared in parallel with the text.
Any hyphens occurring in line breaks have been removed, and the trailing part of a word has been joined to the preceding line.
Letters, words and passages marked as deleted or added in originals have been encoded accordingly.
All quotation marks, em dashes and ampersand have been transcribed as entity references.
All double right and left quotation marks are encoded as ".
All single right and left quotation marks are encoded as '.
All em dashes are encoded as —.
Indentation in lines has not been preserved.
For more information about transcription and other editorial decisions, see the section Editorial Practices.
Page 67
Halifax
Sept 25 1793
We are authorized to assure the public that the corner-stone of the building of
the University, undertaken by Mr Patterson will be
laid on the 10th of Oct. next; when the commissioners and a number of gentlemen
will attend to assist at the ceremony. The sale of the lots in the village will take place on the same day. The town consists of one principal
street laid off in lots of two acres each, parallel with the North front of the
buildings there are also 6 lots of four acres each, located on the most elegant
situations contiguous to the University.
The seat of the University is on the summit of a very high ridge,
there is a gentle declivity of 300 yards to the village;
which is situated on a handsome plain considerably lower than the site of the
publick buildings, but so greatly elevated above the neighboring country, as to
furnish an extensive and beautiful landscape, composed of the heights in the
vicinity of Eno, Little and Flat
rivers.
The ridge appears to commence about half a mile directly East of the buildings
where it rises abruptly several hundred feet; This peak is
Page 68
called Point-Prospect; the flat country spreads off
below—like the ocean, giving an immense hemisphere, in which the eye
seems to be lost in the extent of space.
Page 68
There is nothing more remarkable in this extraordinary place than the abundance
of springs of the purest and finest water; which burst from the side of the
ridge and which have been the subject of admiration both to hunters and
travellers ever since the discovery and settlement of that part of the
country—several of the lots on the North side of the town have the advantage of
including a spring.
The University is situated about 25 miles from the
city of Raleigh, and 12 miles from the town of Hillsborough, and is
said to be in the best direction for the road—the great road from Chatham, and the country in the neighborhood of that county, to Petersburg, passes at present directly through the village: and it
is a fortunate and important circumstance both to the institution and the town, that the road from all the Western country to the seat of
government will also pass through this place, being the nearest and best
direction.
This town being
the only seat of learning immediately under the patronage of the public,
possessing the advantages of a central situation, on some of the most public
roads in the state, in a plentiful country and excelled by few places in the
world either for beauty of situation or salubrity of air, promises with all
moral certainty to be a place of growing and permanent importance.