The First State University

A Walking Guide

Marguerite E. Schumann

• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN:
  9780807841303
  9780807811955
• Edition: 2
• eBook ISBN:
  9780807837016
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

In a convenient format, Schumann offers a guide to the campus of the University of North Carolina and immediately adjacent areas in Chapel Hill that will be indispensable for walkers wishing to acquaint themselves with the University and its history. In the revised edition, she has added two hour-long walks to the four presented in the original volume, included several sites that can be conveniently toured by car, and added thirty new buildings (for a total of ninety). She includes new structures in the historic districts of the campus as well as points of interest on South Campus, where the medical complex is located.

Originally published in 1985.

A UNC Press Enduring Edition — UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.

Walk 1: Starting at Old East; ending at Davie Hall

Old East

1793, lengthened and third story added 1824, remodeled 1848, interior rebuilt 1924

Old East, the oldest state university building in the nation and a dormitory throughout those years, was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1966 for possessing “exceptional value in commemorating the history of the United States.” It is identified as such by a bronze plaque on its southeast corner. The building was designed to face east “just as the capitols at Washington and Raleigh faced under the influence of Orientalization.”

Because of complaints such as those from the “Father of the University,” William Richardson Davie, who declared that the building was “infamously done” by a “mechanic” of Chatham County, it was given a face-lifting by the eminent New York architect Alexander Jackson Davis in 1824. Davis provided the series of tall exterior piers on the north, which one critic described as “conspicuously Egyptian in character” while another likened them to “Greek antae.”

The state constitution of 1776 provided for the founding of a university. The charter was ratified by the General Assembly in 1789. The cornerstone for Old East was laid on 12 October 1793; nearly a century later that date was officially declared University Day.

General William Richardson Davie, Revolutionary patriot, governor of North Carolina, and recipient of the University’s first honorary doctor of laws degree, laid the cornerstone. He had sponsored and steered the bill that created the University, had prepared the ordinance fixing the seat of the University, and played a central part in the construction of buildings and selection of the faculty

His duties were remarkably diverse: he contracted for the design of the University bookplate; he was responsible for having the avenue cleared, grubbed, and put in order; and he saw to having the spring cleaned.

Davie was a high official in the Masonic order and he was dressed in his lodge regalia as he marched in military tread to the cornerstone ceremony, accompanied by Masons from Hillsborough and Raleigh. At the site the members formed a double line for state dignitaries to pass through. During the University’s early years all cornerstones were laid in Masonic ceremonies.

Sealed into the cornerstone that day by Davie’s silver trowel was a commemorative plate reading, “The Right Worshipfull William Richardson Davie, Grand Master of the most Ancient and Honorable Fraternity of Freemasons in the State of North Carolina, one of the trustees of the University of the said state ... assisted by the other commissioners and the Brethren of the Eagle and Independence Lodges, on the 12th day of October in the Year of Masonry 5793 and in the 18th year of the American Independence laid the cornerstone of this edifice.”

The cornerstone was vandalized sometime between 1865 and 1875 and the commemorative plate was stolen. In 1916 it was discovered in a pile of scrap brass destined for melting at a foundry in Tennessee. The foundry’s owner, who was an alumnus of UNC, recognizing the name Davie, had the plate cleaned and returned to its rightful place. The plate may be seen in the North Carolina Collection of the Louis Round Wilson Library.

On 15 January 1795, Governor Richard Dobbs Spaight drove from Raleigh over twenty-eight miles of red mud and jagged rocks for the official opening of the University’s doors and sent out word that “youth disposed to enter the University could come forward with the assurance of being received.” Hinton James was so disposed and entered as the first student on 12 February.

Both the residential and instructional life of the University centered in Old East for twenty years. Within a short time the crowding in the building became intolerable. Fifty-six students were squeezed into fourteen one-window rooms. To get away from their fellowmen the students erected huts in the forest and in the unfinished shell of South Building. When the weather was too bad for students to study in their huts, this was considered a valid excuse for unprepared lessons.

Student life sheltered within the walls of Old East was boisterous and occasionally violent, partly because of the time in history, but also because of the rigid University rules, the few vacation periods, and the lack of organized physical activity.

There were, of course, the classic student pranks of throwing frogs and terrapins into the Frenchmaster’s room and carrying off carriages and gates. But in addition there were reports of gun fire, kegs of whiskey in student rooms, stabbings with pen knives, breaking tutors’ doors and threatening them with violence, torturing animals with flaming turpentine, and plotting mischief further afield—attempting arson on a trustee’s house, cutting the corn in a villager’s field, and stealing beehives.

In 1799 there was a rebellion in which the principal was beaten. Shortly after the turn of the century came the Great Secession, in which forty-five students remonstrated with the faculty over the severity of new regulations. As a result of the altercation, forty-one students seceded and went home, including a large majority of the ablest and most mature students who later attained prominence in public office as governor, judge, state senator, speaker of the house, and members of the general assembly.

There were intermittent episodes of dueling and resultant expulsions, but no deaths by violence are recorded. There are frequent reports like the following from President Battle: “he lost his diploma for striking down Haywood with a club in consequence of words spoken at a convivial banquet,” and “six pistols and two dirks appeared at Washington’s birthday dinner in 1816.” Only one alumnus is known to have died on the gallows, and this was for the slaying of his sister shortly after he had been expelled from the University. His campus crime was a drinking and card-playing frolic in his room, which was followed up on Sunday (when he should have been repenting his Saturday sins) by illuminating his windows with numerous candles.

John Pettigrew, a student at the University from 1795 to 1797, made this drawing of “East Building” in 1797 (courtesy of the North Carolina Collection, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill).

The trustees of the University were much concerned with student conduct and interfered regularly in these matters. Consequently it was ironic that Davie’s oldest son pulled a knife on another student at a commencement ball because of a tripping and foot-trampling incident.

New East

1859, remodeled 1926, 1969

A pair of Italianate buildings, New East and New West, appeared on the campus when enrollment had more than doubled in the decade following the Gold Rush. They provided student rooms and permanent homes for the literary societies, which virtually controlled student activities through the nineteenth century. The Philanthropic Society Assembly Hall is on the fourth floor of New East. The rest of the building is now occupied by the Department of City and Regional Planning.

Central heating was introduced to the University in New East and New West, but the furnace and hot water system was not a success. Notice the Italian architectural characteristics: heavy brackets supporting wide overhanging eaves and the central pavilion flanked by wings.

During Reconstruction (1865–76), the literary society halls were pillaged by citizens as well as occupying troops. Professor David Patrick looted the Phi society hall, carrying off a velvet rug, some carpet, and handsome chairs in order to entertain trustees at the president’s house, contending that a communistic spirit prevailed after the closing of the University and that its property belonged to the people.

Membership in the literary societies was determined by geography. Students from the eastern half of the state joined the Phi society (which they pronounced Philanthropic rather than Phil-an-thropic); those from the west joined the Dialectic.

Wolfe Memorial

An 850-pound bronze relief sculpture of an angel mounted on a concrete slab stands at the northeast corner of New East to mark the association of Thomas Wolfe, the unbroken colt of American letters, with the University of North Carolina from which he graduated in 1920. Wolfe studied playwrighting in New East.

The marker is inscribed with a familiar line from Look Homeward, Angel: “O lost, and by the wind grieved, ghost, come back again.” The memorial is the gift of the class of 1966 and was designed by Richard W. Kinnaird of the UNC Department of Art.

The Wolfe Memorial stands at the edge of a courtyard planted with azaleas in memory of Sara Lee Gifford, former student in the School of Journalism.

Wolfe wrote for the Playmakers (taking the title role in his play, The Return of Buck Gavin) and edited the campus newspaper. On one occasion, after he had printed a photo of a coed embracing a man, her father rushed in, threatening to sue. “You can’t sue me,” Wolfe said. “And why can’t I?” the irate parent inquired. Wolfe rose to his 6½-foot height with the words “Because, sir, I am a minor.”

Wolfe’s thinly disguised descriptions of “Pulpit Hill” and vignettes of faculty figures have shaped a monument for UNC in every library of the literate world. “The wilderness crept up to it like a beast,” he wrote of Pulpit/Chapel Hill.

Howell Hall

1906

Now the School of Journalism, this structure was built as Chemistry Hall and later used for pharmacy. It commemorates the pharmacy school’s founder and dean for thirty-three years, Edward Vernon Howell, who was called “the most distinctive personality Chapel Hill has ever known.” After two short-lived attempts by the University to create a pharmacy department, Howell was persuaded in 1896 to leave his retail drug business in Rocky Mount to begin work with seventeen students in a single lecture room, with a yearly budget for library books and periodicals of $3.00 and a salary of $25.00 per month, plus a small commission for every student.

At that time anyone at UNC was eligible to play football, from president to janitor, and Howell starred for an undefeated eleven, making a fifty-five yard run, despite a broken finger and nose, to defeat Virginia 6–2 in the key game of 1898.

His housekeeping was that of a traditionally careless bachelor. “At one end of his rare old mahogany dining room table would be a dish or plate, and the rest of the surface would be covered by a jumble of manuscripts, books, and newspaper clippings,” Dean J. G. Beard of the School of Pharmacy later recalled. Long after his death, some of this magpie collection, about 1600 items, was given to the Southern Historical Collection by Jame...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• The First State University
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• A Walk in Chapel Hill
• Acknowledgments
• How to Use the Walking Guide
• Walk 1: Starting at Old East; ending at Davie Hall
• Walk 2: Starting at the north end of McCorkle Place; ending at the Ackland Art Museum
• Walk 3: Starting at South Building; ending at Wilson Library
• Walk 4: Starting at the south end of Polk Place; ending at the Carolina Inn
• Walk 5: Starting at Brooks Hall; ending at Mitchell Hall
• Walk 6: Starting at Beard Hall; ending at North Carolina Memorial Hospital
• Accessible by car