Chronology

Methodist trustees sell the old Rosemary Street church to the American Missionary Association

With the Franklin Street church ready, the trustees sold the 1853 church and its lot at Rosemary and Henderson streets for $800 to W. H. Hubbard, treasurer of the American Missionary Association of New York, keeping back only the organ, clock and Bible. The building became a Congregational church that Northern friends had bought for Black worshippers.

People: John H. Watson · Jones Watson

Subject: Old Methodist Church (Rosemary Street)

Professor emeritus Charles Phillips dies

Phillips, who came to Chapel Hill at four, graduated in 1841, taught mathematics for decades and chaired the faculty at the 1875 reopening, died ten years after retiring. He was buried in the Chapel Hill cemetery, and a tablet in the Presbyterian church records his work in building it.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Hillsborough's town commissioners first meet in the new brick mayor's office and guard house

The town board met for the first time in its new brick building on the courthouse square, with the mayor's office in front and two cells for prisoners behind. The building committee accepted the work and the board ordered $560 paid in full.

Seven Black members are moved from the Methodist roll to the new Congregational church, then restored

At their request, pastor W. B. North transferred seven Black members by certificate to the Congregational church meeting in the old Methodist building. In February 1891 pastor E. H. Davis put their names back on the Methodist register; an unsigned protest from white members questioned his authority, but no action was taken and the seven stayed members until they died.

Subject: University United Methodist Church

Orange Presbytery removes all six active elders of New Hope

Member David A. Claytor had carried a petition, which most of the members signed, calling on the active elders to resign; three agreed and three refused. Meeting at the church, the presbytery heard the parties, dissolved all six elders' relation to the church and ordered a new election.

People: John T. Hogan · Charles W. Johnston

Subject: New Hope Presbyterian Church

New Hope re-elects three of its removed elders

With the Rev. F. H. Johnston presiding, the congregation chose Charles W. Johnston, John T. Hogan and William C. Claytor again, and they were reinstalled before a large congregation.

People: John T. Hogan · Charles W. Johnston

Subject: New Hope Presbyterian Church

Justices and commissioners elect a new board of education and school superintendent

In joint session on June 3 the justices and commissioners chose John Thompson, W. V. Andrews and D. S. Parker as the county board of education. The next day, at a joint meeting of the commissioners and the new board, B. C. Patton was elected county superintendent of public instruction in place of the Rev. J. L. Currie, who had resigned.

People: John W. Thompson · James L. Currie

Sans Souci is sold at auction and passes to Episcopal Bishop Lyman

Sans Souci was sold at public auction to a bidder named Parrish, who at once assigned his bid to the Episcopal bishop of North Carolina, Bishop Lyman of Raleigh.

Subject: Sans Souci

The university celebrates the centennial of its charter

Alumni from Colorado to Florida filled Memorial Hall for a roll call of classes back to 1824, then sat down to a banquet for three hundred in Gerrard Hall with delegates from Harvard, Yale, Virginia and other schools. The reunion led to an annual alumni banquet, branch alumni associations and a drive to endow a chair of history.

People: Kemp Plummer Battle

Subject: Memorial Hall · Gerrard Hall

Chapel Hill's new Methodist church is dedicated

During the centennial commencement Bishop W. W. Duncan preached at night in the new Methodist church, a collection cleared its $800 debt, and the church was dedicated.

Subject: University United Methodist Church

Mathematics professor Ralph Henry Graves dies

Graves, head of mathematics since the reopening, fell into deep depression, sought treatment in Baltimore and took his own life. His widow raised their four children in Chapel Hill and sent the sons through the university.

David C. Parks buys the Parks-Richmond lot and joins it to the Colonial Inn lot as one hotel

D. C. Parks bought Town Lot 18 on West King Street and combined it with Lot 15, the site of the present Colonial Inn, to run them as one hotel. The house on Lot 18 held the office, reception rooms and dining room, and the inn building held the sleeping rooms.

People: David C. Parks

Subject: Colonial Inn

A Hogan family log house goes up on Homestead Road

In the 1890s a one-room log house was built for one of the Hogans, a family with homes all along the road. About 1935 it was built over and enlarged.

A miller's house is built above Pritchard Mill

About 1890 a small frame I-house was set on a knoll over the Pritchard Mill site on Damascus Church Road. The survey found no other miller's dwelling in the township; an early log barn stands beside it.

B. C. Patton's report finds most Orange County schoolhouses still built of logs

Patton's annual report to the state counted 43 white and 41 Black schools with 1,425 white and 1,048 Black pupils. Thirty of the 43 white schoolhouses and 17 of the 24 Black ones were log buildings, and terms ran about twelve weeks.

Breeze School is built near Caldwell

A plain two-room frame schoolhouse with shuttered windows was probably built at Breeze, near Caldwell, in the 1890s. It is one of the few nineteenth-century schools left in the county.

Subject: Breeze School

Caldwell Institute post office grows into a small trading place

Around 1890 the Caldwell Institute post office, with about 119 people, had Jordan's and Terry's stores, Allison's carriage shop, a blacksmith, a doctor, Turner's Mill, the Caldwell Institute school and Little River Presbyterian Church.

Cedar Grove is the busiest post office community in its township

In the early 1890s Cedar Grove, with about sixty-five people, had the most businesses in its township. It had Cedar Grove Academy, the Methodist church, a doctor named Terrell, a tanner, a carriage maker and a dry goods merchant, with Eno Presbyterian Church and Compton's and Warren's mills a short way off. The High Rock and Yanceyville roads joined and ran east-west through the village.

Chestnut Ridge Methodist Church is organized

Chestnut Ridge Methodist Church was organized about 1890 and counted 270 members in 1953.

D. C. Parks has designer Jules Körner remodel his hotel buildings and Twin Chimneys

While he owned the Occoneechee Hotel, David C. Parks hired Jules Körner of Kernersville to update the hotel, the Parks-Richmond House next door and Twin Chimneys across West King Street, giving them new window and door frames with pointed-arch surrounds.

People: David C. Parks

Subject: Colonial Inn

Four post offices serve Bingham Township

In 1890 Bingham Township had post offices at Rock Springs (about 25 people), Teer's, Oaks (about 75) and Gath (about 40), each with nearby stores, doctors, carriage makers, blacksmiths and mills.

Harris Grove Baptist Church is built near Rougemont

Harris Grove Baptist Church in northeastern Orange County builds a front-gable frame church with a bell tower around 1890. Its cemetery holds burials from before 1920; the church stood empty by 1993.

Horace Williams begins teaching philosophy at the University of North Carolina

Williams joined the faculty in 1890 as professor of philosophy and chaired the department from 1890 until 1935. He taught at Chapel Hill for fifty years, until his death in 1940.

John Borland builds a two-story log house on his 100-acre farm

About 1890 John Borland put up a full two-story log house with half-dovetail corners. It is one of only two two-story log houses the survey found in the township.

Jule Gilmer Korner remodels the former Burwell School

In the 1890s the old Burwell School house was remodeled by Jule Gilmer Korner of Kernersville, who gave it a bracketed cornice, a sawnwork porch, a new hall stair and new mantels, including a marble one in the parlor. Several of the older mantels were lost in the work, which was done for an owner thought to be Mrs. Charles M. Parks.

Part of Orange County’s nineteenth-century academies · 116 events

Subject: Burwell School

Laws and Border post offices serve the far corners of Cedar Grove Township

In 1890 Cedar Grove Township had post offices at Cedar Grove, Laws and Border. Border, in the far southwest of the township, counted about twenty people, and Laws, in the far northeast, about twenty-five.

Merchant Henry "Hoot" Patterson turns a West Cameron Avenue I-house into a Queen Anne villa

In the 1890s Henry "Hoot" Patterson, whose general store was on East Franklin Street, bought the frame I-house at 403 West Cameron Avenue and turned it into a Queen Anne house with a rose window in a front gable, bracketed eaves, a bay window and an elaborate porch that wraps the corner.

People: Henry Houston Patterson

Meridith post office serves northern Little River Township

Around 1890 the Meridith post office in northern Little River Township had J. Law's store, the Riley and McKee sawmill and Berry's Grove Baptist Church close by.

Most Orange County farmers are renters, sharecroppers or hired hands

In 1890, 58 percent of the county's farmers did not own their farms. Among Black farmers over half were field hands, a third sharecroppers and a tenth owners; more than a third of white farmers owned no land.

Robert Worth Bingham wins the university's Representative Medal

As a University of North Carolina student, Robert Worth Bingham won the Representative Medal in 1890 for his oration "Manifest Destiny and Manifest Duty."

St. Matthew's registers record 679 baptisms and 375 communicants in the parish's first 66 years

Totaling the parish registers in 1890, Murphy counted 99 marriages, 679 baptisms, 262 confirmations, 375 communicants and 242 burials since 1824. He also noted that only 10 Black people had been entered as communicants in that time, though the parish had built a gallery for Black worshippers in the 1830s.

Subject: St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church

Students start the Chapel Hillian newspaper

A student paper called the Chapel Hillian appeared, edited by F. H. Argo and S. A. Ashe Jr. It gave way to two rival papers, the White and Blue of the non-fraternity men and the Tar Heel of the fraternity men, and the Tar Heel outlasted its rival.

The Chapel of the Cross adds a chancel and vestry

A chancel and a vestry room were built onto the rear of the 1848 Chapel of the Cross, replacing its original back wall. The vestry kept its corner fireplace, paneled wainscot and built-in cupboards into the 1970s.

Subject: Chapel of the Cross

The Jacobs farmhouse is built on St. Mary's Road

A two-story frame farmhouse of the Triple-A type was built in the 1890s on what the 1999 survey called the Jacobs property, where three barns and a silo also stand.

The Manly Snipes House is built in southwest Orange County

The Manly Snipes House, a two-story farmhouse with a second-story wing projecting over the front entrance, was probably built around 1890.

The Pritchard-Poythress Farm is built

The Pritchard-Poythress Farm dates from the 1890s and was placed on the state Study List in July 1992 after the Chapel Hill Township survey.

The average Orange County farm is down to 114 acres

As plantation land was sold off after the Civil War, farms in Orange County grew more numerous and smaller; the 1890 agricultural census put the average at 114 acres.

The state superintendent tells Orange County to make its sheriff pay over the school taxes

Teachers were holding $500 in unpaid orders with nothing in the school treasury because Sheriff John Knox Hughes had not turned over the taxes he collected. Asked for advice, the state superintendent advised Patton to collect from the sheriff or take him to court.

The trustees ban intercollegiate athletic contests

After disputes with other colleges, the faculty in 1889 limited games to college grounds, and in 1890 the trustees forbade intercollegiate contests altogether. A student petition won repeal, with athletics put under an advisory committee of a professor, a graduate student and an undergraduate.

The university confers an honorary doctorate of laws on Zebulon Vance

The University of North Carolina awarded Vance an honorary LL.D. in 1890, listing him as a student who had entered in 1851.

The university starts a student medical fee

Each student paid $5 a year for medical care without further charge. The university's infirmary building followed in 1894.

Subject: University infirmary (Abernethy Hall)

The university's medical school reopens under Richard H. Whitehead

After Dean T. W. Harris left in 1886, the medical school closed for three years for lack of money. It reopened in 1890 as the Medical Department under Dr. Richard H. Whitehead.

People: Richard Henry Whitehead

Subject: UNC School of Medicine

Thomas Hume leads the university Shakespeare Club's study of All's Well That Ends Well

In the 1890-91 session Dr. Thomas Hume chaired a Shakespeare Club meeting on All's Well That Ends Well, gave a paper on the play's mixed styles and closed with notes on new books. Other members gave papers on the plot's source in Boccaccio and on its characters.

William Cain is elected to head mathematics and engineering

To succeed Ralph H. Graves the trustees elected William Cain of the South Carolina Military Academy, an author on bridge building, which let the faculty begin teaching civil engineering at little added cost.

William James Battle publishes a register of the Dialectic Society

The Dialectic Society catalogue, edited by William James Battle, was published in 1890. Its 168 pages hold a history of the society, members' recollections and sketches of members since 1795.

People: Richard H. Battle

Subject: Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies

James Webb Jr. and Joseph C. Webb buy town lot 94 in Hillsborough

George C. Corbin, who had bought the property in 1878, sold the land and house on Hillsborough's lot 94 to James Webb Jr. and Joseph C. Webb. James Webb sold the lot to the Methodist church for a parsonage in 1903.

People: George C. Corbin

Professor Adolphus W. Mangum dies

Mangum, a Methodist minister who had taught mental and moral science, history and English since the reopening, died after a long illness. Josephus Daniels gave a memorial address in Gerrard Hall on May 31, 1891.

People: Josephus Daniels · Adolphus Williamson Mangum

Subject: Gerrard Hall

John W. Thompson of Cedar Grove becomes superintendent of the Orange County schools

John W. Thompson, a Cedar Grove teacher, took over the county schools from B. C. Patton in June 1890. He held the post until the board was abolished in 1895 and stayed on as supervisor under the county commissioners.

People: John W. Thompson

Alumni pledge an endowment for a chair of history

At the 1890 commencement banquet, alumni answered a call to endow a chair of history: Julian S. Carr pledged $10,000 and Judge James Grant offered to make up the balance. Battle then visited alumni in the larger towns to complete the fund.

People: Julian S. Carr · Robert W. Winston

Frederick Strudwick dies and Hillsborough holds a meeting in his honor

Strudwick died on 29 July 1890 after an illness of several months and was buried in the Hillsborough Cemetery. A special town meeting led by C. E. Parish was convened in his honor. Between the legislature and his death he had served as solicitor for the Fifth District for eight years.

People: Calvin E. Parish

Rector Joseph W. Murphy preaches a two-part history of St. Matthew's Parish

On St. Matthew's Day, Sunday, September 21, 1890, and again on October 5, Murphy gave his congregation a history of the parish drawn from diocesan journals and parish registers, from the revival of 1818-19 through the work of its six rectors. It was printed in Washington, D.C., in 1900.

Subject: St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church

James E. Fogartie is installed as pastor of New Hope and Chapel Hill

Fogartie was called to New Hope jointly with the Chapel Hill church. About the same time the synod's evangelists W. D. Morton and a Mr. Maxwell held a meeting at New Hope that added a number of members.

Subject: New Hope Presbyterian Church · University Presbyterian Church

The school board rebukes teachers who skipped Charles McIver's institute

Told that some teachers had not attended the state institute taught by Charles D. McIver, the board passed a resolution regretting their want of zeal and noting that attendance was required by law.

A church-run school carries on at the Bingham grounds near Mebane after Robert Bingham's move

When Robert Bingham took the Bingham School to Asheville in 1891, teaching did not stop at the old grounds near Mebane. For five years a school ran there under a church's name and control, with Herbert Bingham teaching and William Bingham's widow paying most of its costs.

Subject: Bingham School

A county farmer writes that merchants hold mortgages on most Orange farms

With tobacco and cotton prices falling, a yeoman farmer said Orange was "mortgaged to death," claiming merchants held liens on seven-tenths of the county's farms.

Benjamin Duke builds a country house at University Station

Durham tobacco industrialist Benjamin Duke built a large, richly trimmed country house at University Station in 1891. The site lay south of Hillsborough, where a railroad spur met the North Carolina Railroad. The retreat once took in a big pond, bridges, an office and many outbuildings; by 1993 most of these were gone, but the house with its wraparound porch was well kept.

Subject: University Station

Bennehan Cameron serves as a university trustee from Orange County

Bennehan Cameron, elected a trustee of the University of North Carolina in 1891 and listed from Orange County, served on the board until his death in 1925.

Bingham School leaves Orange County for Asheville

After fire destroyed the academic buildings and dormitories at the Mebane campus in December 1890, Robert Bingham moved the school to Asheville in 1891. Owen W. Bingham ran a separate school, the William Bingham School, at the Mebane site.

People: Robert Bingham

Subject: Bingham School

David G. Worth pays to refit Gerrard Hall with numbered chairs

David G. Worth of Wilmington gave $500 toward remodeling the university chapel, Gerrard Hall, where chairs replaced the old benches. Each student was given a numbered seat so monitors could report absences from morning prayers.

Subject: Gerrard Hall

Dickerson's Chapel remodels the old courthouse church

The AME congregation remodeled its building, the county's former courthouse, five years after buying it.

Subject: Dickerson Chapel AME Church

Dr. Abner B. Roberson buys the Central Hotel and moves his drugstore into it

After the hotel's owner, Jones Watson, died, Dr. Roberson bought the Central Hotel, moved his drugstore into it with Clyde Eubanks as druggist, and leased the hotel's management to 'Bunn' Patterson. Adam A. Kluttz opened a store called the Glass Front in the many-windowed west end of the building.

People: Jones Watson · Abner Benton Roberson · Clyde Eubanks · Adam Alexander Kluttz

Subject: Central Hotel (Chapel Hill)

Five Forks rivals Cedar Grove as a crossroads settlement

In 1891 the crossroads of Five Forks was probably as populous as Cedar Grove. Allen's flour and grist mill and Sharp's sawmill stood nearby, and a Dr. Murphy lived at the fork and likely kept a store. Riley School, Harmony Primitive Baptist Church and Mount Zion Church lay between Five Forks and Border.

George Tayloe Winston serves as president of the university

Elected president when Kemp Plummer Battle resigned in 1891, Winston led the university for five years, during which enrollment tripled to almost six hundred. In 1896 he left Chapel Hill to become the first president of the University of Texas.

People: Kemp Plummer Battle

J. Laws keeps a country store at Laws post office

In 1891 J. Laws ran a small country store at the Laws post office in northeastern Cedar Grove Township. Walnut Grove Methodist Church, Sartain School, G. W. Parker's sawmill and Hawkins's flour and grist mill stood nearby.

J. McAdams runs a mill and a country store near Border

Around 1891 J. McAdams operated a mill and a small country store near the Border post office in southwestern Cedar Grove Township.

John H. Watson serves four years as mayor of Chapel Hill

Watson, who had been mayor in 1883 and again in 1885 and 1886, held the office from 1891 through 1894, his longest run. A. S. Barbee followed him.

Julian S. Carr buys Poplar Hill south of the Eno and renames the estate Occoneechee Farm

The Norwood family sold Poplar Hill, the house James Hogg had built about 1794 on the south bank of the Eno, to the Durham industrialist Julian S. Carr, who renamed the property Occoneechee Farm. Carr enlarged and altered the house over the next three decades.

Subject: Occoneechee Farm

Laura Phillips sells the old Fetter house to Sarah Wellington

After Charles Phillips died, his widow Laura sold off much of the family's property, including the old Fetter house on East Franklin Street. Professors John Manning, Edwin A. Alderman and Edward Vernon Howell lived there in turn over the next years.

Mary Ann Smith's bequest endows the university's chemistry chair

Smith of Raleigh had willed half her estate to the university in 1861 for a chair of chemistry applied to the useful arts, with free tuition for needy students. When she died in 1891 after many years in an asylum, the university settled its claim for $37,000, and her name went to the Smith professorship of chemistry and later the Mary Ann Smith dormitory.

Nash and Kollock School closes as a boarding school

The Nash and Kollock boarding school closed at the end of its 1890 to 1891 session after thirty-one years. The Misses Nash and Kollock went on with a day school from August 6, 1891.

People: Sarah Kollock · Maria Nash

Subject: Nash and Kollock School

Orange County adopts a countywide road tax

Using an 1889 state act, the county laid a road tax of 7 cents per $100 valuation and turned the money over to the township supervisors. It ran for 1891 and 1892 before the justices forced its repeal.

Robert Allen Eubanks opens a general store on Franklin Street

Robert Allen Eubanks opened a general store in the Franklin Street building that Dr. Abner B. Roberson had left when he moved his drugstore into the Central Hotel. He kept the store until 1933.

The Farmers' State Alliance buys the old Hillsborough Military Academy grounds

The former academy property west of Hillsborough passed in 1891 to the Farmers' State Alliance, the statewide farmers' organization, which bought the land. A 1913 plat of the neighborhood labels the old barracks as the Farm Life School building.

Subject: Hillsborough Military Academy

Trustees elect Richard H. Battle secretary and treasurer of the university

At the 1891 commencement meeting the trustees elected Richard H. Battle of Raleigh, a trustee since 1879, secretary and treasurer of the university in place of the late William L. Saunders. He held the office until his death in 1912.

People: William L. Saunders

Trustee Paul C. Cameron dies

Cameron, who had held nearly two thousand people in slavery before emancipation, chaired the building committees for the 1875 repairs and for Memorial Hall and lent $8,000 to finish the hall. After his death his heirs accepted ten Cameron Scholarships, each giving one student free tuition, in settlement of the loan.

The school board hires D. H. Thompson to audit the sheriff's school accounts

Rather than sue, the board engaged Major D. H. Thompson to go through Sheriff Hughes's accounts of school money, hoping to settle the matter without a lawsuit.

Kemp Battle resigns the presidency to take the new chair of history

Battle told the trustees in February 1891 that he would leave the presidency at the end of the session after fifteen years, and he became professor of history in the newly endowed chair. The trustees adopted resolutions of thanks.

People: Kemp Plummer Battle

Hillsborough Methodist Church buys its first parsonage from C. M. Parks

The church bought about nine-tenths of an acre at Union and Churton streets, with a house that became its first parsonage. The trustees were H. N. Brown Sr., S. M. Gattis, J. A. Harris, O. J. Forrest and James Hedgepeth.

People: Samuel Mallett Gattis

Subject: Hillsborough Methodist Church

Julian S. Carr rebuilds the Occoneechee mineral spring with a marble basin and a rustic spring house

On his new Occoneechee Farm, Carr had the old mineral spring cleaned out and extended, set a marble basin in it, laid a cement floor and covered it with a rustic spring house with seats for visitors. The Orange County Observer described the finished work in September 1891.

Subject: Occoneechee Farm

Julian S. Carr nearly finishes a large stock barn at Occoneechee Farm

Carr's new stock barn at his Occoneechee plantation near Hillsboro was a brick and frame building 42 by 155 feet, with stalls for horses, mares and foals, storage for 500 tons of hay and an elevator.

Subject: Occoneechee Farm

Julian S. Carr builds a fieldstone gate wall at the entrance to Occoneechee Farm

Carr put up a stone gate wall at the farm entrance, two curving walls of fieldstone gathered on the farm, one on each side of the driveway, set with round pillars capped by stacked round stones. The Durham Daily Globe reprinted the Orange County Observer's description in December 1891.

Subject: Occoneechee Farm

Charles Baskerville plays fullback for Carolina

Baskerville was fullback and manager of the Carolina football squads of 1892, 1893 and 1894.

Collier Cobb joins the UNC faculty to teach geology

Cobb returned to Chapel Hill as assistant professor of geology and later headed the geology department. He taught at the university for forty years.

Harvey's Chapel AME Church is organized

Families who had met as a brush-arbor congregation bought land and founded Harvey's Chapel AME Church in 1892 on a ridge about three miles southwest of Hillsborough. Lefler and Wager dated it about 1903, named Avery Harvey and Harpy Elkins as organizers and the Rev. Sandy Aiken as first pastor, and listed it as a CME church, though it is AME.

Mildred C. Cameron gives St. Matthew's a new altar and reredos

Miss Mildred C. Cameron gave the altar and reredos in memory of Paul C. Cameron, Rebecca Graham and Pauline Sheppard.

Subject: St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church

Professor Walter Dallam Toy buys the Graves house and makes it a bachelors' hall

The widow of mathematics professor Ralph Henry Graves sold their West Franklin Street house to Walter Dallam Toy, who shared it with several other unmarried professors.

St. Paul AME congregation builds its present church on Merritt Mill Road

St. Paul AME, the first all-Black congregation in Chapel Hill, put up the church that still stands in 1892, across Merritt Mill Road from the site of its first building near the old Quaker school.

Subject: St. Paul AME Church

The Hillsborough Presbyterian Church is stuccoed and given Gothic windows and a shingled tower

In 1892 the 1816 brick church was covered with scored stucco and given pointed-arch windows, a gabled roof and a shingled entrance tower with a spire. A two-story rear wing was probably added at the same time.

Subject: Hillsborough Presbyterian Church

The Vance Daniel Farm is built

The Vance Daniel Farm was built about 1892 and was placed on the state Study List in July 1992 after the Chapel Hill Township survey.

The W. S. Guthrie family plot is enclosed with a cast-iron fence

The Guthrie plot in Section I has one of the most ornate iron fences in the cemetery, its gate cast with the family name, the date 1892 and a willow shading two lambs.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

The faculty delays fraternity membership to end a campus feud

After non-fraternity students threatened to take their grievances to the trustees and the legislature, President Winston and a faculty committee ruled that no student could join a fraternity until a year after matriculation. In 1896 the trustees set October of the sophomore year and forbade pledging in advance.

People: George Tayloe Winston

Watson and Pickard rebuild the Chapel Hill Hotel and add the University Inn Annex

With money from W. G. Peckham, a New York lawyer, John H. Watson and his partner W. W. Pickard tore down the old hotel except for the Polk apartment, rebuilt it, and added a large new section called the University Inn Annex.

People: John H. Watson

Subject: Eagle Hotel (Chapel Hill)

The new Glee Club gives its first concert

The Glee Club, formed in 1891 under Professor Karl P. Harrington, gave its first concert in Gerrard Hall and then toured Raleigh, Salem, Greensboro, Durham, Wilmington and other towns, giving its profits to the athletic association.

Subject: Gerrard Hall

Mount Adar Baptist Church dedicates its first building

Three years after organizing in a schoolhouse, Mount Adar dedicated a church built on land given by Fannie Hicks Christopher (Mrs. James Christopher), paid for with $520.99 in cash and $214.35 in work and materials. Dr. C. Davidson of the State Mission Board preached the dedication sermon.

Carolina's football team beats Virginia 26 to 0 at Atlanta

Under captain Michael Hoke the 1892 team lost only to Virginia in October and then beat Richmond College, Trinity, Alabama A. and M., Vanderbilt and, in a rematch at Atlanta, Virginia. Students met the team at University Station and pulled their carriages to the campus.

People: Charles Baskerville · George Tayloe Winston

A brass altar rail is given to St. Matthew's in memory of Mildred Cameron

At Christmas Miss Margaret Mordecai gave a brass altar rail in memory of Miss Mildred Cameron.

Subject: St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church

Adam A. Kluttz builds a brick store on East Franklin Street

Kluttz bought half an acre from the heirs of John Wesley Carr and began a brick building just west of David McCauley's store. In 1894 he moved his general merchandise business across the street into it; the building later carried the number 149 East Franklin.

People: Adam Alexander Kluttz

Baths and a sewer line are installed with the repair appropriation

With the $10,000 repair appropriation of 1893 the university planned baths and water closets in the basement of Smith Hall, under the library. By about 1895 bathtubs, shower baths and closets were in use there, with a sewer run into Chapel branch south of the campus, and the university had contracted for an infirmary cottage.

Subject: Smith Hall (Playmakers Theatre)

Bishop Lyman and his wife sell Sans Souci to Miss Ruffin

Bishop Lyman and his wife sold Sans Souci to a Miss Ruffin, who kept it until her death in the 1930s.

Subject: Sans Souci

Black families' homes on Lot 16 are razed and an Alpha Tau Omega cottage goes up

The houses of Jordan Weaver, a Black preacher, and of two other Black families who had built on the old Lot 16 were torn down, and a cottage for the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity was built on the lot facing the Episcopal church.

Dr. Richard H. Whitehead buys Robert Strange MacRae's drugstore

Dr. R. H. Whitehead, head of the revived medical school, bought MacRae's drugstore at Franklin and Henderson streets. By 1904 Pickard and Strowd's confection and grocery store was in the building.

People: Richard Henry Whitehead

Edwin Alderman leaves Greensboro to teach at the university

Alderman, an 1882 graduate of the university and a founder of the State Normal in Greensboro, accepted a teaching position at UNC in 1893.

Eno pastor W. F. Wilhelm dies of typhoid at the manse in Hillsborough, months after the church burns

A few months after the forest fire that destroyed Eno Church, its pastor died after eight weeks of typhoid fever. He was buried near the front door of the Hillsborough church.

Subject: Eno Presbyterian Church

Geology professor Collier Cobb builds a Queen Anne cottage on East Franklin Street

Collier Cobb built his house at 517 East Franklin Street in 1893 and enlarged it later that decade. With its pedimented front wing, Palladian window and curving porch, it is one of the first Queen Anne houses in Chapel Hill.

Lee's Chapel Baptist Church is organized

William H. Standfield organized Lee's Chapel Baptist Church, a Black congregation, and was its first pastor.

Robert L. Strowd runs a general store on Franklin Street

Robert L. Strowd had a general store in the building where Charles L. Lindsay had sold furniture, dry goods and groceries. In 1901 he bought the building and its lot from Adele Tankersley.

People: Robert L. Strowd

The legislature rejects a bill to strip the university of undergraduates

A bill drafted by Davidson College president Shearer would have abolished the university's four undergraduate classes over ten years. After a joint committee hearing at which President Winston defended the university, the General Assembly of 1893 instead voted it $10,000 for repairs.

People: George Tayloe Winston

The name Texas appears on William Spoon's map of Alamance County

William Spoon's 1893 map of Alamance County labels a road in northern Pleasant Grove Township the Texas Road and the section below it Texas, the earliest dated use of the community's name that Hazel found. The 1928 county map uses the name as well; its origin is unknown.

The university pipes well water to its buildings

Until 1892 only the chemical laboratory had running water, from a small tank and a hand pump. In the summer of 1893 water from a large well was pumped by steam into iron tanks in the attic of the South Building for use across the campus, though the supply proved too small.

Subject: South Building

University tennis players beat Virginia and join the Intercollegiate Tennis Association

The university's tennis champions beat the University of Virginia and Richmond College on their own courts, and the university joined the ten-member Intercollegiate Tennis Association as its only Southern member. D. R. Bryson and H. C. Bridgers placed fifth in doubles at New Haven.

Venable and student William R. Kenan Jr. demonstrate calcium carbide in Person Hall

Chemistry professor Francis P. Venable and student William R. Kenan Jr. demonstrated the industrial uses of calcium carbide, the source of acetylene gas, in Person Hall.

People: Francis Preston Venable

Subject: Person Hall

Forest fire destroys Eno Presbyterian Church

Wind-driven woods fires on Saturday, April 1, 1893 burned the Eno Presbyterian church and its session house at the old site near the river. The loss preceded the congregation's move to Cedar Grove, where it built again in 1897 to 1899.

Subject: Eno Presbyterian Church

The justices of the peace vote to repeal the county road tax

In joint session, a majority of the county's justices voted to end the alternative road system while every commissioner voted to keep it. After a second standoff in July, the commissioners gave way on August 8, 1893.

Fire destroys Major John W. Graham's house at Montrose

Major John W. Graham's house east of Hillsborough burned to the ground on the night of October 19, with almost nothing saved and no insurance on a loss of about $15,000. It was the second Graham house lost to fire on the Montrose site, after the governor's house in 1862; the family moved into the old law office until the present house was built.

People: John W. Graham

Subject: Montrose

Walnut Grove Methodist Church dedicates its frame church

The congregation began a frame church in 1891 on land given by Anthony W. Cole, replacing the log building it had used since the 1840s, and dedicated it on October 29, 1893. The frame church served until the stone church of 1937 to 1942.

Subject: Walnut Grove Methodist Church

A one-story brick store, a drug store by 1900, is built at 109 West King Street

The 1894 Sanborn map shows a smaller building on the lot at 109 West King Street; by 1900 the map shows a brick store much like the present one, labeled a drug store. It was a jeweler's in 1911.

Adam A. Kluttz buys the old Sam Phillips house and law office

After the owner, Margaret Miller, died, her only heir, Mary Jane Cooper, sold the old Sam Phillips house on East Franklin Street, with the old law office, to the merchant Adam A. Kluttz.

People: Adam Alexander Kluttz

Alphonso and Anne McDade buy the house later called the McDade House

The heirs of Isaac Hudson sold the western half of the original Lot 5 on West Franklin Street to Alphonso J. McDade and his wife Anne. The McDades never lived there and rented the house to their daughter Minnie and her husband, J. E. Merritt.

People: Alphonso J. McDade

Annie L. Hughes keeps Cedar Grove Academy

Annie L. Hughes carried on a Cedar Grove Academy from 1894 until 1915, a decade after the death of Samuel W. Hughes ended his Hughes Academy.

Subject: Hughes Academy (Cedar Grove Academy)

Colonel George Tate is allowed to sell his county map to school committees

The board gave Colonel George Tate, maker of a map of Orange County, leave to offer it for sale to the school committee of every district.

Dilsey Craig, enslaved in the household of professor James Phillips, dies

Dilsey Craig (1802-1894) and Ben Craig were enslaved by the family of mathematics professor James Phillips and lived in the brick kitchen behind 501 East Franklin Street. Dilsey remained with the family long after freedom, and a memorial marks her in the old Chapel Hill Cemetery.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Dixie Lee Bryant teaches at the summer school in Chapel Hill

Bryant, head of science at the State Normal and Industrial School in Greensboro, was on the faculty of the 1894 Summer School for Teachers and Students in Chapel Hill, teaching physical geography and botany.

Subject: University Summer School

Dr. Roberson adds a ten-room annex to the Central Hotel

Roberson enlarged the Central Hotel with a ten-room wing facing the campus. After his death in 1897 Kluttz ran the hotel for a short time before 'Bunn' Patterson took back its management.

People: Abner Benton Roberson

Subject: Central Hotel (Chapel Hill)

Frank Nash returns to Hillsborough to live and write

After breakdowns in health ended most of his Tarboro law practice, Frank Nash moved back to Hillsborough, where he had grown up at the Nash-Kollock school. He stayed about twenty years and began writing historical romances and local history.

James Long is elected to the county Board of Education after James Cole resigns

When James Cole left the Orange County Board of Education in 1894, James Long was chosen for the vacancy, a year before the legislature abolished the county boards.

The Masons leave their farm and a scholarship fund to the university

Mary Elizabeth Morgan Mason, who died in July 1894 a year after her husband James Pleasant Mason, left the university about 800 acres of Morgan family land near Chapel Hill. His $1,000 gift funded the education of poor students in the names of their daughters Martha and Varina, and their portraits were hung in the university library.

The University Magazine issues its Golden Jubilee number

In 1894 the University Magazine marked fifty years since its first issue with a Golden Jubilee number, prepared largely by faculty editor Collier Cobb and filled with articles on the university's history.

People: Collier Cobb · Kemp Plummer Battle · George Tayloe Winston · Stephen B. Weeks

The old Nunn tavern building reopens as the Patterson Hotel

Dr. Abner Benton Roberson bought from McDade the old building on the eastern half of Lot 5, once Nunn's tavern and inn and for some years the McDades' home. 'Bunn' Patterson remodeled it and added four or five rooms, and it opened as the Patterson Hotel, which did not last long as a hotel.

People: Abner Benton Roberson · Alphonso J. McDade

The university builds an infirmary

A small wooden infirmary of five rooms went up on the campus in 1894, where the college physician treated sick students. The 1893-94 catalogue had promised it before the next session, and it was replaced by the larger infirmary of 1907.

Subject: University infirmary (Abernethy Hall)

The university opens a Summer School for Teachers and Students to women and men

The four-week school under Edwin A. Alderman admitted both sexes for a $5 fee and enrolled seventy-five, with academic and teaching departments staffed by university professors and teachers from the State Normal and city schools. It was one of four summer schools the university ran that year.

People: Dixie Lee Bryant · Edwin Anderson Alderman

Subject: University Summer School

William Hooper's remains are taken from Hillsborough to Guilford Courthouse battleground

The remains of William Hooper, signer of the Declaration of Independence, were removed from his grave in Hillsborough's town cemetery and reburied at the Guilford Courthouse battleground near Greensboro. His original gravestone was left in the Hillsborough cemetery, on ground that had been his garden east of the house.

Subject: Old Town Cemetery, Hillsborough

Justices and commissioners hold their last joint meeting

At the final joint session the justices elected John Thompson county superintendent of common schools, chose D. H. Hamilton, W. A. Maddry and M. W. Moore as commissioners, and set the 1894 tax. It closed out the justices' part in running the county.

People: John W. Thompson

Daniel J. Currie is ordained and installed as pastor of the Chapel Hill Presbyterian Church

Daniel J. Currie came to Chapel Hill from seminary in Columbia in May 1894, was ordained by the presbytery that September and installed the next day. He served until 1902, when he resigned for a church at Dublin, Virginia.

Subject: University Presbyterian Church

George Trice advertises his oyster restaurant and shoe shop opposite the Chapel Hill Hotel

George Trice's advertisement in The Tar Heel offered fresh oysters three times a week, fries, stews, steaks and eggs, board at $10 a month, and neat shoe repairing at low cost, all at his place opposite the Chapel Hill Hotel.

Subject: Eagle Hotel (Chapel Hill)

Brodie Lloyd builds a rental house on Oak Avenue before the Alberta mill opens

The house at 307 Oak Avenue is one of very few in Carrboro older than the Alberta Cotton Mill and among the first investment houses of Brodie Lloyd, Thomas F. Lloyd's cousin; once the mill opened it was rented to its workers. Carpenter Thomas Clark and later his daughter and her husband, knitter Ben Williams, lived there from the 1920s.

People: Thomas Clark (Carrboro carpenter) · Brodie Lloyd

County commissioners take charge of the Orange County schools

From 1895 to 1897 Orange had no Board of Education or superintendent; the county commissioners ran the schools. John W. Thompson, superintendent before and after, returned in June 1897.

People: John W. Thompson

Dr. John S. Spurgeon buys the former Burwell School

The dentist paid Charles Parks $2,500 for lots 152 and 153. The Spurgeons, whose household included Carrie Waitt Spurgeon, daughter of a Burwell student, lived there for about seventy years and added electricity and plumbing.

Part of Orange County’s nineteenth-century academies · 116 events

Subject: Burwell School

President Winston ends support and the University Magazine stops

In 1895 President George T. Winston decided the university was not getting enough for its subscription, and the University Magazine stopped publishing until it was revived a few years later.

People: George Tayloe Winston

Princeton's Thomas Trenchard coaches Carolina to its best football season yet

The Athletic Association hired Thomas G. "Doggie" Trenchard, an 1893 Princeton all-American, and his team won seven games and tied one before losing again to Virginia. In February 1896 President Winston called off a planned tribute to the coach, saying he had been drinking and betting on games while in Chapel Hill.

People: George Tayloe Winston

The Alpha Theta Phi honor society enrolls the best scholars

Dr. Tolman, who taught at the University in 1893-94, introduced Alpha Theta Phi, a society open only to the best scholars; by spring 1895 nine members of the class of 1896 belonged. In 1898 Archibald Henderson was its president and E. K. Graham its secretary, and a few years later it merged into Phi Beta Kappa.

People: Archibald Henderson · Edward Kidder Graham

The county is divided into five school townships, each with a five-man committee

When the county commissioners took over the schools, the county was regrouped into five school townships (Cedar Grove, Little River, Hillsboro, Bingham and Chapel Hill), each run by a committee of five in place of the many district committees.

UNC gives Cornelia Phillips Spencer an honorary LL.D., its first honorary degree to a woman

The University of North Carolina awarded Spencer the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws in 1895, the first honorary degree it gave to a woman. She had moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, the year before to live with her daughter.

The school board cuts its per-child apportionment and ties teacher pay to attendance

With little of the last tax levy collected, the board lowered its planned $1.35 a child to $1.25 for the county's 4,814 children, $6,017.50 in all, and barred the superintendent from signing pay orders for schools averaging under ten pupils.

President Winston turns back a legislative effort to cut the university's funding

Two years after the move to confine the university to graduate study failed, church-college allies in the 1895 General Assembly tried to shrink its state appropriation; Winston rallied alumni legislators and prevailed after Populist leader Marion Butler came out for the university. Students met him at the west gate on his return and escorted his hired coach and four to a bonfire and celebration at Gerrard Hall.

People: Marion Butler

Subject: Gerrard Hall

Julian S. Carr's new club house at Occoneechee Farm is shown to an excursion from Raleigh

Julian S. Carr hosted students of the A. and M. College and their friends at Occoneechee Farm with a barbecue. The visitors toured his new rustic club house, with its stone fireplace, pool table, piano and a clock that played "Carolina."

Subject: Occoneechee Farm

Alfred Moore Waddell gives the oration at UNC's centennial celebration

Waddell, a Hillsborough native who studied at the university from 1850 to 1853, delivered the oration at the celebration of the University of North Carolina's centennial. It was printed in Wilmington that year as The Ante-Bellum University.

Alumni pledge money for an Alumni Hall at the centennial banquet

At the banquet marking a hundred years since the university opened, alumni and classes pledged gifts toward an Alumni Hall, led by Julian S. Carr with $3,000 and Thomas M. Holt with $1,000. The building, modeled on the Boston Public Library, had its cornerstone laid in 1898.

People: Julian S. Carr · Marion Butler · David Gaston Worth · Bennehan Cameron

Subject: Alumni Building

Stephen B. Weeks speaks on the university in the Civil War at its centennial

At the centennial anniversary exercises Weeks gave a long prepared address, 'The University of North Carolina in the Civil War,' in Memorial Hall on the evening of June 5, after Henry A. London; Alfred Moore Waddell and Adolphus H. Eller had reviewed earlier periods of the university's history that morning.

People: Alfred Moore Waddell · Henry Armand London

Subject: Memorial Hall

The county board of equalization raises every Little River Township assessment by a third

The three county commissioners, joined by one assessor from each township, sat as the board of equalization, compared the standards each of them had applied, and increased every assessment in Little River Township by one-third.

Albert Long, a Black man, joins the Hillsborough Presbyterian Church by letter from New Hope

Albert Long transferred his membership by certificate from New Hope Presbyterian Church, one of two Black members the book names as received after the Civil War.

Subject: Hillsborough Presbyterian Church

Anne Roulhac gives St. Matthew's an oak litany desk

Miss Anne Roulhac gave an oak litany desk in memory of her niece Katherine R. Hamilton.

Subject: St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church

Allen J. Ruffin and James H. Webb Jr. found the Eno Cotton Mill

Ruffin and Webb, both of old Hillsborough families, founded the Eno Cotton Mill on the north bank of the Eno west of town, chartered by special act of the General Assembly in 1896. It was the first textile mill in Hillsborough and in present-day Orange County.

Subject: Eno Mill

Charles S. Mangum returns to Chapel Hill as professor of physiology

Charles Staples Mangum, a son of university professor A. W. Mangum, came back to Chapel Hill in 1896 as the university's professor of physiology, two years after finishing medical training at Jefferson Medical College. He later became professor of anatomy.

People: Adolphus Williamson Mangum

Chemistry professor Charles Baskerville builds a Queen Anne house at 524 East Franklin Street

Charles Baskerville's house on East Franklin Street, going up in March 1896, hides two full stories behind a large polygonal entrance bay with a pyramid roof, trimmed with a turret, a balconied dormer and a gabled vent. Little calls it the most playful Queen Anne house in town. Baskerville bought the lot outright in 1905 and sold the house that year to chemist Charles Herty.

People: Charles H. Herty

Ebenezer Baptist Church is organized

Ebenezer Baptist Church was organized and built its first church in 1896, with Dalphus Crabtree as first pastor. A 300-seat building replaced it in 1952.

Edwin Alderman serves as president of the university

Alderman was named president in 1896 and held the office until 1900, when he left to lead Tulane University. His inauguration, first set for University Day 1896, was put off into 1897 because of that year's heated political campaigns.

Herbert Bingham becomes principal of the school on the Bingham grounds

Herbert Bingham, son of William Bingham, takes over as principal of the church-run school near Mebane in 1896, the fourth generation of the family to head a school in Orange County.

Subject: Bingham School

Herbert Bingham dies months after taking charge of the school

Herbert Bingham dies in the fall of 1896, only months into his time as principal near Mebane. His sister later named a scholarship at the school in his memory.

Subject: Bingham School

Hillsborough has its town pump water analyzed and the well cleaned

Chemist H. B. Battle tested the water of Hillsborough's town pump on Churton Street and found too much mineral matter. The well was then cleaned out and the trough, the likely cause of excess chlorine, taken away.

John W. Canada starts the Canada School in Chapel Hill

Soon after graduating from the university in 1896, John W. Canada organized a private school in Chapel Hill that prepared students for college. He ran it with his brother Charles, Sallie Wilson and a Miss Hendon until he left for Texas soon after 1900.

People: Louis Graves · Charles Edward Maddry · John William Canada

Joshua Gore's steam plant brings electricity to the campus and village

A steam engine near South Building drove a small dynamo and the pumps that filled the campus water tanks, and lines ran from it to university buildings and to shops, cafes and hotels in the village. Physics professor Joshua W. Gore planned the work; the library in Smith Hall got power late in 1896, and arc lights later went up along campus walks.

People: Joshua W. Gore

Subject: South Building

Joshua and Mrs. Gore leave the Chapel Hill Baptist Church and build Gore's Chapel

While the church had no pastor from 1895 to 1897, Dr. Joshua Gore and his wife moved their membership to Mount Carmel and built Gore's Chapel on a hilltop about two miles south of Chapel Hill, where they held services for years. Mrs. Gore and her sister kept a Sunday school there into the 1920s; the building later burned.

Subject: University Baptist Church

Six students found the Order of the Gorgon's Head

Edward Kidder Graham, then a junior, was one of six founders of the Gorgon's Head, a secret society of upperclassmen and professional students meant to promote fellowship across the fraternity divide.

People: Edward Kidder Graham

T. M. Jordan & Co. moves its drugstore at Caldwell to a new stand

Thomas M. Jordan and his brother Dr. Archibald C. Jordan ran a store and pharmacy at Caldwell. In 1896 the firm moved its stock of drugs from the old stand, and Jordan told customers he had moved the drugstore to West Caldwell.

Voters again elect Orange County's commissioners

From August 1878 the justices of the peace had chosen the county commissioners every two years under the 1877 act. In 1896 the choice went back to the voters.

A $3,000 gift turns the old gymnasium into Commons Hall

The trustees thanked Mrs. Francis Baker of New York for $3,000 to enlarge the 1885 gymnasium so the university could serve students table board at low cost. Her son Harry Lake was a student, and the building became Commons Hall.

The faculty sets study and conduct rules for athletes

After a disorderly fall term the faculty barred students neglecting their studies or on probation from the football and baseball teams, required parents' written consent, limited team absences to five days a year and made players pledge not to drink or gamble on trips.

People: George Tayloe Winston

A new state act restores the Orange County Board of Education under C. P. Burch

After two years of the commissioners running the schools, a legislative act brought back the county board with C. P. Burch as chairman and Albert Holmes and James Monk as members. Capt. John P. Lockhart took Monk's seat when he resigned, and the board made John W. Thompson superintendent again.

People: John W. Thompson

Clyde Eubanks buys Dr. Roberson's drugstore

When Dr. Roberson died, his druggist Clyde Eubanks bought the drugstore and kept it in the Central Hotel until 1901.

People: Abner Benton Roberson · Clyde Eubanks

Subject: Central Hotel (Chapel Hill)

Eno Cotton Mill begins production

Yarn production started late in the year.

Subject: Eno Mill

Eno Presbyterian builds at Cedar Grove

The replacement church was constructed over three years.

Subject: Eno Presbyterian Church

Fred Smith organizes a Knights of Pythias lodge in Chapel Hill

Captain Fred Smith, the branch-line train conductor, organized a lodge of the Knights of Pythias in Chapel Hill in 1897 while keeping his membership in the Goldsboro lodge he had joined about 1887. The order's rites were read at his grave in 1939.

Horace Williams buys the house at 610 East Rosemary Street

Williams bought the 1854 house built by the university chemistry professor Benjamin Hedrick and owned it until he died. Preservation Chapel Hill now has its offices there and opens the house to the public.

People: Benjamin Sherwood Hedrick

Subject: Horace Williams House

Joseph Hyde Pratt comes to North Carolina and settles in Chapel Hill

Pratt came to North Carolina in 1897 as state mineralogist and made his home in Chapel Hill for the rest of his life. He also lectured in mineralogy at the university.

President Edwin Alderman gives South Building a stone doorway copied from Westover

During his presidency Edwin Alderman added a carved stone pedimented doorway to South Building, modeled on the one at Westover, the colonial James River mansion in Virginia. With the new well temple, it was an early step toward the Colonial Revival that later ruled campus building.

People: Edwin Anderson Alderman

Subject: South Building

Preston Lewis Gray takes charge as church control of the Mebane school ends

In 1897 the church gives up its name and control of the school near Mebane, and Preston Lewis Gray, a Virginia lawyer married to William Bingham's daughter, becomes principal of what is again called the Bingham School. He was still running it on the old grounds in 1905.

Subject: Bingham School

Ralph H. Graves serves as University Librarian

After graduating from the university in 1897, Ralph H. Graves served as University Librarian at Chapel Hill until he left for New York in 1899. He took his master's degree there in 1898.

Subject: UNC Libraries

Samuel Paxson Watters serves nearly fifteen years as rector of St. Matthew's

Samuel Paxson Watters led the parish from 1897 until he resigned in October 1911. His wife, an invalid through most of those years, was counted among the most useful women in the diocese.

Subject: St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church

The Junior Order of United American Mechanics sets up a lodge in Hillsborough

A lodge of the Junior Order of United American Mechanics was set up in Hillsborough. It later moved to Carrboro and then to Chapel Hill, where it operated as Davie Council No. 52.

The Old Well rotunda is built

University president Edwin Alderman had the well's wooden cover replaced in 1897 with a rotunda of eight fluted Doric columns under a dome, modeled on the Temple of Love at Versailles and designed by registrar Eugene Lewis Harris.

Subject: The Old Well

The University Magazine is revived

The student literary magazine, suspended under President Winston, resumed in 1897 with S. S. Lamb as editor in chief, supported by the university and the two literary societies.

Subject: Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies

The university Dramatic Club takes its plays on tour

Directed by Professor Samuel May, the club staged London Assurance in Chapel Hill, Tarboro, Wilson and Wilmington and Modern Ananias in Chapel Hill, Winston-Salem, Greensboro and Reidsville.

The university begins intercollegiate debates with the University of Georgia

Debates with Georgia began about 1897 and were later joined by Vanderbilt and Johns Hopkins. On March 17, 1899, at Athens, E. D. Broadhurst and T. C. Bowie won the third annual Georgia debate, and through 1902 the university won seven of ten contests.

W. W. Pickard opens a livery stable at Franklin and Pine streets

Hotel man W. W. Pickard opened a livery stable on the northwest corner of Franklin and Pine streets. William J. 'Tank' Hunter bought it in 1910.

Work begins on the foundation of the Alumni Building

With about $7,000 of the alumni's $20,000 in pledges in hand, the trustees started the foundation and basement of a building for the president's, registrar's and bursar's offices and the physics and electrical engineering departments. Charlotte architect Frank Pierce Milburn drew the design, the first on campus planned for steam heat and electric lights.

Subject: Alumni Building

Edwin Alderman is inaugurated as president in Gerrard Hall

About a hundred legislators and Governor Daniel L. Russell rode a special train from Raleigh through sleet for the ceremony, where Kemp P. Battle presented Alderman and the new president spoke for an hour and a half on the university as the people's school. The lawmakers were made honorary members of the Di and Phi societies and met with school superintendents who had come to honor one of their own.

People: Daniel Lindsay Russell · Kemp Plummer Battle

Subject: Gerrard Hall

Trustees vote to admit women to the university's post-graduate courses

President Edwin Alderman persuaded the board to admit women, but the trustees voted down a broader motion to open all of the university to them. Alderman took the vote to cover junior and senior courses, so most early women came to Chapel Hill to finish degrees begun at other colleges.

UNC sets up a chair of pharmacy under Edward V. Howell

In March 1897 the trustees set up a chair of pharmacy and elected Edward Vernon Howell, beginning the department that became the School of Pharmacy. An earlier College of Pharmacy under Dr. T. W. Harris, begun in 1880, had been short-lived. In 1953 the school's dean was E. A. Brecht.

Subject: UNC School of Pharmacy

The Glee Club first sings the song that became Hark the Sound

William Starr Myers's verses, set to the campus tune "Amici" and first called "Hail to the Brightest Star," were sung by the Glee Club at a commencement concert. Printed in the 1907 Yackety Yack, the song became the university's anthem.

The class of 1897 gives the university a bust of Robert E. Lee

On Class Day the seniors presented a bust of Lee, which President Alderman accepted with a speech of praise, and the band afterward played Dixie.

People: Edwin Anderson Alderman · Robert E. Lee

The late William H. Jordan's home place in Cedar Grove Township is put up at auction

Under a court decree, Jennie Jordan McDade, executrix of William H. Jordan, offered his 260-acre home place at the courthouse door in Hillsborough to pay the estate's debts, subject to the life estate of his widow, Mary F. Jordan.

The university holds a memorial service for David Gaston Worth

Five days after Worth died, the university held a memorial service for him in Gerrard Hall, with a prayer by the Rev. N. H. D. Wilson and talks by Dr. John Manning, Kemp P. Battle and President Edwin A. Alderman, who said a tablet in Memorial Hall would bear his name.

People: John Manning · Kemp Plummer Battle · Edwin Anderson Alderman

Subject: Gerrard Hall

The school board tells township committees to build frame schoolhouses and stop patching log ones

The board urged every township committee to provide more comfortable frame schoolhouses and to spend nothing more repairing old log walls.

A new mill house on Center Street becomes the community's first school

The Alberta Cotton Mill built the house at 109 Center Street about 1898, apparently the first on that side of the street, and it was soon put to use as the village school. It went back to being a house when the Carrboro Public School opened on West Main Street about 1908.

Subject: Carrboro Elementary School