Chronology

Trustees vote to raise Old East a story and build Old West

At Caldwell's urging, and against the faculty's plea to spend on books and apparatus, the board voted to enlarge Old East, build Old West to match and start a new chapel, borrowing from banks against Tennessee land sales. Architect William Nichols ran the work, and the South Building's Prayer Hall became a chemistry laboratory.

People: Joseph Caldwell · Elisha Mitchell · William Nichols

Subject: South Building · Gerrard Hall · Old East · Old West

State architect William Nichols designs Old West and Gerrard Hall

In 1822 William Nichols, the English-born architect who was North Carolina's first state architect, drew Old West as a match for Old East and designed a new chapel, Gerrard Hall. Gerrard's south portico of four two-story Ionic columns made it the campus's first building in the Romantic Classical mode.

People: William Nichols

Subject: Gerrard Hall · Old West

Trustees name the new chapel Gerrard Hall

The trustees sold Major Charles Gerrard's 2,560-acre service tract in Tennessee for $6,400, voted $2,000 of it toward finishing the new chapel that had stood unfinished since about 1824, and resolved that the building be known forever as Gerrard Hall in his memory.

People: George E. Badger · William Polk · William Gaston

Subject: Gerrard Hall

Philanthropic Society has a cast made of Caldwell's features

In November 1835, at the Philanthropic Society's request, Caldwell's body was taken up so that the artist Alfred S. Waugh could make a plaster cast of his face. The bust made from it stands in Gerrard Hall.

Subject: Gerrard Hall · Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies

Gerrard Hall is finished and holds its first commencement

Gerrard Hall, the new chapel begun more than a decade earlier, was completed in 1837 under carpenter Thomas Waitt, and that year's commencement was held in it. The Raleigh Register described a roomy building with large galleries, and the old chapel, Person Hall, was soon given over to classrooms.

Subject: Gerrard Hall · Person Hall

Faculty appoints the first chief marshal of commencement

For the commencement of June 27, 1839, attended by every living former governor but one, the faculty named the first chief marshal, Thomas Davis Meares, who had led the Delphian seceders. The choice of marshal soon passed to the students.

Subject: Gerrard Hall

Elisha Mitchell preaches the university's first baccalaureate sermon

At the 1839 commencement Mitchell, chosen by the faculty, preached the first of the baccalaureate sermons to the graduating class. The choice of preacher was later given to the senior class.

Subject: Gerrard Hall

Graduates receive Bibles at commencement for the first time

The 1842 commencement was the first at which each member of the graduating class was given a Bible bearing the president's autograph, a custom still kept in 1907.

People: David L. Swain

Subject: Gerrard Hall

Mitchell demonstrates electromagnetic motion at commencement

When the 1842 society orator could not come, Elisha Mitchell showed the audience electromagnetic apparatus the university had just bought in Boston and produced rapid motion by magnetism alone. He judged that the cost of copper and zinc would keep it from competing with steam.

Subject: Gerrard Hall

Person Hall is partitioned into four classrooms

With Gerrard Hall now the chapel, the old chapel, Person Hall, was divided by thick walls and chimneys into four recitation rooms for the professors of Latin, Greek and rhetoric and the tutor of ancient languages.

Subject: Person Hall · Gerrard Hall

Morehead gives the Alumni Association address in Gerrard Hall

With no orator found from the class of thirty years before, the association's president, former governor Morehead, delivered the address at the meeting of 36 alumni in Gerrard Hall.

People: William A. Graham

Subject: Gerrard Hall

False alarm sets off a panic in the chapel at commencement

During the 1846 commencement someone shouted that the gallery was falling, and the packed crowd rushed for the doors while some jumped from windows, until President Swain, Governor Graham and other trustees calmed it. No one was hurt, and more pillars were placed under the galleries before the next commencement.

People: David L. Swain · William A. Graham

Subject: Gerrard Hall

Trustees let student church members worship at their own churches

Petitions from several denominations reached the board in December 1849 asking to ease compulsory Sunday worship in the college chapel. On January 4, 1850 the trustees voted down a broader plan and adopted Samuel F. Patterson's rule letting communicants attend the church of their choice while all others still attended chapel, a rule that stood about ten years.

People: David L. Swain · William Mercer Green · Samuel Finley Patterson

Subject: Gerrard Hall

Archbishop John Hughes preaches the commencement sermon

Invited again by the senior class, the Roman Catholic Archbishop Hughes preached the baccalaureate sermon, speaking without notes for an hour and three quarters on love of God and of neighbor. Some Protestant critics attacked the choice, and a Hillsborough Recorder correspondent charged that he was treated discourteously, which the university denied.

People: F. M. (Fordyce Mitchell) Hubbard

Subject: Gerrard Hall

Trustees allow students to be excused from chapel worship

Answering a memorial from the Episcopal convention that compulsory chapel on Sunday violated conscience, the trustees adopted Judge Matthias E. Manly's scheme letting the president excuse students whose parents lived in the village, who belonged to another church in town, or who or whose parents objected in writing. Morning and evening prayers stayed compulsory.

People: William Horn Battle

Subject: Gerrard Hall

Seniors in the army granted diplomas without examinations

With the consent of the trustees, the faculty granted degrees to all members of the senior class, though many had joined the army and did not stand their examinations. Only thirty of the eighty-seven graduates were present in person, and the Latin salutatory was dropped because its speaker was with his regiment at Yorktown.

Subject: Gerrard Hall

Commencement held without its ball or marshals

The ball managers told the trustees the seniors' ball could not be held unless the board gave $200 or $300, and the trustees did not answer, so it was omitted for the first time. A quarrel between seniors and juniors over the marshal left the commencement without marshals or music.

Subject: Gerrard Hall

James Phillips dies in the college chapel

On the morning of March 14, 1867, James Phillips went early to the college chapel to lead morning prayers and was found dead on the rostrum as the bell rang. He had taught at the university since 1826 and was buried in the Chapel Hill Cemetery.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery · Gerrard Hall

University Day is established

At Kemp P. Battle's request, seconded by Zebulon B. Vance, the executive committee made October 12, the anniversary of the laying of Old East's cornerstone in 1793, a permanent holiday. At the first observance in Gerrard Hall, decorated by Cornelia Phillips Spencer and village women, Battle spoke on the charter and the cornerstone.

People: Zebulon B. Vance · Cornelia Phillips Spencer · Kemp Plummer Battle

Subject: Gerrard Hall · Old East

Randall speaks on North Carolina folklore at commencement

Graduating with the class of 1884, Randall was class prophet at the Class Day exercises in the Chapel and gave the commencement speech 'North Carolina Folk Lore', which met with unusual applause.

People: Samuel Mallett Gattis

Subject: Gerrard Hall

The annual YMCA convention meets at Chapel Hill

The Young Men's Christian Association's annual convention met at Chapel Hill, with sessions in Gerrard Hall, reports from associations around the state and a Sunday talk to townspeople in the Baptist church. Professor J. W. Gore was chosen its president.

People: Thomas Hume

Subject: Gerrard Hall · University YMCA

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

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

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

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

Gerrard Hall is renovated and its south portico torn down

Gerrard Hall got a new roof and interior: chairs replaced the pews, the old doors were walled up and two new doors opened on the east. The decaying south porch and its columns were pulled down.

Subject: Gerrard Hall

The Leonidas Polk Chapter of the UDC holds Confederate memorial exercises

On May 10, 1905, the Leonidas Polk Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy held memorial exercises in Gerrard Hall, reading the roll of students who had served in the Confederate army. Children and adults then carried flowers to decorate soldiers' graves in the village cemetery.

People: Thomas Hume

Subject: Gerrard Hall · Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Chapel Hill holds a memorial service for Cornelia Phillips Spencer

Cornelia Phillips Spencer died in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on March 11, 1908. On May 17 the university held a service in her memory in Gerrard Hall, opening with the hymn she wrote for the 1875 reopening.

People: Collier Cobb · Kemp Plummer Battle

Subject: Gerrard Hall

Gerrard Hall is refitted and daily chapel resumes for every undergraduate

With money Venable got from the legislature, Gerrard Hall's interior was renovated so that all undergraduates fit, and Dean Graham set a half-hour program before noon with ministers, faculty, trustees and other guest speakers. Upperclassmen had been excused from chapel for want of seats.

People: Edward Kidder Graham · Francis Preston Venable

Subject: Gerrard Hall

Woodrow Wilson speaks in Gerrard Hall on Robert E. Lee's centennial

On January 19, 1909, the university marked the hundredth birthday of Robert E. Lee in Gerrard Hall, with Princeton president Woodrow Wilson as the speaker.

People: Francis Preston Venable

Subject: Gerrard Hall

Orange County holds a Fourth of July war rally on the UNC campus

At the Governor's request the UNC Summer School invited the county to its July 4, 1918 celebration, and at least 3,000 people came for a parade, a flag raising and S. M. Gattis's address in Memorial Hall. The county Council of Defense met in Gerrard Hall, and Adolph Vermont's pageant on French-American friendship played in Battle's Park.

People: M. C. S. Noble · Adolph Vermont · J. Cheshire Webb · Samuel Mallett Gattis

Subject: Gerrard Hall · Memorial Hall · University Summer School · Battle Park

The university Woman's Association holds a Thanksgiving peace festival

To pay for layettes and other war relief, the Woman's Association planned a Thanksgiving Peace Celebration: a Gypsy Festival moved by rain into the Y.M.C.A., ending with a pageant in Gerrard Hall. It raised $350, $150 of it for the United War Fund.

Subject: Gerrard Hall · University YMCA

A memorial service for President Graham fills Gerrard Hall

Every seat in Gerrard Hall was taken for the formal memorial service for Edward Kidder Graham, held after the epidemic had eased. Horace Williams and R. D. W. Connor spoke, and J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton read a tribute from C. Alphonso Smith.

People: R. D. W. Connor · J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton · Henry Horace Williams

Subject: Gerrard Hall

Frederick Koch reads A Christmas Carol in Gerrard Hall

Koch brought his annual reading of Dickens's A Christmas Carol to UNC when he arrived in 1918. The Raleigh News and Observer described a 1919 reading in Gerrard Hall, with carols by university singing groups in the two intermissions, and he gave the reading 39 times on the UNC campus.

Subject: Gerrard Hall

Students open the Graham Memorial fund drive in Gerrard Hall

At a student rally led by Albert Coates, with William H. Bobbitt and Luther Hodges also speaking, students and faculty pledged $20,000 toward a building now budgeted at $150,000. The drive reached about $70,000 by its June deadline and $120,000 by the end of 1919.

People: Albert Coates · William H. (William Haywood) Bobbitt · Luther H. Hodges

Subject: Gerrard Hall · Graham Memorial

Gerrard Hall memorial service for Marvin H. Stacy

Students, faculty and friends met in Gerrard Hall to remember Stacy, who had died of influenza on January 21. Former president Francis P. Venable, a childhood friend, and Albert Coates for the students spoke.

People: Francis Preston Venable · Albert Coates

Subject: Gerrard Hall

Tuskegee principal Robert Russa Moton speaks in Gerrard Hall

Moton, Booker T. Washington's successor at Tuskegee Institute, told his campus audience that he accepted social separation of the races and promised good relations so long as whites gave Black people education and industrial fairness.

Subject: Gerrard Hall

George Washington Carver speaks in Gerrard Hall

The Tuskegee scientist visited the campus, speaking from the platform of Gerrard Hall and showing a display at the YMCA, without the outcry that met James Weldon Johnson's classroom visits two years later.

Subject: Gerrard Hall

Kay Kyser takes over the UNC campus band from Hal Kemp

Kay Kyser, a UNC student and cheerleader who could not read music, took over leadership of the campus dance band in 1926 when Hal Kemp graduated. The new band held its first rehearsal in Gerrard Hall.

Subject: Gerrard Hall

Nash renovates South Building and adds its portico

Nash carried out the renovation of South Building and added the portico in 1926 and 1927, part of his remodelling of older campus buildings that also took in Old East, Old West and Gerrard Hall.

Subject: South Building · Gerrard Hall · Old East · Old West

Langston Hughes reads in Gerrard Hall after Contempo prints "Christ in Alabama"

Milton Abernethy of Contempo invited Langston Hughes to Chapel Hill and printed his Scottsboro poem "Christ in Alabama" in the issue dated December 1, timed to appear days before the visit. Hughes spoke and read to students and townspeople in Gerrard Hall on the night of November 19, 1931.

People: Guy Benton Johnson · Langston Hughes

Subject: Gerrard Hall

Albert Coates convenes the Institute of Government's first statewide school for public officials

About six hundred officials and citizens from nearly every county came to Chapel Hill for a two-day meeting Coates had promoted all summer. Frank Graham opened the Friday evening session in Gerrard Hall and Harvard law dean Roscoe Pound gave the closing address on Saturday, when the organizing committee approved hiring Coates as director with a staff.

People: Frank Porter Graham · O. Max Gardner

Subject: Institute of Government · Gerrard Hall

Catholics organize a congregation in Chapel Hill

The Catholic Church of Chapel Hill was organized under its first priest, Francis J. Morrissey. With no building of its own, it held services in Gerrard Hall on the university campus.

Subject: Gerrard Hall