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Searched the full chronology of 6,171 dated events and 63 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1–11.Back to highlights
- Antebellum and Civil War · 1800–1865
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William Gaston serves as a trustee of the university
William Gaston sat on the university's board of trustees from 1802 until his death in January 1844, some forty-two years.
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The General Assembly restores the university's escheats
The bill passed the House 82 to 35 and the Senate 32 to 23, returning escheated property whose Tennessee land warrants later became the university's endowment. Maurice Moore, one of the first students, was among its strongest advocates.
People: Benjamin Smith · William Gaston
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Students move into the finished South Building
Subscriptions Caldwell gathered on tours of the state in 1809 and 1811, about $8,220, let contractor John Close finish the Main Building begun in 1798. Students moved in during 1814.
People: Joseph Caldwell · John Haywood · William Gaston
Subject: South Building
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Trustees meet in emergency session over the university's debts
With debts of about $37,500 and only some 82 paying students, a special meeting of trustees at Chapel Hill on June 21, 1830 called the whole board to Raleigh on July 19. There a committee under James Iredell reported on the finances, and the board adopted a memorial drawn by Thomas Ruffin asking the General Assembly for relief.
People: Joseph Caldwell · Willie P. Mangum · Thomas Ruffin · William Gaston
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Judge William Gaston predicts the end of slavery in a UNC commencement address
Gaston told the university's graduates and guests that slavery would be overthrown. The book says the audience applauded the speech but rejected its antislavery message.
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The Institute of Education names Gaston to a committee to petition the legislature on popular education
At its second meeting, held during the 1832 commencement, the North Carolina Institute of Education voted to memorialize the General Assembly on popular education and named William Gaston, Frederick Nash and David L. Swain to the committee.
People: Frederick Nash · David L. Swain
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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
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Duncan Cameron gives his son Paul C. Cameron forty-one enslaved people
Duncan Cameron deeded his son Paul C. Cameron forty-one enslaved people, with any children the women would bear: Gabriel, Mima, Simeon and Sarah in Orange County, and families at the Mill Quarter plantation in Person County, among them Phillip and Jenny and their children Randol, Jim, Ellen, Nancy and Phill. Cameron acknowledged the deed before Justice William Gaston at Raleigh on January 1, 1835.
People: Duncan Cameron · Paul C. Cameron · William Gaston
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A trustee committee under William Gaston makes the faculty's liquor rule a university by-law
In 1837 the faculty made it a dismissable offence to bring liquor into the college buildings or to be publicly drunk. A trustee committee chaired by William Gaston recommended that the rule become a by-law of the university.
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Frederick Nash of Hillsborough is appointed to the North Carolina Supreme Court
Nash was named to the Supreme Court in 1844, following William Gaston's death. Eight years later his colleagues made him Chief Justice.
People: William Gaston
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University trustees name the burying ground the College Graveyard
After Judge William Gaston died in 1844, faculty members asked the trustees for a separate burying ground in sight of the campus for eminent men of the university, starting with Gaston's body brought from Raleigh. The trustees let the petition lapse and in June 1845 named the existing ground the College Graveyard instead.
People: William Gaston
Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery
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Compiled and maintained by the Friends of the Orange County Public Library from county records, the sources named on each card, and the index’s event pages. Last updated October 2, 2026.
