Chronology

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1. Reconstruction and the New South · 1866–1899

2. June 1885
   Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill The trustees enlarge the faculty from nine to fifteen

   Meeting in Raleigh, the trustees chose from several hundred applicants Thomas Hume for English, Walter D. Toy for modern languages, William B. Phillips for agricultural chemistry and mining and James Lee Love for mathematics. A faculty circular then announced postgraduate courses toward the A.M., Ph.M. and Ph.D., free of tuition to graduates of any college.

3. March 11-14, 1886
   Publication, speech or performance · 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.

4. December 25, 1886
   Disaster or outbreak · Chapel Hill Fire destroys the old president's house on Christmas morning

   The house Helen Hooper built, later home to Presidents Caldwell and Swain, burned the day after Professor Thomas Hume's family moved in. Fire spread from boxes and straw in an outbuilding, and Chapel Hill had no fire engine or ladder company to stop it.

5. 1887
   Property or economic transaction · Hume house, West Franklin Street, Chapel Hill Professor Thomas Hume buys the house across from the Baptist church

   Burned out of the president's house, Professor Thomas Hume bought the West Franklin Street house opposite the Baptist church. It had been home to the Baptist minister Needham Byron Cobb until the congregation turned its school building into a parsonage.

6. 1890-91 session
   Chapel Hill 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.

7. Early twentieth century · 1900–1944

8. May 10, 1905
   Naming or commemoration · 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.

9. June 4, 1907
   Appointment, election or service · Memorial Hall Kemp P. Battle and Thomas Hume retire on Carnegie pensions

   At the 1907 commencement President Venable announced the resignations of Kemp P. Battle, professor of history and former president, and Thomas Hume, professor of English, both placed on the Carnegie Foundation pension list.

10. Fall 1912
    Publication, speech or performance · UNC, Chapel Hill Alumni begin publishing the Alumni Review

    The alumni launched the Alumni Review, issued monthly during the college year, with Dean Edward Kidder Graham as an associate editor; his piece in the first issue memorialized his teacher Thomas Hume.

11. 1916
    Property or economic transaction · Hume house, West Franklin Street, Chapel Hill Bank cashier Milton E. Hogan buys the Thomas Hume house on West Franklin Street

    Milton E. Hogan, cashier of the Bank of Chapel Hill, bought the West Franklin Street residence of Dr. Thomas Hume. The house later passed to Caesar Cone, a fraternity and the University, and in 1943 held the high school.

12. Civil rights era · 1945–1975

13. June 1950
    Construction or physical change · Hume house, West Franklin Street, Chapel Hill The pre-Civil War Hume house is moved across the Chapel Hill High School grounds

    To clear ground for a new high school building, the pre-Civil War house known in turn as the Hume, Hogan and Cone house was put on rollers and moved to the west edge of the school lot, still facing Franklin Street, for use as offices and classrooms.

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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.