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Reconstruction and the New South · 1866–1899
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James Lee Love wins the Phillips Mathematical Prize
The sons of Charles Phillips had offered a prize for the best sophomore in mathematics. Love's marks in trigonometry and analytic geometry so far outran the class that Professor Ralph H. Graves dropped the planned examination and gave him the prize on his year's record; it came at commencement as thirty dollars with a letter from William B. Phillips.
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Francis P. Venable keeps Chapel Hill's weather record for the federal government
In 1883 Venable was taking barometer, thermometer and humidity readings three times a day at Chapel Hill, with daily high and low temperatures, rainfall, wind and cloud, and reporting them to Washington. For about six weeks of June and July he had the student James Lee Love live in his house and keep the record for him.
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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.
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The class of 1884 holds its Class Day with a song written by Cornelia Phillips Spencer
In commencement week the class of 1884, with Love as president and Samuel M. Gattis as secretary, put on one of the university's early Class Day programs. W. G. Randall read a comic prophecy and Gattis a class history, and the class sang a song Spencer had written for it.
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The faculty revives the valedictory honor and gives it to James Lee Love
At the 1884 commencement the faculty brought back the old custom of naming a valedictorian for the best standing over the whole course and gave the honor to Love, who also won the Mangum Medal for his graduating speech, "The New North State." Memorial Hall was not finished, so his class was the last to graduate in Gerrard Hall.
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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.
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James Lee Love marries June Spencer at the Chapel Hill Presbyterian Church
Mathematics professor James Lee Love married June Spencer, Cornelia Phillips Spencer's daughter, in an afternoon service led by the Rev. Mr. Wilhelm, who then served both the Chapel Hill and Hillsborough Presbyterian churches. The couple went from the church to the train for a wedding trip to her birthplace in Alabama and on their return took rooms at Mrs. Thompson's house in Chapel Hill.
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James Lee Love becomes University Librarian and secretary of the faculty
In the 1886-87 session the mathematics professor James Lee Love took on the posts of librarian and secretary of the faculty, after representing the university in the merger of the literary societies' libraries with its own.
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The university begins leasing its Franklin Street land to faculty for houses
Because a federal court had ruled about 600 acres around the campus inalienable, the trustees leased a Franklin Street parcel to James Lee Love for fifty years, followed by leases to Charles Baskerville and Francis K. Ball. Later, on legal advice, such lots were sold outright to faculty members.
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The literary societies merge their libraries with the university's
The Philanthropic Society voted almost unanimously and the Dialectic 42 to 30 to join their books to the university library in Smith Hall, to be called the Library of the University of North Carolina endowed by the Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies and opened every weekday. Borrowing rose from 3,657 books in 1885-86 to 4,761 the next year.
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James Lee Love builds a house on East Franklin Street for his wife, June Spencer
Professor James Lee Love built the one-story house at 410 East Franklin Street in 1887, on the lot of the old president's house that burned the Christmas before, for his wife June, the only daughter of Cornelia Phillips Spencer. It is known as the Spencer House after his mother-in-law.
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Battle Lane is cut along the edge of the president's house lot
After the president's house burned, the eastern edge of its lot on East Franklin Street was opened as Battle Lane, and the rest of the eastern part was leased to Professor James Lee Love for fifty years at $15 a year.
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James Lee Love takes over the mathematics courses during Ralph Graves's last illness
When Professor Ralph H. Graves fell gravely ill, President Battle put Love in charge of mathematics. At George Winston's insistence a man was called from Johns Hopkins, and Love brought in his friend Mansfield T. Peed to take the freshmen while he taught the sophomores and juniors; after Graves died the trustees chose William Cain over Love for the chair.
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Sarah Welling's gift pays to repair the Chapel Hill Presbyterian belfry
A letter from Spencer in a New York church paper, offering to pass used reading on to poor families around Chapel Hill, brought a barrel of magazines and books from Mrs. Sarah Welling of Warwick, New York. Welling then stayed with the Loves for several weeks in January and February and left $100 for the Presbyterian church, which Love, a deacon, spent on repairing and painting the belfry.
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The university lets go its new professors of mining, teaching and biology
With the land-grant income moved to the new A. and M. College, the trustees could not pay the chairs added in 1885. William B. Phillips (mining and metallurgy), Nelson B. Henry (pedagogy) and George F. Atkinson (biology) left in the summer of 1888, and Love, assistant professor of mathematics, was kept one more year.
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James Lee Love leaves Chapel Hill for Harvard
Love left the university with his family in 1889 to teach mathematics at Harvard. His mother-in-law, Cornelia Phillips Spencer, stayed on in his East Franklin Street house.
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Cornelia Phillips Spencer leaves Chapel Hill to join her daughter in Cambridge
After finding a lump in her breast, Spencer packed and left Chapel Hill at the Loves' urging for surgery in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which succeeded. Since 1890 she had kept house alone in the Loves' Chapel Hill home with Rebecca Mason, a Black cook, and she had put off leaving until Dilsey Craig died; she did not live in Chapel Hill again.
Early twentieth century · 1900–1944
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Cornelia Phillips Spencer is buried in Chapel Hill beside her parents
The Loves brought Spencer's body back from Cambridge and buried her in Chapel Hill beside her parents and her brothers. Love writes that it was her first return to the town since she left in 1894.
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