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Searched the full chronology of 6,171 dated events and 63 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1–6.Back to highlights
- Antebellum and Civil War · 1800–1865
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Trustees add a professorship of rhetoric and logic
Counting on money from Tennessee land warrants, the board created a chair of rhetoric and logic and an adjunct chair of moral philosophy over one dissenting vote. Shepard K. Kollock took the rhetoric chair in the fall of 1819, and critics complained that the faculty was filling with Presbyterian ministers.
People: Joseph Caldwell · Denison Olmsted
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Denison Olmsted begins teaching chemistry at Chapel Hill
Appointed in November 1817 to the university's new professorship of chemistry, Olmsted spent a year studying with Benjamin Silliman at Yale and began teaching at Chapel Hill in the fall of 1819. He stayed until the end of 1825, when Elisha Mitchell succeeded him.
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Professor Denison Olmsted buys the Widow Puckett house on East Franklin Street
In 1820 Denison Olmsted bought the two-story Federal house and lot at 501 East Franklin Street from the Puckett family. From 1826 it was home to the family of mathematics professor James Phillips.
People: James Phillips
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Professor Denison Olmsted is hired to make the state's geological survey
The Board of Agriculture, created in 1822, was allowed in 1823 to employ someone to survey the state's geology and minerals at $250 a year. It chose Olmsted, whose published report Battle thought probably the first of any state, and Elisha Mitchell later carried on the work.
People: Elisha Mitchell
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Trustees send Caldwell to Europe to buy books and scientific instruments
Acting on Caldwell's February 1824 plea that the university could not go forward without books and apparatus, the trustees set aside $6,000, half for each, and accepted his offer to buy them abroad at his own expense. He wrote from London on August 31, 1824, after visiting booksellers and instrument makers and touring Scotland.
People: Denison Olmsted
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Trustees take over Denison Olmsted's house for the professors of chemistry
When Olmsted resigned in December 1825 to teach at Yale, the trustees bought at cost the house he had purchased from Mrs. Puckett for $1,300 and repaired. The lot was set apart for the professors of chemistry, and the house was later the home of James Phillips and then of President Venable.
People: James Phillips
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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.
