Chronology

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1. Antebellum and Civil War · 1800–1865

2. 1801-1802
   Property or economic transaction · Chapel Hill The university raises money for the Main Building by lottery

   The legislature of 1801 let the trustees raise up to $4,000 by lotteries. Two drawings, the first of 1,500 five-dollar tickets and the second in 1802, cleared $5,080.81, though agents were slow to account for tickets.

3. spring 1803
   Law, policy or court · Chapel Hill A student duel brings expulsions and a trustee order against dueling

   Quarrels in the spring of 1803 led to challenges and at least one meeting. Samuel G. Hopkins was expelled for fighting and John H. Hawkins for acting as second, and the trustees ordered that anyone in a duel be expelled and handed to the civil authorities.

4. December 1805
   Law, policy or court · Chapel Hill Trustees repeal the monitor ordinance that set off the student secession

   The 1805 law made student monitors swear to report every breach of the rules, and forty-five students signed a remonstrance and left when it was only softened. The board repealed it unanimously in December, but few of the seceders came back.

5. December 1816
   Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill Joseph Caldwell is elected president a second time

   After William Neill and Lewis von Schweinitz declined the office, the trustees returned the presidency to Caldwell by a commission taking effect January 1, 1817.

6. 1831
   Property or economic transaction · Chapel Hill Trustees offer the university's Chapel Hill lands for sale

   Pressed by debt, the trustees named William Polk, James Mebane and James Webb to offer the unimproved university lands around Chapel Hill for sale. Only a small sum came in, from the sale of the Preparatory School acre; that school had been closed for more than ten years.

7. 1833
   Naming or commemoration · Gerrard Hall 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.

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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 1, 2026.