Chronology

Nancy Hilliard's family moves from Granville County to Chapel Hill

William and Lucy Walker Hilliard moved their family, including their daughter Nancy, from Granville County to Chapel Hill in 1817. She later kept the village's main hotel for students and travelers.

The Lambda chapter of Phi Kappa Sigma is active at the university

Phi Kappa Sigma's Lambda chapter flourished at the university from 1856 to 1862, and many members served as Confederate officers. After the 1875 reopening it was the first fraternity to be reinstated.

Andrew Mickle refuses to raise his prices as Confederate money falls

Andrew Mickle was prospering as a merchant when the Civil War began, but he held that it was wrong to raise his prices when his neighbors could hardly get money. As the currency fell he sold his goods for much less than cost and lost his fortune.

Part of Orange County during the Civil War, 1861–1865 · 150 events

A trustee committee including Albion W. Tourgee finds the university not bound to pay its bank debt

On Edward Cantwell's motion the Reconstruction trustees named Cantwell, Justice E. G. Reade and Albion W. Tourgee to inquire into the university's debts. Their report held that the university was not legally or equitably bound to pay its debt to the bank, since it could not buy bank stock on credit, and that the Cameron and Swain debts should be scaled down.

Part of The university closes and reopens · 78 events

Reconstruction trustees vote down admitting women

The executive committee of the new Republican board of trustees recommended co-education, but the full board refused to admit women as students.

Part of The university closes and reopens · 78 events

Trustees vote to found a university branch for Black students near Raleigh

On Victor C. Barringer's motion the Reconstruction trustees called for a school for Black students near Raleigh equal to the one at Chapel Hill, and on Albion W. Tourgee's motion made it a branch of the university, with Tod R. Caldwell moving that at least 100 acres be bought. Nothing came of it, nor of a later proposal to give Black students a third of the land-scrip money or of Tourgee's request for equal white and Black departments under one board.

Part of The university closes and reopens · 78 events

People: Tod Robinson Caldwell · Albion W. Tourgee

Cornelia Phillips Spencer describes the emptied campus and village

In a letter to the Sentinel written under the Old Poplar, Spencer described the shut buildings and reported that nearly twenty of Chapel Hill's leading families were leaving and six places now sold liquor openly. She named the departing faculty, among them Judge William H. Battle, and called the town the Deserted Village of the South.

People: Cornelia Phillips Spencer · William Horn Battle

Court strikes down the act for a state-built railroad to Chapel Hill

An 1869 plan had the state build a line from the North Carolina Railroad to Chapel Hill through commissioners, paid for with $300,000 in state bonds. When the commissioners chose Henry C. Thompson as president over Governor Holden's choice, Holden refused to sign the bonds, and in the University Railroad Company's suit against him the court held the act unconstitutional over Judge Reade's dissent.

Part of Railroads through Orange, 1849–1900 · 82 events

People: William W. Holden

Subject: North Carolina Railroad

University treasurer puts the land-grant fund into railroad bonds later repudiated

Treasurer Robert W. Lassiter invested the $125,000 land-scrip fund in North Carolina bonds, including $160,000 face value of special tax bonds issued for the Western North Carolina Railroad. The legislature repealed the acts behind those bonds on March 8, 1870, and the fund earned nothing until 1875.

Federal court dismisses the state's suit to void the university's bank mortgage

The Reconstruction trustees had the state sue in the United States Circuit Court, returnable at the June 1869 term, to cancel the university's mortgage to the Bank of North Carolina, but Judges Hugh L. Bond and George W. Brooks dismissed the bill for want of jurisdiction. On July 20, 1871 the trustees present advised against an appeal.

The Pool faculty holds its first commencement

After a first term that began March 3, the university reported on June 10, 1869 three sophomores and seven freshmen and gave an A.B. to Abdel Kader Tenney. At the thinly attended commencement Governor William W. Holden argued for educating both races in one university, whites at Chapel Hill and Black students elsewhere.

People: Solomon Pool · William W. Holden

Bursar reports the plundering of university property

Professor David Settle Patrick reported that when exercises were suspended in 1868 many in Chapel Hill believed the university's property belonged to the people. Books had been taken from the libraries and tools carried off, and only some had been returned.

Trustees refuse land for a Black school in Chapel Hill

The Chapel Hill school committee of Morgan Closs, W. H. Bunch and H. C. Andrews asked the trustees for two acres on the Pittsboro Road next to the Hubbard lot for a school for Black children, saying friends of education would pay for a schoolhouse. The board declined because the land was under mortgage.

Part of Building the public schools, 1868–1920 · 192 events

Historical society reorganized at the university's 1870 commencement

During commencement on June 8 and 9, 1870, a meeting with Professor Alexander McIver in the chair organized the North Carolina Historical Society with Col. John H. Wheeler as president and McIver as secretary and treasurer. A committee was named to recover from Eleanor H. Swain the books and manuscripts the society claimed.

People: Alexander McIver

The trustees vote to suspend the university's exercises and stop faculty salaries from February 1

On the motion of the Rev. James Reid of Franklin County, the Reconstruction board of trustees voted on December 1, 1870, to suspend the university's exercises until further orders, and on James B. Mason's motion fixed February 1, 1871, as the day the faculty's salaries ended. The same day President Solomon Pool laid before the board a plan to lease the Chapel Hill property and bring the state's colleges under the university, which its committees dropped on February 1.

People: Solomon Pool · James Augustus Graham · James B. Mason

McIver moves that the faculty step aside for the university's revival

At a faculty meeting without President Pool, McIver offered a resolution that no member wished to stand in the way of reviving the university, since the faculty lacked public confidence. It passed with McIver and Patrick for and Brewer against.

Part of The university closes and reopens · 78 events

People: Solomon Pool

Alumni meet in Raleigh to plan the university's revival

At the invitation of trustees led by Superintendent Alexander McIver, fifty-five alumni met in the state Senate chamber with B. F. Moore in the chair. Their committee proposed that the alumni association nominate a new board for the Board of Education to appoint, but most of the 1868 trustees did not resign and the plan lapsed.

People: Alexander McIver · William A. Graham · William Horn Battle · Richmond Mumford Pearson · Bartholomew F. Moore

State educational convention calls for reviving the university

A convention called by the State Board of Education, with B. F. Moore presiding, resolved that the university should be revived as soon as practicable. It added that the revival was impossible except on a basis impartial between denominations and political parties, after Braxton Craven, Thomas H. Pritchard and A. W. Mangum argued over church representation.

People: Robert Bingham · Adolphus Williamson Mangum · Thomas Henderson Pritchard · Bartholomew F. Moore

Lightning strikes the Davie Poplar

Lightning split the Old Poplar's bark from top to bottom while the university was closed, and its friends took it as an omen, but the tree survived. It then measured 14 feet 6 inches around at two feet above the ground, and Cornelia Phillips Spencer wrote a lament for it in a Raleigh paper.

People: Cornelia Phillips Spencer

Subject: McCorkle Place (with the Davie Poplar)

A constitutional amendment returns the election of university trustees to the General Assembly

An amendment taking the election of the university's trustees from the governor-controlled Board of Education and giving it back to the General Assembly became part of the state constitution in August 1873, after a vote of the people and a two-thirds vote of a second legislature. Friends of the university had first carried it through the General Assembly in 1871 by the required three-fifths, the credit going to two alumni and brothers-in-law, the Democrat Montford McGehee and the Republican Richard C. Badger.

Nancy Hilliard, longtime Chapel Hill hotel keeper, dies

Nancy Segur Hilliard, whose family moved to Chapel Hill in 1817 and who fed students and stage travelers for decades, died on November 8, 1873. Cornelia Phillips Spencer appealed to alumni to help her in her last illness and to pay for her burial and a modest monument.

People: Cornelia Phillips Spencer · Nancy Hilliard

Commissioner's report keeps the campus and 600 acres for the university

Commissioner George H. Snow inspected Chapel Hill in the summer of 1874 with trustees Paul C. Cameron, John Manning and Kemp P. Battle, and on Judge Bond's advice to be liberal the court left the university its campus, faculty houses, libraries and 600 acres. The outlying land, including about seventy acres at Piney Prospect, was sold, and Cameron bought the parcels along with the escheated mountain lands to secure his sister Mildred Cameron's debt.

People: Paul C. Cameron · John Manning · Kemp Plummer Battle

James A. Graham serves on the university's board of trustees

James A. Graham was one of only two members of the Reconstruction board elected again to the new board of trustees in 1874, and he served until 1883 and again from 1885 to 1889. In May 1875 he sat on the five-man committee whose plan for reopening the university the trustees adopted.

The General Assembly elects sixty-four trustees, who organize under William A. Graham with Kemp Battle as secretary and treasurer

By an act of January 28, 1874, the legislature elected sixty-four university trustees by joint ballot, only two of them from the Reconstruction board, and fourteen of them men removed in 1868. The new board first met on February 18, 1874, in the Citizens National Bank in Raleigh, elected William A. Graham of Hillsborough its president and Kemp P. Battle its secretary and treasurer, named an executive committee, and the next day sent a committee to inspect Chapel Hill, after Governor Tod R. Caldwell declined to preside because he held the legislature had no power to elect trustees.

People: William A. Graham · Kemp Plummer Battle · Paul C. Cameron · John Manning · Tod Robinson Caldwell · William L. Saunders

Walter Steele and Paul Cameron inspect the derelict campus and Solomon Pool refuses to surrender the keys

On April 3, 1874, trustees Walter L. Steele and Paul C. Cameron came to Chapel Hill for the new board. Solomon Pool declined their written request for the keys and possession of the buildings, since the governor had not recognized the board, but let them inspect as visitors. Their report to the trustees on April 9 described broken doors and fallen plaster, the lower passage of Old West fouled by cattle and horses, rotted gates and axe-scarred oaks, 7,490 books in the Dialectic library and 6,901 in the Philanthropic, and recommended an immediate suit against Pool for possession.

People: Paul C. Cameron · Solomon Pool · William L. Saunders · James B. Mason

Subject: Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies · Old West

The new trustees sue Solomon Pool and Alexander McIver at Orange Superior Court and win possession of the university in the Supreme Court

At the May 1874 term of Orange Superior Court the new board brought one action against Superintendent Alexander McIver, who held the university's seal and books and had agreed to a friendly test suit, and another against Solomon Pool for the buildings. Judge Albion W. Tourgee ruled against the trustees; John W. Graham and James A. Graham of Hillsborough argued for them without fee, as did B. F. Moore and William H. Battle on appeal in June 1874. At its January term 1875 the state Supreme Court decided for the university on every point, and possession passed to Andrew Mickle, the board's agent, with the seal, books and papers going to Treasurer Kemp Battle.

People: Solomon Pool · Kemp Plummer Battle · Alexander McIver · John W. Graham · Andrew Mickle · Albion W. Tourgee · Bartholomew F. Moore · James Augustus Graham · William Horn Battle

Federal court rules the campus cannot be sold for the bank debt

In the suit of Charles Dewey, assignee in bankruptcy of the Bank of North Carolina, to sell the university's property under its mortgage, Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite with Judges Hugh L. Bond and George W. Brooks held the debt valid. They ruled that neither the trustees nor a creditor could sell the property that made up the life of the institution, as distinct from its endowment.

Bartholomew F. Moore gives $1,000 toward reopening the university

Moore's $1,000 was among the largest gifts on the list of subscriptions paid in 1875 for the revival of the university.

John W. Carr gives $100 toward reopening the university

John W. Carr of Chapel Hill paid $100 to the subscription of nearly $20,000 raised to revive the university in 1875, alongside $500 from his son Julian S. Carr of Durham.

Part of The university closes and reopens · 78 events

People: Julian S. Carr

Senator Calvin E. Parish votes for the grant that lets the university reopen

Parish was among the senators who voted to pay the university $7,500 a year, the interest on its land-grant fund, the grant that let it reopen its doors in 1875. Orange County's representatives Matthew Atwater and Joseph W. Latta voted for it in the House.

The reopened university adopts an honor pledge on examinations

From the reopening each student signed a pledge that he had neither given nor received help on an examination, and a student convicted of cheating had to leave. Battle says cheating had been widely tolerated before 1868.

Women's groups give scientific apparatus to the reopened university

At the board's request Cornelia Phillips Spencer gathered gifts of instruments from women around the state, including Plateau's apparatus from the pupils of the Nash and Kollock school in Hillsborough. The women of Hillsborough gave a Holtz electrical machine in memory of William A. Graham, which Paul C. Cameron presented at the 1877 commencement.

People: Cornelia Phillips Spencer · Paul C. Cameron · William A. Graham

Subject: Nash and Kollock School

Historical Society of North Carolina is incorporated

The legislature chartered the Historical Society of North Carolina, chiefly so it could receive the books and papers of the old university society held by President Swain's widow, with William A. Graham as its first president and Cornelia Phillips Spencer among the incorporators. Eleanor Swain refused to give up the papers until she later found proof that the bound books belonged to the society.

People: William A. Graham · Cornelia Phillips Spencer

Trustees adopt a six-college plan and set aside ground for athletics

The trustees adopted Kemp P. Battle's committee report to reopen the university on the first Monday of September with colleges of agriculture, engineering, natural science, literature, mathematics and philosophy, meant to satisfy the 1862 land-grant act. They also reserved the eastern part of the campus along the Raleigh Road for athletics and a parade ground.

People: John Manning · Kemp Plummer Battle

Kemp Battle's subscription drive raises $20,167 and Paul Cameron repairs the campus for the reopening

After the trustees on May 5, 1875, appointed a committee to seek gifts for the revival, Kemp P. Battle canvassed Raleigh, Goldsboro, Rocky Mount and Tarboro in person and the rest of the state by letter, reporting $18,787 in six weeks and $20,167 in twelve, at a total expense of $62.66; Zebulon B. Vance and Charles W. Broadfoot collected in Charlotte and Fayetteville, and women's groups sent scientific apparatus through Cornelia Phillips Spencer. Paul C. Cameron, without contractor or pay, spent the summer at Chapel Hill directing the repairs and reported on August 31 that he had spent $10,677.76 on the buildings and $2,249.09 on gas works and apparatus.

People: Kemp Plummer Battle · Paul C. Cameron · Cornelia Phillips Spencer · Zebulon B. Vance · Washington Caruthers Kerr · Rufus Lenoir Patterson

Rufus L. Patterson moves a loan to repair the university buildings and offers to stand surety

At the trustees' reorganization meeting, Patterson moved that the treasurer be allowed to borrow $5,000 if needed to repair the Chapel Hill buildings, and volunteered to be surety for the university.

People: Kemp Plummer Battle · Paul C. Cameron

Andrew Mickle becomes bursar of the reopened university

Electing the reopened university's professors, the trustees broke with the old practice of making a professor bursar and chose Andrew Mickle, the Chapel Hill merchant who had acted as their agent, at $400 a year. He held the post until he left to live with his children in Texas in the early 1880s.

People: Andrew Mickle

Trustees burn the repudiated railroad bonds

As the act restoring the land-scrip fund required, trustees B. F. Moore, David M. Carter and Kemp P. Battle burned 160 special tax bonds of $1,000 each issued for the Western North Carolina Railroad, with Seaton Gales as witness. In return the state had given the university its bond for the $125,000 fund, paying $7,500 a year.

People: Kemp Plummer Battle · Bartholomew F. Moore

The Dialectic and Philanthropic societies meet again

On the evening of the reopening celebration the two literary societies were revived, the Dialectic called together by its last secretary, Thomas M. Argo, with Judge William H. Battle as temporary president. William L. Saunders, who had kept the Philanthropic Society's books since its last meeting in 1868, called that society together.

People: William Horn Battle · William L. Saunders

Subject: Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies

Francis D. Winston is the first student to arrive for the reopening

Battle names Francis Donnell Winston of Bertie County the first student on the Hill in 1875, arriving a day ahead of other entrants with his brother Robert and Charles Bond. Bond was the only student to enter the agricultural department on opening day, and Battle calls him the first student of the first college of agriculture in the state.

People: Francis D. Winston · Robert W. Winston

Chapel Hill's commissioners accept a new Caldwell Street

A short street named Caldwell was laid off along the east side of the old president's-house square and accepted by the town commissioners. Until then the square had been undivided.

Faculty dismisses five students for a mock revival meeting

During a revival in a village church, a group of students staged a burlesque meeting with mock sermons, and the faculty dismissed five of them despite petitions from townswomen and both literary societies. When classmates marched the five out of town, Charles Phillips stopped the procession at his house and turned it back, and four of the five later returned and graduated.

People: Charles Phillips

The university begins keeping Washington's Birthday as a holiday

The reopened faculty set the precedent of a holiday on February 22, and the literary societies later chose a Washington orator for the day. At the first or second observance Francis D. Winston displayed a battered hatchet he claimed had felled the cherry tree.

People: Francis D. Winston

Subject: Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies

Former professor William Hooper dies at Chapel Hill

William Hooper, who had brought his bride to Chapel Hill in 1816 to teach at the university, died on August 25, 1876 after a trip to Philadelphia for a meeting of descendants of the Declaration's signers. At his request he was buried beside his mother and her second husband, President Joseph Caldwell, and in 1904 the remains were moved to the new Caldwell monument.

People: Joseph Caldwell

Professor William H. Smith publishes a guide to collecting specimens

William H. Smith, professor of natural history, issued a pamphlet with directions for skinning and preserving birds and mammals and for keeping reptiles, insects, plants, rocks and soils, to build up the university museum. Battle calls it probably the first such guide in the state.

James Cole Taylor works as an assistant at the state experiment station in Smith Hall

James C. Taylor and William B. Phillips, Chapel Hill graduates of 1877, worked as assistants at the state's fertilizer control and experiment station at the university, with W. Warnecke of Germany and A. D. Mickle of Chapel Hill. The station had four rooms in Smith Hall.

People: William Battle Phillips

Subject: Smith Hall (Playmakers Theatre)

McIver heads mathematics at the university's summer normal schools

Then principal of the Greensboro graded schools, McIver was chief of the mathematics department at the 1877 Summer Normal School in Chapel Hill and taught mathematics, English grammar and physiology at the 1878 session.

People: Kemp Plummer Battle

Subject: University Summer School

State experiment station opens at Chapel Hill

After Kemp P. Battle pressed for it with the State Grange and farm societies, the legislature created a Board of Agriculture, taxed commercial fertilizers and placed an experiment station at the university, whose trustees elected Albert R. Ledoux its chemist in 1877. Working in Smith Hall it analyzed fertilizers, seeds, soils and waters until it moved to Raleigh in 1881.

People: Kemp Plummer Battle · Washington Caruthers Kerr

Subject: Smith Hall (Playmakers Theatre)

Fire guts Person Hall

Person Hall, the old chapel finished in 1798 and recently given to the chemistry department, burned on February 6, 1877, apparently from a stovepipe set too close to a roof rafter. The thick walls stood, the loss came to about $1,000, and gifts from A. F. Redd, J. S. Carr and others paid to restore it. By mid-April workmen under a Hillsborough builder had raised a new roof and new window frames on the old walls.

People: Julian S. Carr · Samuel (Samuel Field) Phillips · Samuel Field Phillips

Subject: Person Hall

Latin salutatory and valedictory orations are dropped from commencement

A month after the Person Hall fire the university abolished the Latin Salutatory and Valedictory speeches, though for several years the top graduate was still called the valedictorian.

Charles F. Deems preaches the commencement sermon and receives an honorary degree

At the 1877 commencement, Deems, then pastor of the Church of the Strangers in New York, preached the baccalaureate sermon, and the university conferred on him the honorary Doctor of Laws.

The reopened university graduates its first class

At the 1877 commencement five men took degrees, William Battle Phillips of Chapel Hill a Ph.B. and Julian M. Baker, Frank M. Fremont, Joseph C. Powell and James C. Taylor the B.S. The 1876 commencement had had no graduates.

People: James Cole Taylor · William Battle Phillips

University Day is established

At Kemp P. Battle's request, seconded by Zebulon B. Vance, the executive committee made October 12, the anniversary of the laying of Old East's cornerstone in 1793, a permanent holiday. At the first observance in Gerrard Hall, decorated by Cornelia Phillips Spencer and village women, Battle spoke on the charter and the cornerstone.

People: Zebulon B. Vance · Cornelia Phillips Spencer · Kemp Plummer Battle

Subject: Gerrard Hall · Old East

Bartholomew F. Moore leaves the university $5,000 for scholarships

Moore, who died in November 1878, left the university $5,000 by will to fund scholarships. Battle later reported three young men studying on the Moore scholarships.

Bursar Andrew Mickle helps poor teachers through the university's summer normal school

At the summer normal school the university lent its dormitories and bedding and let teachers cook for themselves, so that many lived on $4 or $5 a month. Andrew Mickle, the school's business agent, worked tirelessly to advise and help those who needed it.

People: Kemp Plummer Battle

Teachers at the Normal School form a State Teachers' Association

Teachers attending the 1878 University Normal School organized a State Teachers' Association with Kemp P. Battle as president and began forming county associations. They also petitioned the legislature to continue the school.

People: Kemp Plummer Battle

Subject: University Summer School

William L. Saunders becomes secretary of the university, and later its treasurer as well

After Seaton Gales died in 1878, the trustees chose Saunders as the university's secretary; once President Battle gave up the treasurership, Saunders held both offices, which he kept until his death in 1891.

People: Kemp Plummer Battle

Summer Normal School offers the state's first kindergarten training

Emily M. Coe of New York taught a class of teachers the kindergarten method at the university's 1878 Summer Normal School, with 53 children drilled daily. Battle believed it the first normal kindergarten class in North Carolina; the session enrolled 402 teachers, 190 of them women.

People: Kemp Plummer Battle

Subject: University Summer School

Three men hanged for a string of Chapel Hill burglaries

In 1878 a band of four broke into houses in and near Chapel Hill, among them the Rev. G. W. Purefoy's on the night of August 5, and wounded the widow Margaret Hendon with an axe blade while trying to rob her. Albert Atwater, a Black man held for a lesser offense, confessed and named two white men and a Black man, Jim Carlton, Davis and Henry Andrews, who were convicted at the October 1878 term of Orange Superior Court and sentenced to death. They were hanged after the governor refused a pardon or commutation, probably in the spring of 1879: Battle dates the hanging April 16, 1878, months before the arrests.

People: William P. Mallett

Legislature extends Normal School benefits to women

The 1877 act limited state money for the Summer Normal School to men, though women attended by invitation. When the two-year act ran out it was renewed with the restriction as to sex removed.

Subject: University Summer School

Baptist minister James P. Mason speaks at University Day

At the 1879 University Day exercises, after President Kemp Battle's historical address, short talks were given by the Rev. Joseph Blount Cheshire, the Rev. James Pleasant Mason, the Methodist minister Mr. Heitman and several professors.

People: Kemp Plummer Battle · Joseph Blount Cheshire Jr.

Charles F. Deems starts the Deems Fund for student loans

Deems sent the university $300 to begin a fund lending both principal and interest to students on security, in memory of his son Theodore Disosway Deems, who was born in Chapel Hill and killed at Gettysburg. William H. Vanderbilt later added $10,000 through him.

Robert F. Hoke serves as unpaid superintendent of the State University Railroad

As the branch from University Station toward Chapel Hill got under way, university president Kemp P. Battle became president of the railroad company and General Robert F. Hoke its superintendent, both without salary. John Holt managed the convict work force and Captain Fry was the civil engineer.

Part of Railroads through Orange, 1849–1900 · 82 events

People: Kemp Plummer Battle

Subject: University Station

Seniors begin the class tree and Class Day custom

The class of 1880, led by its president Thomas H. Battle, planted a sugar maple at the edge of the Forbidden Ground after Class Day speeches that included one by Charles B. Aycock. Later classes kept the custom, planting a water oak in 1882 and a white pine in 1883.

People: Charles B. Aycock · Locke Craig

State convicts build the University Railroad

Governor Thomas J. Jarvis supplied state convicts at low hire to grade the line from University Station to Chapel Hill, while the Richmond and Danville company laid the rails. A white convict was shot dead while fleeing, and a Black convict named Fries died of gangrene after a whipping by the road's managers, which the solicitor found no ground to prosecute.

Part of Railroads through Orange, 1849–1900 · 82 events

People: Kemp Plummer Battle · Alexander Boyd Andrews · Robert F. Hoke · Thomas Jordan Jarvis · Frederick N. Strudwick

Subject: University Station

The student YMCA first takes part in commencement

The 1880 commencement opened with an address to the Young Men's Christian Association by the Rev. F. C. Woodward of Elizabeth City, the association's first part in commencement exercises. By 1884 it met regularly in its own hall in South Building.

Subject: University YMCA · South Building

The literary societies agree to stop hazing

The Dialectic and Philanthropic societies adopted a joint rule, under heavy penalty, against entering another student's room against his will, laying hands on him or otherwise annoying him. It held for several years before hazing resumed in disguise.

Subject: Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies

Commencement celebrates the railroad's arrival, and Battle calls Hoke its father

At the 1882 commencement an hour was set aside in Gerrard Hall to celebrate the railroad's coming to Chapel Hill. Kemp P. Battle told the history of the line and called General Robert F. Hoke the source of the enterprise and the father of the State University Railroad Company.

Part of Railroads through Orange, 1849–1900 · 82 events

People: Kemp Plummer Battle · Paul C. Cameron · Thomas Jordan Jarvis

Subject: Gerrard Hall

Joshua W. Gore joins the university as professor of natural philosophy and engineering

The trustees unanimously chose Joshua Walker Gore, a Virginia-born civil engineer who had studied at Richmond College, the University of Virginia and Johns Hopkins, to succeed Carey D. Grandy as professor of natural philosophy and engineering. He was the first appointee in years to take permanent charge of the subject.

Horace Williams earns a master's degree at the university

Williams entered the state university at Chapel Hill in 1879 and in 1883 took both the B.A. and an M.A. His M.A. and William Battle Phillips's Ph.D., conferred at the same commencement, were the first advanced degrees the reopened university granted for further study. Before 1875 any graduate could receive the A.M. three years after the B.A.

People: William Battle Phillips

William Battle Phillips receives the university's first doctorate after the reopening

In 1883 William Battle Phillips, one of the five graduates of 1877, received a Doctor of Philosophy, the first doctorate in Battle's list of degrees granted since the 1875 reopening.

People: William Battle Phillips

Governor Jarvis promises a commencement crowd a hall large enough for all

With Gerrard Hall overflowing at the 1883 commencement, President Kemp Battle asked Governor Thomas J. Jarvis to promise a bigger building, and Jarvis made the promise to applause. He backed the plan at the next trustees meeting and offered bricks from the state penitentiary on easy terms, and the project became Memorial Hall.

People: Kemp Plummer Battle

Subject: Gerrard Hall · Memorial Hall

Election fight splits the Philanthropic Society

A quarrel over whether two South Building students could join the Philanthropic Society at the last meeting of a term, in time to swing its election, led some members to secede in 1884, and a split nearly followed in the Dialectic. Professors Winston and Manning could not bring the seceders back.

People: John Manning · George Tayloe Winston

Subject: Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies

Francis P. Venable brings tennis to Chapel Hill

Venable laid out a tennis court in the grove south of his house about 1884, when sport at the university was otherwise limited to casual baseball and an old-style kicking football.

People: Francis Preston Venable

Governor Jonathan Worth's portrait is given to the university

At the 1884 commencement John Manning presented an oil portrait of Worth on behalf of the late governor's grandsons, recalling his nearly thirty years as a university trustee. President Battle accepted it, Governor Jarvis spoke, and the portrait was hung beside those of Davie, Caldwell and Swain.

People: John Manning · Kemp Plummer Battle · Thomas Jordan Jarvis

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.

People: Samuel Mallett Gattis · James Lee Love

Subject: Gerrard Hall

Students and Black residents nearly come to blows on election night in Chapel Hill

While votes were being counted on the night of a Chapel Hill election in 1884, a young Black man from the country tried to trip a student, and students and Black townspeople gathered on both sides before the crowd broke up with little harm. Students afterward whipped Eli, a Black man who waited on the West Building, for cheering the other side.

The University Summer Normal School holds its last session

The eighth and last session enrolled 305 teachers, after which the legislature divided the $2,000 yearly appropriation among four normal schools chosen by the Board of Education. Battle counted 2,480 enrollments at Chapel Hill from 1877 through 1884.

People: Kemp Plummer Battle

Subject: University Summer School

The university makes Governor Jarvis a doctor of laws

At the 1884 commencement, his last as governor and president of the trustees, Jarvis received an honorary LL.D. and told the graduates that they were the university. Kemp Battle said the university owed him more than any other man for its railroad, Memorial Hall and money in times of need.

People: Kemp Plummer Battle

Alumni build the university's first gymnasium off university land

After the dancing ban, a chartered Gymnasium Association sold $10 shares to alumni and built a hall 110 by 45 feet on its own land, rented to the university for exercise and used for the 1885 commencement ball. The building later became Commons Hall, the student dining hall.

People: Julian S. Carr · Robert Bingham · Isaac Hall Manning · Richard H. Lewis · David Gaston Worth

The General Assembly adds $15,000 a year to the university's support

An Act for the Maintenance of the University, introduced by Lee S. Overman and passed by the House 58 to 32, added $15,000 a year, payable quarterly. Because the $2,000 normal school grant was moved to other schools, the net gain was $13,000, and the act also ended the rule that county scholarship students must teach.

People: Kemp Plummer Battle · Lee S. Overman

The faculty requires most students to join a literary society

A faculty law made membership in the Dialectic or Philanthropic Society compulsory for all students except those in medicine, law, graduate and special study, and barred non-members from rooming in university buildings without permission.

Subject: Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies

The trustees allow fraternities at the university

On a petition from Alpha Tau Omega, Kappa Alpha and Phi Kappa Sigma, the faculty recommended and the trustees granted the admission of all Greek-letter societies, on condition that they give the faculty their members' names and pledge to serve no liquor at banquets in Chapel Hill.

The trustees bar dancing from university buildings

Pressed by church members who opposed the modern dance, the trustees prohibited the commencement ball in Smith Hall or any other university building. Battle welcomed the ban because he wanted Smith Hall kept as a library.

People: Paul C. Cameron · Kemp Plummer Battle

Subject: Smith Hall (Playmakers Theatre)

Emile Alexander de Schweinitz is awarded a Doctor of Philosophy degree

At the 1885 commencement, held in the newly dedicated Memorial Hall, the university conferred the Ph.D. on de Schweinitz, who became a government chemist and a professor in Washington.

Subject: Memorial Hall

The trustees elect Nelson B. Henry to a new chair of the science and art of teaching

Using the new appropriation, the trustees filled a chair of the science and art of teaching with Nelson B. Henry of Missouri, and the university opened a normal department with a teachers' course. Winston later called it the first chair of pedagogy in North Carolina or any Southern university.

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.

People: Thomas Hume · James Lee Love

Mary Ruffin Smith dies and leaves the university a Chatham County plantation

Smith, daughter of the Orange County doctor and congressman James S. Smith, left about 1,500 acres in Chatham County to the university to educate poor students, the Francis Jones Smith Fund. She left small bequests to people formerly enslaved in her household and most of her estate to the Episcopal Church, with Kemp Battle as executor.

People: Kemp Plummer Battle · Mary Ruffin Smith

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.

Subject: Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies

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.

People: Charles Baskerville · James Lee Love

Professor John DeBerniere Hooper dies

Hooper, a first-honor graduate of 1831 who taught French, Latin and then Greek at Chapel Hill before and after the war, died soon after resigning in 1885 because of failing health. Student Solomon C. Weill taught his Greek classes until Eben Alexander arrived.

People: Eben Alexander

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.

People: Thomas Hume · Joshua W. Gore

Subject: Gerrard Hall · University YMCA

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.

People: George Tayloe Winston · James Lee Love

Subject: Smith Hall (Playmakers Theatre) · UNC Libraries · Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies

The Charleston earthquake shakes Chapel Hill

The earthquake that wrecked Charleston rattled windows and moved bottles on the shelves of the chemical laboratory at Chapel Hill without doing damage. Some students in the New East Building fled outdoors.

Students hold the first of a series of gymnastic contests

On Thanksgiving Day students competed on the horizontal and parallel bars, ladders, Indian clubs and swings and in a half-mile race, a tug of war and a high jump, with Francis P. Venable calling the events. It was the first of a series of such contests.

People: Francis Preston Venable

Francis D. Winston becomes a trustee of the university

Francis D. Winston of Bertie County, a member of the class of 1879, was elected a trustee of the university in 1887. Battle's list of trustees, compiled in 1912, shows him still on the board.

Stephen B. Weeks publishes a register of the Philanthropic Society

Stephen Beauregard Weeks, class of 1886, published a 72-page catalogue of Philanthropic Society members since 1795, with a short history of the society and notes on members' careers.

Subject: Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies

Stephen B. Weeks teaches as the university's instructor in English

For the 1887-88 session the university made Stephen B. Weeks, who had just taken his master's degree, its instructor in English, while Claudius Dockery became instructor in Latin.

The legislature moves the land-grant income from the university to a new A. and M. College

After a campaign led by Leonidas L. Polk, the General Assembly of 1887 took the $7,500 yearly land-scrip interest from the university for a separate Agricultural and Mechanical College at Raleigh, leaving the university $20,000 a year. A House bill to cut that to $12,500 was tabled, and the university dropped pedagogics, mining engineering, animal breeding and practical horticulture.

People: Kemp Plummer Battle

Judge Walter Clark gives the annual address at the 1888 commencement

Chosen by the Philanthropic Society, Walter Clark gave the annual address on the Wednesday of the 1888 commencement, speaking on the opportunities before young men and the duties that came with them.

Subject: Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies

Stephen B. Weeks receives the university's first doctorate in English

At the 1888 commencement Weeks was the one candidate for the Doctor of Philosophy, with a thesis on 'The Maid of France and Schiller Versus Shakespeare.' It was the first doctorate given in English at the university.

Cornelia Phillips Spencer compiles a catalogue of every student since

For the 1889 centennial the university issued a general catalogue of students from 1795 to 1889, prepared by Cornelia Phillips Spencer after long correspondence and checked by Eben Alexander. It held 5,422 names, with Battle's sketches of the university's history.

People: Eben Alexander · Kemp Plummer Battle

Membership in the literary societies becomes voluntary

For many years every student had to join the Dialectic or Philanthropic Society. As the law, medical and pharmacy students grew in number and unwilling members disrupted meetings, joining was made voluntary in 1889.

Subject: Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies

The YMCA takes charge of regular gymnasium training

The trustees accepted a YMCA plan to put gymnasium exercises on a system, with each student paying a small fee, and Lacy L. Little, a recent honor graduate and former football captain trained at Springfield, was hired as trainer.

Subject: University YMCA

William Cain is elected to head mathematics and engineering

To succeed Ralph H. Graves the trustees elected William Cain of the South Carolina Military Academy, an author on bridge building, which let the faculty begin teaching civil engineering at little added cost.

Chapel Hill's new Methodist church is dedicated

During the centennial commencement Bishop W. W. Duncan preached at night in the new Methodist church, a collection cleared its $800 debt, and the church was dedicated.

Subject: University United Methodist Church

The university celebrates the centennial of its charter

Alumni from Colorado to Florida filled Memorial Hall for a roll call of classes back to 1824, then sat down to a banquet for three hundred in Gerrard Hall with delegates from Harvard, Yale, Virginia and other schools. The reunion led to an annual alumni banquet, branch alumni associations and a drive to endow a chair of history.

People: Kemp Plummer Battle

Subject: Memorial Hall · Gerrard Hall

Mathematics professor Ralph Henry Graves dies

Graves, head of mathematics since the reopening, fell into deep depression, sought treatment in Baltimore and took his own life. His widow raised their four children in Chapel Hill and sent the sons through the university.

Chapel Hill physician William Peter Mallett dies

Mallett, the village's leading doctor, who had lived in Chapel Hill for more than thirty years, died in the fall of 1889.

People: William P. Mallett

Students start the Chapel Hillian newspaper

A student paper called the Chapel Hillian appeared, edited by F. H. Argo and S. A. Ashe Jr. It gave way to two rival papers, the White and Blue of the non-fraternity men and the Tar Heel of the fraternity men, and the Tar Heel outlasted its rival.

The trustees ban intercollegiate athletic contests

After disputes with other colleges, the faculty in 1889 limited games to college grounds, and in 1890 the trustees forbade intercollegiate contests altogether. A student petition won repeal, with athletics put under an advisory committee of a professor, a graduate student and an undergraduate.

The university starts a student medical fee

Each student paid $5 a year for medical care without further charge. The university's infirmary building followed in 1894.

Subject: University infirmary (Abernethy Hall)

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.

William James Battle publishes a register of the Dialectic Society

The Dialectic Society catalogue, edited by William James Battle, was published in 1890. Its 168 pages hold a history of the society, members' recollections and sketches of members since 1795.

People: Richard H. Battle

Subject: Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies

Professor Adolphus W. Mangum dies

Mangum, a Methodist minister who had taught mental and moral science, history and English since the reopening, died after a long illness. Josephus Daniels gave a memorial address in Gerrard Hall on May 31, 1891.

People: Josephus Daniels · Adolphus Williamson Mangum

Subject: Gerrard Hall

Alumni pledge an endowment for a chair of history

At the 1890 commencement banquet, alumni answered a call to endow a chair of history: Julian S. Carr pledged $10,000 and Judge James Grant offered to make up the balance. Battle then visited alumni in the larger towns to complete the fund.

People: Julian S. Carr · Robert W. Winston

Mary Ann Smith's bequest endows the university's chemistry chair

Smith of Raleigh had willed half her estate to the university in 1861 for a chair of chemistry applied to the useful arts, with free tuition for needy students. When she died in 1891 after many years in an asylum, the university settled its claim for $37,000, and her name went to the Smith professorship of chemistry and later the Mary Ann Smith dormitory.

Trustees elect Richard H. Battle secretary and treasurer of the university

At the 1891 commencement meeting the trustees elected Richard H. Battle of Raleigh, a trustee since 1879, secretary and treasurer of the university in place of the late William L. Saunders. He held the office until his death in 1912.

People: William L. Saunders

Trustee Paul C. Cameron dies

Cameron, who had held nearly two thousand people in slavery before emancipation, chaired the building committees for the 1875 repairs and for Memorial Hall and lent $8,000 to finish the hall. After his death his heirs accepted ten Cameron Scholarships, each giving one student free tuition, in settlement of the loan.

Kemp Battle resigns the presidency to take the new chair of history

Battle told the trustees in February 1891 that he would leave the presidency at the end of the session after fifteen years, and he became professor of history in the newly endowed chair. The trustees adopted resolutions of thanks.

People: Kemp Plummer Battle

The faculty delays fraternity membership to end a campus feud

After non-fraternity students threatened to take their grievances to the trustees and the legislature, President Winston and a faculty committee ruled that no student could join a fraternity until a year after matriculation. In 1896 the trustees set October of the sophomore year and forbade pledging in advance.

People: George Tayloe Winston

The new Glee Club gives its first concert

The Glee Club, formed in 1891 under Professor Karl P. Harrington, gave its first concert in Gerrard Hall and then toured Raleigh, Salem, Greensboro, Durham, Wilmington and other towns, giving its profits to the athletic association.

Subject: Gerrard Hall

Carolina's football team beats Virginia 26 to 0 at Atlanta

Under captain Michael Hoke the 1892 team lost only to Virginia in October and then beat Richmond College, Trinity, Alabama A. and M., Vanderbilt and, in a rematch at Atlanta, Virginia. Students met the team at University Station and pulled their carriages to the campus.

People: Charles Baskerville · George Tayloe Winston

Baths and a sewer line are installed with the repair appropriation

With the $10,000 repair appropriation of 1893 the university planned baths and water closets in the basement of Smith Hall, under the library. By about 1895 bathtubs, shower baths and closets were in use there, with a sewer run into Chapel branch south of the campus, and the university had contracted for an infirmary cottage.

Subject: Smith Hall (Playmakers Theatre)

The legislature rejects a bill to strip the university of undergraduates

A bill drafted by Davidson College president Shearer would have abolished the university's four undergraduate classes over ten years. After a joint committee hearing at which President Winston defended the university, the General Assembly of 1893 instead voted it $10,000 for repairs.

People: George Tayloe Winston

The university pipes well water to its buildings

Until 1892 only the chemical laboratory had running water, from a small tank and a hand pump. In the summer of 1893 water from a large well was pumped by steam into iron tanks in the attic of the South Building for use across the campus, though the supply proved too small.

Subject: South Building

University tennis players beat Virginia and join the Intercollegiate Tennis Association

The university's tennis champions beat the University of Virginia and Richmond College on their own courts, and the university joined the ten-member Intercollegiate Tennis Association as its only Southern member. D. R. Bryson and H. C. Bridgers placed fifth in doubles at New Haven.

The University Magazine issues its Golden Jubilee number

In 1894 the University Magazine marked fifty years since its first issue with a Golden Jubilee number, prepared largely by faculty editor Collier Cobb and filled with articles on the university's history.

People: Collier Cobb · Kemp Plummer Battle · George Tayloe Winston · Stephen B. Weeks

The university opens a Summer School for Teachers and Students to women and men

The four-week school under Edwin A. Alderman admitted both sexes for a $5 fee and enrolled seventy-five, with academic and teaching departments staffed by university professors and teachers from the State Normal and city schools. It was one of four summer schools the university ran that year.

People: Dixie Lee Bryant · Edwin Anderson Alderman

Subject: University Summer School

The Masons leave their farm and a scholarship fund to the university

Mary Elizabeth Morgan Mason, who died in July 1894 a year after her husband James Pleasant Mason, left the university about 800 acres of Morgan family land near Chapel Hill. His $1,000 gift funded the education of poor students in the names of their daughters Martha and Varina, and their portraits were hung in the university library.

President Winston ends support and the University Magazine stops

In 1895 President George T. Winston decided the university was not getting enough for its subscription, and the University Magazine stopped publishing until it was revived a few years later.

People: George Tayloe Winston

The Alpha Theta Phi honor society enrolls the best scholars

Dr. Tolman, who taught at the University in 1893-94, introduced Alpha Theta Phi, a society open only to the best scholars; by spring 1895 nine members of the class of 1896 belonged. In 1898 Archibald Henderson was its president and E. K. Graham its secretary, and a few years later it merged into Phi Beta Kappa.

People: Archibald Henderson · Edward Kidder Graham

Alumni pledge money for an Alumni Hall at the centennial banquet

At the banquet marking a hundred years since the university opened, alumni and classes pledged gifts toward an Alumni Hall, led by Julian S. Carr with $3,000 and Thomas M. Holt with $1,000. The building, modeled on the Boston Public Library, had its cornerstone laid in 1898.

People: Julian S. Carr · Marion Butler · David Gaston Worth · Bennehan Cameron

Subject: Alumni Building

Stephen B. Weeks speaks on the university in the Civil War at its centennial

At the centennial anniversary exercises Weeks gave a long prepared address, 'The University of North Carolina in the Civil War,' in Memorial Hall on the evening of June 5, after Henry A. London; Alfred Moore Waddell and Adolphus H. Eller had reviewed earlier periods of the university's history that morning.

People: Alfred Moore Waddell · Henry Armand London

Subject: Memorial Hall

A $3,000 gift turns the old gymnasium into Commons Hall

The trustees thanked Mrs. Francis Baker of New York for $3,000 to enlarge the 1885 gymnasium so the university could serve students table board at low cost. Her son Harry Lake was a student, and the building became Commons Hall.

The faculty sets study and conduct rules for athletes

After a disorderly fall term the faculty barred students neglecting their studies or on probation from the football and baseball teams, required parents' written consent, limited team absences to five days a year and made players pledge not to drink or gamble on trips.

People: George Tayloe Winston

The University Magazine is revived

The student literary magazine, suspended under President Winston, resumed in 1897 with S. S. Lamb as editor in chief, supported by the university and the two literary societies.

Subject: Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies

The university Dramatic Club takes its plays on tour

Directed by Professor Samuel May, the club staged London Assurance in Chapel Hill, Tarboro, Wilson and Wilmington and Modern Ananias in Chapel Hill, Winston-Salem, Greensboro and Reidsville.

The university begins intercollegiate debates with the University of Georgia

Debates with Georgia began about 1897 and were later joined by Vanderbilt and Johns Hopkins. On March 17, 1899, at Athens, E. D. Broadhurst and T. C. Bowie won the third annual Georgia debate, and through 1902 the university won seven of ten contests.

The class of 1897 gives the university a bust of Robert E. Lee

On Class Day the seniors presented a bust of Lee, which President Alderman accepted with a speech of praise, and the band afterward played Dixie.

People: Edwin Anderson Alderman · Robert E. Lee

The university holds a memorial service for David Gaston Worth

Five days after Worth died, the university held a memorial service for him in Gerrard Hall, with a prayer by the Rev. N. H. D. Wilson and talks by Dr. John Manning, Kemp P. Battle and President Edwin A. Alderman, who said a tablet in Memorial Hall would bear his name.

People: John Manning · Kemp Plummer Battle · Edwin Anderson Alderman

Subject: Gerrard Hall

Chapel Hill's Congregational church sells its building and leaves the village

The Congregational church, which Wilson Caldwell had joined and where Battle gave Caldwell's eulogy in July 1898 at the pastor's request, sold its church building and schoolhouse and left Chapel Hill soon after Caldwell's death.

People: Wilson Swain Caldwell

Julian S. Carr gives money to finish the Carr Building dormitory

Carr, born in Chapel Hill, gave $3,000 in 1899 to finish the dormitory named for him. In 1900 Winston praised it as a gift from a son of the village whose family name had once hung over a small store there.

Subject: Carr Building (Henry Owl Building)

The legislature funds university waterworks on Bowlin's Creek

The General Assembly of 1899 gave $7,500 for university waterworks, with steam pumps on Bowlin's Creek about a mile and a half from the campus filling a tall tank that fed the buildings by gravity. The supply still fell short.

The university lays off a new athletic field with a grandstand

President Venable's report of February 1902 lists a new athletic field with a stand among the improvements of the previous three years.

People: Francis Preston Venable

The university starts a course in dyeing and bleaching

A course in dyeing and bleaching was added to chemistry, with Thomas Clarke, who had studied the subject for two years in Germany, running the laboratory and Francis P. Venable giving the lectures.

People: Francis Preston Venable

The class of 1899 gives a bronze bust of Zebulon Vance and plants ivy from Lee's tomb

On Class Day the seniors, led by Julian S. Carr Jr., presented a bronze bust of Vance, and that afternoon planted on the South Building a sprig of ivy from Robert E. Lee's mausoleum.

People: Edwin Anderson Alderman · Robert E. Lee

Subject: South Building

Julian S. Carr gives the university the Carr Building

At the 1900 commencement the trustees accepted the Carr Building, a three-story dormitory that Julian S. Carr paid for at a cost of $18,000. It was designed by Pearson and Ashe and housed seventy-four students.

People: William H. S. Burgwyn · Richard H. Battle

Subject: Carr Building (Henry Owl Building)

The university opens its first summer term of regular courses

For the first time the university offered a twelve-week summer term of regular courses that counted toward a degree, opening on June 12, 1900, alongside the four-week Summer School for Teachers. Tuition was twenty dollars.

People: M. C. S. Noble · Francis Preston Venable

Subject: University Summer School

Commencement marks twenty-five years since the university reopened

The 1900 commencement was given over to the reopening of 1875, with nineteen members of the 1875-76 student body present and addresses by Kemp Battle, George T. Winston, W. J. Peele and President Alderman.

People: Kemp Plummer Battle · George Tayloe Winston · W. J. Peele · James Cole Taylor

Subject: Memorial Hall

Chapel Hill gets its first long-distance telephone

Through the efforts of Professor Joshua W. Gore, the first long-distance telephone line was set up at the university during the 1900-01 session, connecting by way of Durham.

People: Joshua W. Gore

Gerrard Hall is renovated and its south portico torn down

Gerrard Hall got a new roof and interior: chairs replaced the pews, the old doors were walled up and two new doors opened on the east. The decaying south porch and its columns were pulled down.

Subject: Gerrard Hall

The Alumni Building is finished

The Alumni Building was completed in 1901 with fourteen lecture rooms and the university's administrative offices. Venable put its cost at $36,000.

Subject: Alumni Building

The Mary Ann Smith Dormitory is completed

The Mary Ann Smith Dormitory was finished in 1901, adding thirty-eight student rooms. Venable later gave its cost as $16,000.

The pharmacy department is made part of the university

The department of pharmacy, run by Dean Edward V. Howell, was formally incorporated into the university in 1901. Its laboratory and lecture space was then doubled.

People: E. V. (Edward Vernon) Howell

Subject: UNC School of Pharmacy

The university completes its water works, sewerage and central heating plant

During 1900-01 the university finished its water works and sewer system, installed a forced-circulation hot-water heating plant, and built a boiler house, workshop and printing office. Two new dynamos doubled its electric lighting.

The university track team wins the Southern championship at New Orleans

Running on a cinder track given by student Henry S. Lake, a university track team competed at New Orleans against Vanderbilt, Tulane and Texas and won the Southern championship.

The university withdraws from the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association

After two years as a member, the university left the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association in 1902. Its schools lay in Tennessee, South Carolina and farther south, out of touch with Chapel Hill.

A northeast windstorm tears two limbs from the Davie Poplar

A fierce wind from the northeast on August 6, 1902, destroyed many old trees on the campus and tore two large limbs from the Davie Poplar. The tree later put out new growth.

Subject: McCorkle Place (with the Davie Poplar)

George Howe is elected professor of Latin at the university

The trustees elected George Howe, who held a Ph.D., professor of Latin for 1903-04 in place of Dr. H. F. Linscott, who had died in December. Howe kept the chair until 1936.

John Sprunt Hill endows a fellowship in history

In his 1903 alumni address John Sprunt Hill gave the interest on $4,000 to set up a fellowship in the department of history. The first year's interest was to go toward a YMCA building.

Subject: University YMCA

The university confers its first Doctor of Medicine degrees

On the evening of May 7, 1903, Dean Hubert A. Royster presented four graduates of the Medical Department, and the M.D. degree was conferred for the first time in the university's history.

People: Hubert Ashley Royster

Subject: UNC School of Medicine

The university opens a summer course in library work

By 1904 the university had begun a summer course of instruction in library work, meant to train librarians as workers with books rather than custodians. Louis Round Wilson taught library methods in the 1905 Summer School.

People: Louis Round Wilson

Subject: University Summer School

The university organizes a Graduate Department with C. Alphonso Smith as dean

By the 1904 commencement the university had organized its Graduate Department, with Dr. C. Alphonso Smith as dean. An alumni committee on the university's condition praised the step.

People: Charles Alphonso Smith

Eugene M. Armfield gives $5,000 for books in English philology

Eugene Morehead Armfield of the class of 1888 gave the university $5,000, with the interest to buy books for advanced study of English philology.

The General Assembly votes $50,000 for a chemistry building

After Professor Charles Baskerville described the crowded chemistry laboratories, the legislature raised the university's yearly appropriation to $45,000 and gave $50,000 for a chemical laboratory. Venable called the building grant a new departure.

People: Charles Baskerville · Francis Preston Venable · Richard H. Battle

Andrew Carnegie offers the university $50,000 for a library

Andrew Carnegie's offer of $50,000 for a library building, if an equal sum were raised for its upkeep, was announced in the university chapel on March 31, 1905. At commencement President Venable told the alumni that about $27,000 was in sight, and a faculty and alumni committee was named to raise the rest.

People: Francis Preston Venable · Eben Alexander · Charles Alphonso Smith

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.

People: Thomas Hume · Leonidas Polk

Subject: Gerrard Hall · Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Judge W. P. Bynum gives the university a gymnasium

Judge William Preston Bynum paid for a gymnasium on the campus in memory of his grandson and namesake, a student who died before graduating, and presented it to the trustees by letter in May 1905. Dr. Richard H. Lewis accepted it at commencement.

People: Francis Preston Venable · Richard H. Lewis

Subject: Bynum Hall (Bynum Gymnasium)

The new chemistry building is completed and Person Hall goes to medicine

The university spent $45,000 of the state grant on a chemistry building that held three times as many students as the old one. The rest refitted Person Hall, the old chemistry building, for the Medical Department and New East for biology.

People: Charles H. Herty

Subject: Person Hall · UNC School of Medicine

Former senator Marion Butler addresses the literary societies' commencement banquet

Invited by the Dialectic and Philanthropic societies, Butler gave the evening address at their commencement banquet, reading from his own 1885 graduation oration and setting out the industrial growth of the South since then.

Subject: Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies

The trustees agree to buy the old hotel near the campus

At their June 1906 meeting the trustees agreed to buy the old Eagle Hotel, later the Chapel Hill Hotel and then the University Inn, for $19,700 to use for dormitories. The two-acre lot had sold for $200 in 1792. W. W. Pickard kept the hotel until early 1908, when the University put Addison Lambeth in charge.

Subject: Eagle Hotel (Chapel Hill)

The trustees' visiting committee backs new buildings and urges an infirmary

At the June 1906 trustees meeting the visiting committee of John W. Fries, Henry A. London and Bennehan Cameron backed President Venable's call for $2,000 more a year and his building plans, urged an infirmary worthy of the university, and found student conduct very good.

People: Francis Preston Venable

The university reports the Carnegie library endowment raised and the gift paid

On University Day 1906 President Venable reported that the $50,000 endowment for the new library had been raised and Andrew Carnegie's $50,000 subscription paid. Construction began that month.

People: Francis Preston Venable

Subject: UNC Libraries · Hill Hall

A new president's house is completed

The university finished a new residence for its president in 1907 at a cost of about $15,000, on high ground in Chapel Hill.

People: Francis Preston Venable

The university infirmary opens

A new infirmary with room for about twenty patients and an operating room came into use in 1907. It cost about $20,000 to build and equip.

Subject: University infirmary (Abernethy Hall)

The University Dramatic Club stages a student show

On May 1, 1907, the University Dramatic Club acted a student-written show with a mock sermon and a burlesque faculty meeting. L. W. Parker was the club president.

Masons lay the cornerstone of the Carnegie library

On the Saturday of the 1907 commencement the Grand Lodge of Masons, led by Grand Master Francis D. Winston, laid the cornerstone of the new library built with Andrew Carnegie's gift. Construction had begun in October 1906.

People: M. C. S. Noble · Eric A. Abernethy · Francis D. Winston · Andrew Carnegie

Subject: UNC Libraries · Hill Hall

The campus YMCA building is dedicated

The new Young Men's Christian Association building was formally dedicated on the evening of June 2, 1907, after the YMCA sermon. Professor J. W. Gore presented it for the building committee and Dr. Richard H. Lewis accepted it for the trustees.

People: Richard H. Lewis · Joshua W. Gore

Subject: University YMCA

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.

People: Kemp Plummer Battle · Francis Preston Venable · Thomas Hume

Subject: Memorial Hall

The John Calvin McNair lectures on science and religion begin

The lecture fund left by John Calvin McNair of the class of 1849 became available in 1906 from the sale of his plantation, and the first McNair lectures were given in 1908 by Francis H. Smith of the University of Virginia.

The university adds a new athletic field and tennis courts

By University Day 1908 the university had laid out a new athletic field for about $1,000 and built more tennis courts, and a new dissecting hall was in use.

Joshua W. Gore, professor of physics and dean, dies

Joshua Walker Gore, professor of physics and dean of the university, died in a Baltimore hospital on April 8, 1908. A memorial service followed on May 10, and alumni later gave his portrait for the library.

People: M. C. S. Noble · Charles Edward Maddry · Joshua W. Gore

Chapel Hill holds a memorial service for Cornelia Phillips Spencer

Cornelia Phillips Spencer died in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on March 11, 1908. On May 17 the university held a service in her memory in Gerrard Hall, opening with the hymn she wrote for the 1875 reopening.

People: Collier Cobb · Kemp Plummer Battle

Subject: Gerrard Hall

The university creates a School of Applied Science with Charles H. Herty as dean

At the 1908 commencement President Venable announced that the trustees had made Charles H. Herty dean of the School of Applied Science and James E. Latta professor of electrical engineering.

People: Francis Preston Venable

Students form the University Council to run the honor system

In 1909-10 the University Council, made up of class presidents and elected student members, was set up as the head of the honor system. It looked into cheating, drunkenness and gambling and asked guilty students to leave the university.

Woodrow Wilson speaks in Gerrard Hall on Robert E. Lee's centennial

On January 19, 1909, the university marked the hundredth birthday of Robert E. Lee in Gerrard Hall, with Princeton president Woodrow Wilson as the speaker.

People: Francis Preston Venable · Robert E. Lee

Subject: Gerrard Hall

Alumni pledge forty-one endowed scholarships

At the 1909 alumni luncheon, classes and local alumni groups promised to endow forty-one scholarships of $1,000 each. Julian S. Carr gave five named for J. Johnston Pettigrew for sons of Confederate soldiers, and Edgar Love two named for Cornelia Phillips Spencer.

People: Julian S. Carr · Francis Preston Venable · Francis D. Winston

Adolph Vermont teaches French and German at the university Summer School

Vermont taught French and German at the UNC Summer School for Teachers in 1910 and 1911, and the 1912 faculty list names him instructor in the Romance languages.

Subject: University Summer School

N. J. Cartmell takes charge of track athletics

N. J. Cartmell became the university's track coach in 1910. The team won the state meet in 1911 and 1912.

Student YMCA members run eight Sunday schools around Chapel Hill

In 1910-11 the university YMCA organized Sunday schools at Calvander, Clark's Chapel, Williams' Chapel, Ephesus, Mount Carmel, Orange Church, Rankin's Chapel and Smith's Level, enrolling 321 pupils.

Subject: University YMCA

Walter Clark helps teach the university's Summer Law School

Chief Justice Walter Clark assisted in the university's Summer Law School, which enrolled thirty-seven students.

Subject: UNC School of Law

Albert R. Ledoux endows a research fellowship in chemistry

Albert R. Ledoux, the first director of the state Agricultural Experiment Station when it was at the university, sent $5,000 in 1911 to set up a research fellowship in chemistry.

Richard W. Hogue secures a Self-Help Home for working students

By the 1911 commencement the Rev. Richard W. Hogue had secured a Self-Help Home to house students working their way through the university. The alumni gave him a rising vote of thanks.

The Peabody Fund gives $40,000 for an education building

At the 1911 commencement Venable announced a $40,000 gift from the Peabody Fund trustees for a School of Education building. The legislature that year gave $87,000 a year for upkeep and $50,000 a year for four years for improvements.

People: Francis Preston Venable

Subject: Peabody Hall

Alumni set up a General Assembly and plan an alumni monthly

On May 29, 1911, the alumni adopted a plan for a General Assembly of delegates from local associations, a Council of fifteen, and a magazine to be called the University of North Carolina Alumni Monthly. W. H. Swift went out as field manager to organize local groups.

People: Robert Bingham

Governor Woodrow Wilson gives the commencement address

Woodrow Wilson, governor of New Jersey, spoke at the alumni luncheon and gave the 1911 commencement address in Memorial Hall, and the university made him a Doctor of Laws.

People: Francis Preston Venable

Subject: Memorial Hall

The university grants diplomas to students who left for the Confederate army

The faculty and trustees voted to give A.B. diplomas to surviving students who had left their classes to join the Confederate army, and the war classes of 1861 to 1868 were called at the 1911 commencement.

People: Edward K. Graham · Julian S. Carr · Walter Clark · Francis D. Winston · Edward Kidder Graham

Adolph Vermont directs and acts in As You Like It for the Summer School's Fourth of July

The Summer School's Fourth of July of 1911 ended with an evening performance of Shakespeare's As You Like It, directed by Vermont, who also played Orlando.

Subject: University Summer School