Search and filters
Search and filters · 1 active
9 dated events match your filters.
J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton, Benjamin Sherwood Hedrick (1910).Open the sourceAll sources
Searched the full chronology of 9,006 dated events and 77 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1–9.Back to highlights
- Antebellum and Civil War · 1800–1865
-
Benjamin S. Hedrick graduates from the university with first honors
Hedrick, who had entered the sophomore class in 1848, graduated in 1851 at the head of his class and was strongest in mathematics. On President Swain's recommendation he was then given a clerkship in the Nautical Almanac office at Cambridge, Massachusetts.
People: David L. Swain · William A. Graham
-
Professor Hedrick tells students at the Chapel Hill polls he would vote for a Fremont ticket
After voting the Democratic ticket in the August state election, Hedrick was questioned by students outside the polling place and said he would support a Fremont ticket if one existed. A garbled report that he had preached abolition to poor voters followed, and the remark grew into the case that cost him his chair.
-
Benjamin Hedrick answers his accusers with a public defence of his Free Soil views
Attacked in the Raleigh Standard by an anonymous alumnus, later identified as law student John A. Engelhard, Hedrick wrote a reply from Chapel Hill saying he favored Fremont and opposed carrying slavery into the territories, citing Washington, Jefferson and Clay. The Standard printed it on October 4 and called for his removal.
People: William W. Holden
-
Students burn Professor Hedrick in effigy on the campus
On the Saturday night the Standard with Hedrick's letter reached Chapel Hill, students hung and burned him in effigy in the college grounds while the bell was tolled, and did it again on the Monday night. President Swain spoke to the whole student body on the Sunday morning, and talk of tarring and feathering him reached Raleigh.
People: David L. Swain
-
The faculty vote 12 to 1 to disown Hedrick's published views
Called together by President Swain, the faculty resolved that Hedrick's letter broke the university's custom of keeping out of party politics and that no other member shared his opinions, while expressing personal regard for him. Instructor H. Herrisse cast the only vote against, saying no one suspected the faculty of Republicanism.
People: David L. Swain · Elisha Mitchell · James Phillips · Charles Phillips · Fordyce M. Hubbard
-
President Swain argues that the trustees' executive committee has no power to dismiss a professor
Writing to trustee secretary Charles Manly, Swain read the charter to mean that only the full board could remove a professor, and only for misbehavior, inability or neglect of duty. He urged the committee to wait for the annual meeting and to charge Hedrick, if at all, with breaking university usage rather than with his opinions.
People: Charles Manly · Benjamin Sherwood Hedrick
-
The trustees' executive committee rules that Hedrick has destroyed his usefulness to the university
Meeting under Governor Thomas Bragg, the committee resolved that Hedrick's letter broke the rule against professors agitating party politics, approved the faculty's stand, and found he could no longer serve the university. The resolutions were sent to Chapel Hill but not published.
People: Thomas Bragg · Charles Lewis Hinton · Bartholomew F. Moore · Romulus M. (Romulus Mitchell) Saunders
-
Hedrick reports 14 scientific students and 44 seniors in his chemistry courses
Asking the trustees for a full hearing, Hedrick described his scientific course: 14 students had enrolled in it that session and 44 seniors had chosen his subjects in place of the regular course. He asked the board to move carefully over a school in which he had staked a great deal.
People: Charles Manly
-
The full board of trustees confirms Hedrick's dismissal
At their meeting of January 5, 1857, the trustees confirmed the executive committee's October vote removing Hedrick, the step Swain had argued only the full board could take.
Suggest a correction to an entry →
A dated event is a fact, filed on the page of the subject it belongs to: a person, a place, a theme, or a named event or history. Pages are subjects, with their own works and sources; the Place, community, or institution filter also gathers the institutions that recur in the entries without a page of their own. The page opens on the highlights; a search or any filter looks through every dated event and storyline, and each filter’s counts say how many entries choosing it would show alongside the others. A storyline is a longer history that gathers related dated events, and each storyline’s page lists its own. Counts give dated events and storylines separately. Dates come from the sources named on the cards and from the index’s event pages; where sources disagree, the card follows the county records. Entries marked approximate or needing research say so on the card; the rest were checked against the source named on it. The correction link under the entries opens the contact form; name the entry and its date and the Friends will check the source. Suggest an event →
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 4, 2026.
