William Gaston

Life and Orange County connections

Storylines this person is part of, in date order. Each has its own page.

Dated events connected with this person, in date order. See these 12 dated events in the chronology →

During their lifetime

1. 1802 to 1844 William Gaston serves as a trustee of the university William Gaston sat on the university's board of trustees from 1802 until his death in January 1844, some forty-two years. Place: Chapel HillSearch the index · NCpedia: Gaston, William (Charles H. Bowman Jr., Dictionary of North Carolina Biography)
2. 1805 The General Assembly restores the university's escheats The bill passed the House 82 to 35 and the Senate 32 to 23, returning escheated property whose Tennessee land warrants later became the university's endowment. Maurice Moore, one of the first students, was among its strongest advocates. People: William Gaston, Benjamin Smith Place: Chapel Hill · Also named: Maurice MooreSearch the index · Documenting the American South: Kemp P. Battle, History of the University of North Carolina, vol. I (1907), p. 139
3. 1814 Students move into the finished South Building Subscriptions Caldwell gathered on tours of the state in 1809 and 1811, about $8,220, let contractor John Close finish the Main Building begun in 1798. Students moved in during 1814. People: Joseph Caldwell, William Gaston, John Haywood Place: South Building · Also named: John CloseSearch the index · Documenting the American South: Kemp P. Battle, History of the University of North Carolina, vol. I (1907), p. 134
4. June 21 to July 19, 1830 Trustees meet in emergency session over the university's debts With debts of about $37,500 and only some 82 paying students, a special meeting of trustees at Chapel Hill on June 21, 1830 called the whole board to Raleigh on July 19. There a committee under James Iredell reported on the finances, and the board adopted a memorial drawn by Thomas Ruffin asking the General Assembly for relief. People: Joseph Caldwell, Willie P. Mangum, Thomas Ruffin, William Gaston Place: Chapel Hill · Also named: James IredellSearch the index · Documenting the American South: Kemp P. Battle, History of the University of North Carolina, vol. I (1907), p. 326
5. 1832 Judge William Gaston predicts the end of slavery in a UNC commencement address Gaston told the university's graduates and guests that slavery would be overthrown. The book says the audience applauded the speech but rejected its antislavery message. People: William Gaston Place: Chapel HillSearch the index · Lefler and Wager, Orange County, 1752-1952 (1953), p. 104
6. June 19, 1832 The Institute of Education names Gaston to a committee to petition the legislature on popular education At its second meeting, held during the 1832 commencement, the North Carolina Institute of Education voted to memorialize the General Assembly on popular education and named William Gaston, Frederick Nash and David L. Swain to the committee. People: Frederick Nash, David L. Swain Place: Chapel HillSearch the index · Documenting the American South: Kemp P. Battle, History of the University of North Carolina, vol. I (1907), p. 346
7. 1833 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. People: William Gaston, George E. Badger, William Polk Place: Gerrard Hall · Also named: Charles GerrardSearch the index · Documenting the American South: Kemp P. Battle, History of the University of North Carolina, vol. I (1907), p. 350
8. December 24, 1834 Duncan Cameron gives his son Paul C. Cameron forty-one enslaved people Duncan Cameron deeded his son Paul C. Cameron forty-one enslaved people, with any children the women would bear: Gabriel, Mima, Simeon and Sarah in Orange County, and families at the Mill Quarter plantation in Person County, among them Phillip and Jenny and their children Randol, Jim, Ellen, Nancy and Phill. Cameron acknowledged the deed before Justice William Gaston at Raleigh on January 1, 1835. People: Duncan Cameron, Paul C. Cameron, William Gaston Place: Orange County and Person CountyOrange County Register of Deeds: Deed Book 26, p. 184 (deed image) · Also: Orange County Register of Deeds: sales of enslaved people, 1761-1867; Orange County Indexed: the record of Deed Book 26/184, with everyone named in it; Mark Chilton’s abstract of Deed Book 26/184, in Orange County Indexed’s historic deeds
9. by July 16, 1836 Sculptor Waugh's busts of William Gaston, Joseph Caldwell and Alfred Moore are placed in a university society hall A young foreign-born sculptor the paper calls Mr. Waugh completed busts of Judge William Gaston, the late President Joseph Caldwell and Alfred Moore, which stood in one of the society halls at the university. He gave one of them to the society that had made him an honorary member. People: William Gaston Place: Society hall, University, Chapel Hill · Also named: Alfred Moore, Joseph CaldwellSearch the index · Columbian Repository (Chapel Hill), July 16, 1836, p. 3
10. 1837 A trustee committee under William Gaston makes the faculty's liquor rule a university by-law In 1837 the faculty made it a dismissable offence to bring liquor into the college buildings or to be publicly drunk. A trustee committee chaired by William Gaston recommended that the rule become a by-law of the university. Place: Chapel HillSearch the index · Documenting the American South: Kemp P. Battle, History of the University of North Carolina, vol. I (1907), p. 435
11. March 1844, confirmed that December Frederick Nash of Hillsborough is appointed to the North Carolina Supreme Court After William Gaston's death the Council of State unanimously rejected the governor's first choice, George E. Badger, and in March 1844 accepted his second, Frederick Nash of Hillsborough, for the Supreme Court; the legislature elected him to the seat that December. Eight years later his colleagues made him Chief Justice. People: Frederick Nash, William Gaston, George E. Badger Place: HillsboroughSearch the index · Lefler and Wager, Orange County, 1752-1952 (1953), p. 90 · Also: Hillsborough Recorder, March 28, 1844, p. 3

After their death in 1844

Later events: estates and burials, and the buildings, honors and histories that remember them.

1. June 1845 University trustees name the burying ground the College Graveyard After Judge William Gaston died in 1844, faculty members asked the trustees for a separate burying ground in sight of the campus for eminent men of the university, starting with Gaston's body brought from Raleigh. The trustees let the petition lapse and in June 1845 named the existing ground the College Graveyard instead. People: William Gaston Place: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery, South Road (NC 54) and Country Club Road, Chapel HillSearch the index · NC State Historic Preservation Office: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery, National Register nomination (OR0496), p. 17