Washington Caruthers Kerr

Life and Orange County connections

Dated events connected with this person, in date order. See these 4 dated events in the chronology →

1. May to August 1875 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 Place: Chapel Hill · Also named: Charles W. BroadfootInternet Archive: Kemp P. Battle, History of the University of North Carolina, vol. 2 (1912), full text
2. 1877-1881 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, Albert R. Ledoux Place: Smith HallSearch the index · Documenting the American South: Kemp P. Battle, History of the University of North Carolina, vol. II (1912), p. 136 · Also: Chapel Hill Weekly, April 20, 1928, p. 5
3. June 4, 1879 University alumni take up a monument for Elisha Mitchell's mountain grave Continuing their meeting after the alumni address, the Alumni Association recognized a duty to place a monument on Dr. Elisha Mitchell's grave and named W. C. Kerr, Samuel F. Phillips and John Manning to consider a plan. The Ledger had urged the step the week before, noting that his daughters meant to mark the grave on the Black Mountain. People: Washington Caruthers Kerr, Samuel (Samuel Field) Phillips, John Manning Place: University, Chapel Hill · Also named: Elisha MitchellSearch the index · The Chapel Hill Ledger, June 7, 1879, p. 2
4. June 5, 1879 The university gives honorary doctorates of laws to Samuel F. Phillips and Justices Ashe and Dillard At the eighty-fourth commencement the university conferred the LL.D. on Solicitor General Samuel F. Phillips and on Judges Ashe and Dillard of the state Supreme Court, a Ph.D. on state geologist W. C. Kerr, and the D.D. on several ministers including D. S. Sanderson of Eutaw, Alabama, and John T. Pickett of Vicksburg. People: Washington Caruthers Kerr, Kemp Plummer Battle, Samuel (Samuel Field) Phillips Place: University Chapel, Chapel Hill · Also named: Thomas S. Ashe, John H. DillardSearch the index · The Chapel Hill Ledger, June 7, 1879, p. 2