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Key local figure

Cornelia Phillips Spencer

Cornelia Phillips Spencer (1825–1908) grew up in Chapel Hill, where her father taught mathematics at the university. Her articles and letters to state leaders helped win the reopening of the University of North Carolina in 1875, and in 1895 it gave her its first honorary degree for a woman.

Source: UNC Libraries: Cornelia Phillips Spencer Papers, 1833-1975 (#00683), finding aid

Also found in catalogs as Cornelia (Phillips) Mrs Spencer, Cornelia Spencer, Cornellia Phillips Spencer.

1825–1908 · Dates from the Library of Congress · On the Friends’ Local Authors roster → · Library of Congress authority record ↗

29 works about Cornelia Phillips Spencer are indexed here. 1 held at OCPL →

Search these works Research sources View indexed works ↓
Cornelia Phillips Spencer, 1907
Cornelia Phillips Spencer, 1907

Life and Orange County connections

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

StorylineThe university closes and reopens1868 to 1875 · 78 events · Reconstruction Republicans took control of the trustees in 1868 and dismissed the old faculty; Solomon Pool's presidency drew almost no students, and the university closed in February 1871. The legislature revived it in March 1875, Cornelia Phillips Spencer rang the bell, and it reopened in September under a rebuilt faculty.

Dated events connected with this person, in date order. See these 47 dated events in the chronology →

During their lifetime

  1. The Phillips family, with infant Cornelia, moves to Chapel Hill James Phillips moved his family from New York to Chapel Hill in 1826 when he became professor of mathematics at the University of North Carolina, where he taught until his death in 1867. His daughter Cornelia, born in Harlem in March 1825, grew up in the village. People: James Phillips Place: Chapel HillSearch the index · UNC Libraries: Cornelia Phillips Spencer Papers, 1833-1975 (#00683), finding aid
  2. Elisha Mitchell builds the stone wall around the Presbyterian churchyard Elisha Mitchell gave the stone wall around the churchyard and Cornelia Phillips its stone pillars and gates, among the gifts that fitted out the new church in the year or so after its dedication. People: Elisha Mitchell, Cornelia Phillips Spencer Place: Chapel Hill Presbyterian Church, Chapel HillSearch the index · Cornelia Phillips Spencer, The Presbyterian Church in Chapel Hill (1897), scan p. 11
  3. Cornelia Phillips marries James Munroe Spencer in Chapel Hill Cornelia Phillips married James Munroe Spencer of Alabama, a first-honor graduate of the class of 1853, who returned to Chapel Hill for the wedding. The couple then left by way of Wilmington and Charleston for his home at Clinton, Alabama. Place: Chapel Hill · Also named: James Munroe SpencerSearch the index · Hope Summerell Chamberlain, Old Days in Chapel Hill (1926), scan p. 81
  4. Women organize Ladies Aid Societies in Hillsborough and Chapel Hill Chapel Hill women organized their Soldiers' Aid Society on June 8, 1861, with Mrs. M. Hargrave as president and Mrs. E. Grant as treasurer, and forty Hillsborough women met on July 15 to form a permanent society. These and later aid societies made clothing and bandages, gathered food and money, met troop trains and nursed the sick and wounded until the war ended. People: Cornelia Phillips Spencer Place: Orange CountySearch the index · Lefler and Wager, Orange County, 1752-1952 (1953), p. 111 · Also: Hillsborough Recorder, July 17, 1861, p. 3; Hillsborough Recorder, September 18, 1861, p. 3
  5. Cornelia Phillips Spencer begins teaching boys from refugee families Widowed and growing deaf, Spencer began teaching three boys whose families had fled eastern North Carolina for Chapel Hill during the war: Baker Mallett, Hannis Taylor and Stephen Skinner. Taylor, later a writer on the English constitution, remembered her as the best-educated woman he had known. People: Cornelia Phillips Spencer Place: Chapel Hill · Also named: Baker Mallett, Hannis Taylor, Stephen SkinnerHope Summerell Chamberlain, Old Days in Chapel Hill (1926), scan p. 96
  6. Wheeler's Confederate cavalry fought Union pursuers at New Hope Creek east of Chapel Hill Retreating cavalry under Joseph Wheeler destroyed the bridge over the rain-swollen New Hope and the other bridges on the road toward Chapel Hill, then attacked Union cavalry trying to cross on fallen trees and driftwood at the Atkins plantation, about eight miles from the village. Cornelia Phillips Spencer, writing from Chapel Hill, called it the last skirmish and perhaps the last blood of the war and recorded that several men were killed on both sides. People: Cornelia Phillips Spencer, Smith D. Atkins Place: New Hope Creek, near Chapel Hill · Also named: Joseph WheelerDocumenting the American South: Cornelia Phillips Spencer, The Last Ninety Days of the War in North-Carolina (1866), chapter XII
  7. Cornelia Phillips Spencer publishes The Last Ninety Days of the War in North-Carolina Encouraged by her friend, former governor David L. Swain, Spencer published her first book, an account of the war's last months in North Carolina that describes Wheeler's Confederate cavalry passing through Chapel Hill and the town's occupation by Union cavalry in April 1865. People: David L. Swain Place: Chapel HillSearch the index · Documenting the American South: Cornelia Phillips Spencer, The Last Ninety Days of the War in North-Carolina
  8. Bodies of Junius and Wesley Lewis Battle brought home for burial The bodies of Corporal Junius C. Battle, mortally wounded at South Mountain, and Lieutenant Wesley Lewis Battle, killed at Gettysburg, sons of Judge William H. Battle and former students, were brought home to Chapel Hill. The village turned out to meet them, and they lay side by side in the Episcopal church before burial. People: Cornelia Phillips Spencer, William Horn Battle Place: Chapel Hill · Also named: Junius C. Battle, Wesley Lewis BattleSearch the index · Documenting the American South: Kemp P. Battle, History of the University of North Carolina, vol. I (1907), p. 744
  9. Freedpeople hold a Black Fourth of July celebration Cornelia Phillips Spencer's journal records that the Black residents of Chapel Hill marched in procession behind a banner, heard an address by Colonel J. J. Guthrie and a reading of part of the Declaration of Independence by Jurdon Swain, then sat down to a dinner they had provided themselves on the ground bought from the Craigs for their new school house. The banner mottoes were "Respect for Former Owners" and "Our Hope is in God". People: Cornelia Phillips Spencer, Benjamin Craig Place: Countywide · Also named: J. J. Guthrie, Jurdon SwainInternet Archive: Old Days in Chapel Hill, Being the Life and Letters of Cornelia Phillips Spencer
  10. Cornelia Phillips Spencer moves into Sam Phillips's house and takes in boarders After her father's death Spencer moved with her daughter into her brother Sam's empty house on East Franklin Street, sleeping there first on January 13, 1868, so that she could take student boarders to make ends meet. Her widowed mother would not come with her. Place: Sam Phillips house, 407 East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill · Also mentions: East Franklin StreetSearch the index · Hope Summerell Chamberlain, Old Days in Chapel Hill (1926), scan pp. 161-162 (Spencer's journal and letters, January 1868) · Also: Bernard Lee Bryant Jr., Occupants and Structures of Franklin Street, Chapel Hill (1998; Chapel Hill Historical Society, 1999), scan
  11. Ben and Dilsey leave the Phillips household to live on their own Ben and Dilsey, held by the Phillips family since the 1820s and kept on as servants after emancipation, left Cornelia Phillips Spencer's household in February 1868. Spencer wrote that she hoped the parting was only for a time. People: Benjamin Craig, Cornelia Phillips Spencer, Dilsey Craig Place: Chapel HillSearch the index · Hope Summerell Chamberlain, Old Days in Chapel Hill (1926), scan p. 163
  12. 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 Place: Chapel HillDocumenting the American South: Kemp P. Battle, History of the University of North Carolina, vol. II (1912), p. 29
Show all 44 dated events
  1. Samuel F. Phillips sells his East Franklin Street house to Henry J. Hogan Samuel Phillips sold his East Franklin Street house and lot to Henry J. Hogan, who moved to Tennessee right away and left the place to his father, William J. Hogan. The sale sent Phillips's mother and his sister Cornelia Phillips Spencer to live in Charles Phillips's house. People: Samuel Field Phillips, Cornelia Phillips Spencer, Charles Phillips Place: Samuel Phillips house, East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill · Also named: Henry J. Hogan, William J. Hogan, Samuel Phillips · Also mentions: East Franklin StreetSearch the index · Bernard Lee Bryant Jr., Occupants and Structures of Franklin Street, Chapel Hill (1998; Chapel Hill Historical Society, 1999), scan p. 123
  2. Manuel Fetter and his daughters leave Chapel Hill at midnight for Durham Turned out with the old faculty, professor Manuel Fetter crossed the street at midnight to give Spencer the key of his empty house and a last candle, then drove off to Durham with his three daughters. People: Manuel Fetter, Cornelia Phillips Spencer Place: Fetter house, Franklin Street, Chapel HillSearch the index · Hope Summerell Chamberlain, Old Days in Chapel Hill (1926), scan p. 167
  3. Cornelia Phillips Spencer publishes her Pen and Ink Sketches of the University Writing unsigned from Chapel Hill for Josiah Turner's Raleigh Sentinel, Spencer published a series on the history of the university under its old faculty, addressed to the alumni. Other Southern papers and the North Carolina Presbyterian reprinted the sketches, and they helped build the alumni opinion that later brought the university back. People: Josiah Turner Jr. Place: Chapel HillSearch the index · Hope Summerell Chamberlain, Old Days in Chapel Hill (1926), scan p. 180
  4. Cornelia Phillips Spencer raises a relief fund for Chapel Hill's poor With the university closed and few able families left, Spencer wrote to former residents and to Nancy Hilliard's old boarders for money, and kept an account book of the hundreds of dollars she gave out to needy neighbors as wood, food and cash. People: Nancy Hilliard Place: Chapel HillSearch the index · Hope Summerell Chamberlain, Old Days in Chapel Hill (1926), scan p. 235
  5. 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 Place: Davie Poplar, Chapel HillSearch the index · Documenting the American South: Kemp P. Battle, History of the University of North Carolina, vol. II (1912), p. 37
  6. 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 Place: Chapel HillSearch the index · Documenting the American South: Kemp P. Battle, History of the University of North Carolina, vol. II (1912), p. 38
  7. Charles Phillips returns to Chapel Hill and chairs the faculty When the University of North Carolina reopened in 1875, Phillips was invited back as professor of mathematics and served as chairman of the faculty during his first year. Illness forced his retirement in 1879, when he became the first professor emeritus named by the trustees. People: Charles Phillips, Cornelia Phillips Spencer Place: Chapel HillSearch the index · NCpedia: Phillips, Charles
  8. 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 Place: Chapel Hill · Also mentions: Nash and Kollock schoolSearch the index · Documenting the American South: Kemp P. Battle, History of the University of North Carolina, vol. II (1912), p. 76
  9. Cornelia Phillips Spencer learns on her fiftieth birthday that the university will reopen A telegram from Raleigh on March 20, 1875, reported that the legislature had passed a bill letting the closed University of North Carolina reorganize with some state support. Spencer, whose letters to state leaders had pressed for the reopening, and a few friends entered South Building and tolled the college bell to celebrate. Place: South Building, UNC campus, Chapel HillSearch the index · Documenting the American South: Cornelia Phillips Spencer, 20 Mar. 1825-11 Mar. 1908 (Dictionary of North Carolina Biography)
  10. 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 Place: Chapel Hill · Also named: Eleanor H. Swain, Eleanor SwainSearch the index · Documenting the American South: Kemp P. Battle, History of the University of North Carolina, vol. II (1912), p. 105
  11. Chapel Hill women circulate a plan for a home for poor and infirm women A group of North Carolina women issued a circular from Chapel Hill proposing to raise a fund to buy a house and land as a home for poor and infirm women of the state, with a sum left over to invest. Replies went to Mrs. C. P. Spencer at Chapel Hill, with William H. Battle, William A. Graham, B. F. Moore and W. N. H. Smith as references. People: Cornelia Phillips Spencer, William A. Graham Place: Chapel Hill · Also named: William H. Battle, B. F. Moore, W. N. H. SmithSearch the index · Hillsborough Recorder, April 7, 1875, p. 3
  12. 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
  13. University Day is established At Kemp P. Battle's request, seconded by Zebulon B. Vance, the executive committee in September 1877 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 on October 12, 1877, 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 Place: Gerrard HallSearch the index · Documenting the American South: Kemp P. Battle, History of the University of North Carolina, vol. II (1912), p. 135 · Also: The Daily Tar Heel, October 12, 1983, p. 1
  14. President Battle tells the history of the university buildings on University Day On a dark, rainy University Day that kept the audience small, President Kemp P. Battle spoke on the history of the university buildings, from Old East and the Old Chapel to Gerrard Hall, Smith Hall and the 1850s buildings, and the choir sang the University Song by Cornelia Phillips Spencer. John W. Norwood, one of the last survivors of his college class, then praised the university for joining science and agriculture. People: Kemp Plummer Battle, John Wall Norwood, Cornelia Phillips Spencer Place: University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill · Also mentions: Gerrard Hall, Smith HallSearch the index · The Chapel Hill Ledger, October 12, 1878, p. 2
  15. Cornelia Phillips Spencer edits the Chapel Hill Weekly Ledger For some months in 1879 Cornelia Phillips Spencer edited the Chapel Hill Weekly Ledger, with students R. P. Pell and Francis D. Winston as assistants. The book calls her the county's only woman editor; Charles B. Aycock took over from her. People: Charles B. Aycock, Francis D. Winston Place: Chapel Hill · Also named: R. P. PellSearch the index · Lefler and Wager, Orange County, 1752-1952 (1953), pp. 127-128 · Also: The Chapel Hill Ledger, April 26, 1879, p. 2
  16. Charles B. Aycock edits the Ledger in Chapel Hill Aycock, then a university student, took over as editor of the weekly Chapel Hill Ledger in 1879, succeeding Cornelia Phillips Spencer. The paper ran until 1880. People: Charles B. Aycock, Cornelia Phillips Spencer Place: Chapel HillSearch the index · The Chapel Hill Ledger, November 1, 1879, p. 2 (masthead) · Also: NCpedia: Aycock, Charles Brantley; The Chapel Hill Ledger, September 13, 1879, p. 3
  17. Chapel Hill women serve a dinner to the convicts building the University Railroad Spencer collected food around the village and, with other women, served a dinner at a long plank table to ninety-six convicts grading the railroad to Chapel Hill, with Joseph Blount Cheshire saying grace. Some residents refused to give, and Colonel Thomas M. Holt promised the ladies a ride on the first train. People: Cornelia Phillips Spencer, Joseph Blount Cheshire Jr. Place: University Railroad line, near Chapel Hill · Also named: Thomas M. HoltSearch the index · Hope Summerell Chamberlain, Old Days in Chapel Hill (1926), scan p. 272
  18. Paul Cameron buys university land put up for sale When part of the university's land around Chapel Hill was put up for sale, Spencer, fearing for places like Piney Prospect and the Roaring Fountain, wrote begging Paul C. Cameron to buy it, and Bennehan Cameron and John W. Graham came to bid for him. Cameron later left Spencer a few acres of it in his will. People: Paul C. Cameron, Bennehan Cameron, John W. Graham, Cornelia Phillips Spencer Place: Chapel HillSearch the index · Hope Summerell Chamberlain, Old Days in Chapel Hill (1926), scan p. 275
  19. Cornelia Phillips Spencer turns her daughter's letters from Europe into a newspaper series While June Spencer toured Europe on a family legacy in 1884, her mother used June's daily letters home as the basis for a series, "Letters from a Young Lady," printed under June's name in the North Carolina Presbyterian. The editor had sent fifty dollars before June sailed, the only pay the series brought. People: June Spencer Love Place: Chapel HillSearch the index · James Lee Love, Recollections (1920-1921), scan p. 219
  20. The class of 1884 holds its Class Day with a song written by Cornelia Phillips Spencer In commencement week the class of 1884, with Love as president and Samuel M. Gattis as secretary, put on one of the university's early Class Day programs. W. G. Randall read a comic prophecy and Gattis a class history, and the class sang a song Spencer had written for it. People: James Lee Love, Samuel Mallett Gattis, William George Randall Place: UNC campus, Chapel HillSearch the index · James Lee Love, Recollections (1920-1921), scan p. 213
  21. Old students start a subscription for a monument over Nancy Hilliard's grave E. T. McKethan of Fayetteville began collecting money from former Chapel Hill students to put a plain stone over Nancy Hilliard's neglected grave, and Cornelia Phillips Spencer endorsed the plan. The stone records the alumni's gratitude for her kindness and hospitality. People: Nancy Hilliard, Cornelia Phillips Spencer Place: Chapel Hill · Also named: E. T. McKethanSearch the index · DigitalNC: The State Chronicle (Raleigh), August 9, 1884, p. 2
  22. Cornelia Phillips Spencer's University Ode is sung at the Memorial Hall dedication The dedication proceedings closed with an ode Cornelia Phillips Spencer wrote for the university, whose verses look back to the laying of the first cornerstone in October 1793. The trustees then adjourned to the next morning. Place: Memorial Hall, UNC, Chapel HillSearch the index · University of North Carolina, Memorial Hall Inaugural Proceedings, Wednesday, June 3, 1885 (1885), scan p. 32
  23. James Lee Love marries June Spencer at the Chapel Hill Presbyterian Church Mathematics professor James Lee Love married June Spencer, Cornelia Phillips Spencer's daughter, in an afternoon service led by the Rev. Mr. Wilhelm, who then served both the Chapel Hill and Hillsborough Presbyterian churches. The couple went from the church to the train for a wedding trip to her birthplace in Alabama and on their return took rooms at Mrs. Thompson's house in Chapel Hill. People: James Lee Love, George Francis Atkinson, June Spencer Love, Cornelia Phillips Spencer Place: Presbyterian Church, Chapel Hill · Also named: Elinor S. PhillipsSearch the index · James Lee Love, Recollections (1920-1921), scan p. 239
  24. Cornelia Phillips Spencer writes a short school history of North Carolina Spencer took a Raleigh publisher's commission for a short history of North Carolina for elementary schools and wrote it out by hand in the Loves' new house on East Franklin Street. Before it was printed the publisher had William L. Saunders read it, and Saunders cut or toned down some of her statements about the Civil War without asking her, by Love's account. The book, First Steps in North Carolina History, was out by 1889; that November the Wilmington Messenger reported that she was rewriting parts readers had objected to. People: William L. Saunders Place: Love house, Chapel Hill · Also mentions: East Franklin StreetSearch the index · James Lee Love, Recollections (1920-1921), scan p. 263 · Also: Orange County Observer (Hillsborough), November 16, 1889, p. 2
  25. James Lee Love builds a house on East Franklin Street for his wife, June Spencer Professor James Lee Love built the one-story house at 410 East Franklin Street in 1887, on the lot of the old president's house that burned the Christmas before, for his wife June, the only daughter of Cornelia Phillips Spencer. It is known as the Spencer House after his mother-in-law. People: James Lee Love, Cornelia Phillips Spencer, June Spencer Love Place: 410 East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill · Also mentions: East Franklin StreetSearch the index · Orange County Observer (Hillsborough), January 22, 1887, p. 3 (Chapel Hill column) · Also: NC Digital Collections: Chapel Hill Historic Sites Survey: Final Report
  26. Sarah Welling's gift pays to repair the Chapel Hill Presbyterian belfry A letter from Spencer in a New York church paper, offering to pass used reading on to poor families around Chapel Hill, brought a barrel of magazines and books from Mrs. Sarah Welling of Warwick, New York. Welling then stayed with the Loves for several weeks in January and February and left $100 for the Presbyterian church, which Love, a deacon, spent on repairing and painting the belfry. People: Cornelia Phillips Spencer, James Lee Love Place: Presbyterian Church, Chapel Hill · Also named: Sarah WellingSearch the index · James Lee Love, Recollections (1920-1921), scan p. 273
  27. Cornelia Phillips Spencer compiles a catalogue of every student since 1795 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 Place: Chapel HillSearch the index · Documenting the American South: Kemp P. Battle, History of the University of North Carolina, vol. II (1912), p. 798
  28. James Lee Love leaves Chapel Hill for Harvard Love left the university with his family in 1889 to teach mathematics at Harvard. His mother-in-law, Cornelia Phillips Spencer, stayed on in his East Franklin Street house. People: James Lee Love, Cornelia Phillips Spencer Place: Chapel Hill · Also mentions: East Franklin StreetSearch the index · Bernard Lee Bryant Jr., Occupants and Structures of Franklin Street, Chapel Hill (1998; Chapel Hill Historical Society, 1999), scan p. 159
  29. Cornelia Phillips Spencer leaves Chapel Hill to join her daughter in Cambridge After finding a lump in her breast, Spencer packed and left Chapel Hill at the Loves' urging for surgery in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which succeeded. Since 1890 she had kept house alone in the Loves' Chapel Hill home with Rebecca Mason, a Black cook, and she had put off leaving until Dilsey Craig died; she did not live in Chapel Hill again. People: James Lee Love, Dilsey Craig Place: Love house, Chapel Hill · Also named: Rebecca MasonSearch the index · James Lee Love, Recollections (1920-1921), scan p. 299
  30. UNC gives Cornelia Phillips Spencer an honorary LL.D., its first honorary degree to a woman The University of North Carolina awarded Spencer the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws in 1895, the first honorary degree it gave to a woman. She had moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, the year before to live with her daughter. Place: Chapel HillSearch the index · Documenting the American South: Cornelia Phillips Spencer, 20 Mar. 1825-11 Mar. 1908 (Dictionary of North Carolina Biography)
  31. Cornelia Phillips Spencer is buried in Chapel Hill beside her parents The Loves brought Spencer's body back from Cambridge and buried her in Chapel Hill beside her parents and her brothers. Love writes that it was her first return to the town since she left in 1894. People: James Lee Love, June Spencer Love Place: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery, Chapel HillSearch the index · James Lee Love, Recollections (1920-1921), scan p. 300 · Also: Orange County Observer (Hillsborough), March 19, 1908, p. 3
  32. 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 Place: Gerrard HallSearch the index · Documenting the American South: Kemp P. Battle, History of the University of North Carolina, vol. II (1912), p. 674

After their death in 1908

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

  1. Hope Summerell Chamberlain's Old Days in Chapel Hill is published Chamberlain's life and letters of Cornelia Phillips Spencer, illustrated with her own drawings, was published in 1926. The University of North Carolina Press was still advertising it in the Chapel Hill Weekly in 1927 and 1930. People: Hope Summerell Chamberlain, Cornelia Phillips Spencer Place: Chapel HillSearch the index · UNC Libraries finding aid: Hope Summerell Chamberlain Papers, 1888-1951 · Also: Chapel Hill Weekly, June 11, 1926, p. 1; Chapel Hill Weekly, March 4, 1927, p. 1
  2. Trustees name the women's dormitory for Cornelia Phillips Spencer At the same meeting that appointed the first women faculty, the trustees named the campus's one women's dormitory, in use for two years, Spencer Hall. People: Cornelia Phillips Spencer Place: Spencer Hall, UNC, Chapel HillSearch the index · Howard E. Covington Jr., Fire and Stone: The Making of the University of North Carolina under Presidents Edward Kidder Graham and Harry Woodburn Chase (2018), p. 369
  3. UNC retires the Cornelia Phillips Spencer Bell Award after Yonni Chapman's campaign Chancellor James Moeser retired the Bell Award, given yearly since 1994 to a woman for outstanding contributions to the university, after graduate student Yonni Chapman led a campaign against it over Spencer's white supremacist and sexist views. People: Yonni Chapman, James Moeser, Cornelia Phillips Spencer Place: UNC-Chapel HillIn the index: UNC-Chapel Hill Young Democrats · UNC Libraries, Climbing the Hill: Women in the History of UNC: Cornelia Phillips Spencer Bell Award

People named in the same events

People named in the same dated entries as Cornelia Phillips Spencer, those sharing the most entries first. Each line links one of the shared entries in the chronology, where its source is cited. A shared entry shows these people in the same event, not how well they knew each other.

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Indexed works

Works about or by Cornelia Phillips Spencer. Each links to the institution that holds or provides it. Background reading appears below.

Filter these works by material, period, or place. Counts refer to works, not individual copies. A work may appear under more than one period or place.

Material

Histories 14Biography 11Letters & correspondence 2Diaries 2Periodicals 2other types 5

Period

19th century 9Civil War (1861–1865) 3Reconstruction (1865–1877) 120th century 3World War I era 121st century 1

Place

Chapel Hill 27North Carolina (statewide) 17Orange County 10Hillsborough 2Research Triangle 2Efland 1

Selected Papers of Cornelia Phillips Spencer

Spencer, Cornelia Phillips · 1953

Selected writings of Cornelia Phillips Spencer (1825 to 1908), the Chapel Hill writer who campaigned for the university's reopening after Reconstruction, published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1953. The 753 pages touch on Chapel Hill life, education and the university in the nineteenth century.

Included because: Catalog heading in the Durham record: Spencer, Cornelia Phillips, 1825-1908.

Reviewed in The Journal of Southern History (1954).

NC Cardinal Durham Chapel Hill PL NCCU CH Historical Society Library of Congress

The Woman Who Rang the Bell: The Story of Cornelia Spencer Phillips

Russell, Charles Phillips · 1949

Charles Phillips Russell's biography of Cornelia Phillips Spencer (1825-1908), the Chapel Hill writer remembered for ringing the bell of South Building when the university reopened in 1875 after its closure during Reconstruction. It doubles as a history of Chapel Hill and the university. Published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1949, 293 pages with illustrations.

Included because: Catalog heading in the Durham record: Spencer, Cornelia Phillips, 1825-1908.

Reviewed in Journal of American History (1949).

NC Cardinal UNC Duke NC State Durham Chapel Hill PL NCCU Wingate CH Historical Society Library of Congress

Old Days in Chapel Hill

Chamberlain, G. Hope Summerell · 1926

Hope Summerell Chamberlain's life and letters of Cornelia Phillips Spencer (1825 to 1908), published in 1926, which doubles as a picture of Chapel Hill and the university in the nineteenth century. It runs 325 pages with illustrations and portraits.

Included because: Catalog heading in the Chapel Hill PL record: Spencer, Cornelia Phillips, 1825-1908.

✓ Held at OCPL · NC BIO SPENCER CHA NC Cardinal UNC NCCU Durham Chapel Hill PL Wingate CH Historical Society

Oral history interview with Cornelia Spencer Love, January 26, 1975 interview G-0032, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007).

Love, Cornelia Spencer · 2008 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

Cornelia Spencer Love (1892-1981), whose grandmother was Cornelia Phillips Spencer, interviewed by Lee Kessler on January 26, 1975 for the Southern Oral History Program. Love, a librarian at UNC, recalls her family, including James Spencer Love (1896-1962), her childhood and youth in Chapel Hill, university life in earlier decades, and her dealings with the town's Black community. One hour forty minutes. Electronic edition 2008.

Included because: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Spencer, Cornelia Phillips, 1825-1908.

NC Cardinal UNC

The last ninety days of the war in North-Carolina

Spencer, Cornelia Phillips · 2005 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

Cornelia Phillips Spencer's account of the closing weeks of the Civil War in North Carolina, reissued in 2005 as an electronic edition by the University Library at UNC-Chapel Hill. Topics include the 1865 campaigns, Sherman's march through the Carolinas, Stoneman's raid, and the history of Chapel Hill and the university in the nineteenth century, where Spencer, 1825 to 1908, spent her working life.

Included because: Catalog heading in the Durham record: Spencer, Cornelia Phillips, 1825-1908.

NC Cardinal UNC Durham

More than petticoats

Cohn, Scotti · 2000 · TwoDot

Scotti Cohn's short biographies of notable North Carolina women, including Harriet Jacobs, Charlotte Hawkins Brown, Annie Lowrie Alexander and Cornelia Phillips Spencer of Chapel Hill. Published by Twodot in 2000, 198 pages with illustrations.

Included because: Catalog heading in the NC Cardinal record: Spencer, Cornelia Phillips, 1825-1908.

NC Cardinal CH Historical Society Library of Congress
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When Chapel Hill was a village

Love, Cornelia Spencer, 1892-1981 · 1976 · Chapel Hill Historical Society

Cornelia Spencer Love's recollections of Chapel Hill as a village, published by the Chapel Hill Historical Society in 1976 with drawings by John V. Allcott. Love lived from 1892 to 1981, and the book covers Chapel Hill biography, the town's social life and customs, and the faculty of the university before 1962. viii and 87 pages with illustrations.

Included because: Listed as its creator.

UNC Library of Congress CH Historical Society NC Cardinal

Selected pepers of Cornelia Phillips Spencer

Wilson, Louis Round · 1953 · University of NC Press

Louis Round Wilson's selection from the papers of Cornelia Phillips Spencer, the Chapel Hill writer whose life ran from 1825 to 1908, published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1953. Topics include American women authors in North Carolina and the social life and customs of Chapel Hill.

Included because: Its title names this person.

NC Cardinal

Mrs. Cornelia Phillips Spencer

Cobb, Collier, 1862-1934 · 1908 · Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies

Collier Cobb's memorial sketch of Cornelia Phillips Spencer, the Chapel Hill writer who died in 1908, reprinted that year from the April number of the University of North Carolina Magazine and issued by the Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies. Pages 261 to 269 with a portrait plate. Topics include women of Chapel Hill and the town's social life and customs.

Included because: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Spencer, Cornelia Phillips, 1825-1908.

UNC

[Cornelia Phillips Spencer]

Material concerning Cornelia Phillips Spencer (1825-1908), a Chapel Hill writer long associated with the University of North Carolina.

Included because: Catalog heading in the NC Cardinal record: Spencer, Cornelia Phillips, 1825-1908.

NC Cardinal

Records of the Women's Concerns Coalition, 1988-1996.

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Women's Concerns Coalition · 1988

Organizational records of the Women's Concerns Coalition at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1988 to 1996, about 250 items in 1.5 linear feet, University Archives 40206. Topics include the status of women faculty, affirmative action, employer supported day care, family and sick leave, mentoring, and sexual harassment policy on campus, along with commemoration of Cornelia Phillips Spencer.

Included because: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Spencer, Cornelia Phillips, 1825-1908.

UNC

Men, movements, and incidents in the history of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Wilson, Louis Round, 1876-1979 · 1974

Typescript articles by Louis Round Wilson on people and episodes in the history of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, among them Cornelia Phillips Spencer, the university presidents, the Morehead-Patterson Memorial Tower, the Ackland art center, the North Carolina Symphony and Research Triangle Park. A note records that the typescript was later published in part as Historical Sketches in 1976. One volume, various pagings.

Included because: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Spencer, Cornelia Phillips, 1825-1908.

UNC

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Books in OCPL’s Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection whose titles, catalog subjects, or descriptions match this person. The Friends’ recommended starting points are labelled.

  • Rebecca Wall Collection · NC BIO SPENCER CHA Old Days in Chapel Hill: Being the Life and Letters of Cornelia Phillips Spencer Chamberlain, Hope Summerell · 1926

    Hope Summerell Chamberlain's life and letters of Cornelia Phillips Spencer (1825 to 1908), published in 1926, which doubles as a picture of Chapel Hill and the university in the nineteenth century. It runs 325 pages with illustrations and portraits.

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Picture: Cornelia Phillips Spencer, 1907. Public domain. archive.org History of the University of North Carolina by Kemp P. Battle, 1907, p. 97.; via Wikimedia Commons

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