Key local figure
Former governor David Lowry Swain (1801–1868) moved to Chapel Hill in January 1836 as president of the University of North Carolina and served longer than any other president. He kept the university open through the Civil War, lost the office when the Reconstruction board accepted the faculty's resignations in 1868, and died that August after a buggy accident.
Source: NCpedia (Dictionary of North Carolina Biography): Swain, David Lowry
Also found in catalogs as David L (David Lowry) Swain.
1803–1868 as the Library of Congress records it · On the Friends’ Local Authors roster → · Library of Congress authority record ↗
20 indexed works are connected with this person. 1 held at OCPL →
Works in the index that concern this person directly, or were written by them. Each links to the institution that holds or provides it; background reading with wider context sits further down.
Willis P. Whichard's biography of David Lowry Swain, governor of North Carolina from 1832 to 1835 and president of the University of North Carolina from 1835 until his death in 1868. The subtitle ties Swain, nineteenth-century North Carolina and the university together, and the book belongs with the lives of college presidents and governors. Published in 2022.
Zebulon Baird Vance on the life and character of David L. Swain, the North Carolina governor who died in 1868. The address appeared in the University Magazine at Chapel Hill for May 1878 and was issued separately by the Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies of the University of North Carolina.
Personal and political papers of Willie Person Mangum, the Whig senator from Orange County, together with papers of Arthur Mangum and Charity Alston Cain Mangum. Correspondents include Daniel Webster, William A. Graham, David L. Swain, John Chavis and Abraham Lincoln, and other topics include plantations at Hillsborough, the estate called Walnut Hill, state politics, agriculture and education.
Letter of 15 August 1862 from David L. Swain at Chapel Hill to Charles Manly about plans for the inauguration of the newly elected governor, Zebulon Vance. Two images. Swain, president of the university, had been governor himself, as had Manly, who served from 1849 to 1851.
David L. Swain wrote Zebulon B. Vance on 15 August 1862 as Vance prepared for his inauguration, offering advice on the governor's office. Swain, himself a former governor, was then president of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Vance had commanded the 26th North Carolina Infantry.
Letters and papers of Cornelia Phillips Spencer, the Chapel Hill writer and historian and daughter of professor James Phillips, 1857 to 1905. Most of the correspondence, from 1859 to 1895, concerns the university and life in the village, with letters exchanged with Swain, Kemp P. Battle and George T. Winston, successive heads of the university, and with Mrs. Swain and W. C. Kerr. State Archives of North Carolina, PC.7.
Diaries and papers of John Hill Wheeler of Hertford County, historian, legislator, state treasurer from 1843 to 1845 and minister to Nicaragua from 1854 to 1857. The diaries, a broken run from 1854 to 1882, follow his social and political life in Washington, D.C. University commencements at Chapel Hill and his work on North Carolina history also come up. State Archives of North Carolina, MfP.51.
Papers of Benjamin Sherwood Hedrick, the UNC chemistry professor dismissed in 1856 for opposing slavery and backing the Republican candidate John C. Fremont. Most of the 6,037 items, from 1848, are letters to Hedrick: early ones exchanged with Mary Ellen Thompson before their marriage, then others on university life at Chapel Hill, his dismissal, and his later career in Washington with the Patent Office. Correspondents include David L. Swain and Kemp P. Battle.
Papers of William Lafayette Scott, Greensboro lawyer, teacher, Confederate officer and politician, 1,017 items mostly from 1854 to 1871. They follow him from his student years at the University of North Carolina through law and teaching, a legislative term in the 1850s, a troubled Confederate service that ended in resignation, and Reconstruction politics. Kemp P. Battle, David L. Swain, Albion W. Tourgée and Jonathan Worth are among the names in the papers.
Letters of the historian George Bancroft, 1845 to 1885, 22 items. Fifteen are transcripts of letters addressed to UNC president David L. Swain about the state's history: the Regulators, the Loyalists, the Mecklenburg Declaration, Tryon and Martin as governors, and Edmund Fanning and Hermon Husbands, both central to the Regulator troubles in Hillsborough.
Legislative documents the North Carolina General Assembly ordered printed for its sessions of 1831 to 1835, with reports on canals, roads, railroads, banks, the militia, schools and the university, the Cherokee and slavery, among other business. Governors Montfort Stokes and David L. Swain figure in them; Swain later became president of the University of North Carolina. 602 images.
Papers of Ruffin S. Tucker, 1795 to 1851, dated 1811 to 1924 and heaviest between 1811 and 1858: fifty four items in the Southern Historical Collection at UNC, collection 4595. Topics include the real estate business in Raleigh, marriage settlements, bills of sale for enslaved people, and economic conditions in Franklin, Pitt and Washington counties. David L. Swain is among the other names.
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.
Willis P. Whichard's biography of David Lowry Swain, governor of North Carolina from 1832 to 1835 and president of the University of North Carolina from 1835 until his death in 1868. The subtitle ties Swain, nineteenth-century North Carolina and the university together, and the book belongs with the lives of college presidents and governors. Published in 2022.
Four men who shaped North Carolina before the Civil War are the subjects of these lectures by R. D. W. Connor: Archibald Murphey and his plans for schools and internal improvements, David Swain and the constitutional reform of 1835, Calvin Wiley and the common schools, and John Morehead and the railroads. Delivered and published in 1914 at the State Normal and Industrial College; reprinted in 1971 from the 1930 edition, 123 pages.
Dated events connected with this person: sixteen of 64, the highlights and a sample of the rest spread across the years, in date order. See all 64 dated events in the chronology →
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
At Duncan Cameron's instance the board placed management in a seven-member executive committee including the governor, with the powers of the land, appointments and building committees and the right to change studies and dismiss faculty. The first members were Cameron, George E. Badger, William McPheeters, Charles Manly, Frederick Nash, William A. Graham and Governor Swain.
People: Duncan Cameron · David L. Swain · George E. Badger · William McPheeters · Frederick Nash · William A. Graham
During the 1840 presidential campaign the faculty asked the county candidates not to speak at Chapel Hill and forbade three students chosen to manage a Whig dinner in the village to serve.
People: David L. Swain
The 1842 commencement was the first at which each member of the graduating class was given a Bible bearing the president's autograph, a custom still kept in 1907.
People: David L. Swain
Subject: Gerrard Hall
Chapel Hill contractors Isaac J. Collier and Kendall B. Waitt subcontracted the masonry of the university additions to Cosby, who put enslaved workmen including the brothers Osborne and Albert on the job. Cosby and the architect Alexander Jackson Davis quarrelled over the drawings, and president David L. Swain asked the Hillsborough builder John Berry to look at the brickwork, which Berry reported was defective.
People: John Berry · David L. Swain · Alexander Jackson Davis
Letters between Lucy and William H. Battle in March 1845 describe enslaved men at their Chapel Hill house: Ben planted shrubs and flowers, Harry worked on the outbuildings and was hired out, and Billy was also at work. The well-house, servants' houses, barn and bath house were built almost entirely by enslaved labor.
Part of Slavery in Orange County · 102 events
People: David L. Swain
To secure 2,500 dollars borrowed from John H. Bryan, with David L. Swain and Duncan Cameron as his sureties, William Mercer Green conveyed to William H. Battle in trust his land on Bolin Creek near Chapel Hill and fifteen enslaved people: Jenny, Nancy, Lucy, Frances, Ellen, Celia, Anne, Julia, Rachel, Margaret, Peter, Sam, Aaron, Cain and Robert. If the debt went unpaid, they were to be advertised in the Hillsborough Recorder and sold at Chapel Hill to the highest bidder.
People: William Mercer Green · William Horn Battle · David L. Swain · Duncan Cameron
Built with money and effort from James and Charles Phillips, Elisha Mitchell and President Swain, the small Presbyterian church on the old Grand Avenue ground was completed and formally dedicated.
People: James Phillips · Charles Phillips · Elisha Mitchell · David L. Swain
With the dormitories overflowing, Swain asked the faculty and trustees in 1855 for leave to build new residence halls, and the university turned again to Davis, who visited in the summer of 1856 and offered several designs. When the trustees acted in 1858 they hired William Percival instead.
People: David L. Swain
After a dispute between the French instructor Henri Harrisse and President Swain, the trustees created a professorship of modern languages and elected Hildreth H. Smith, president of Catawba College, to fill it. Smith held the chair until the university closed in 1868.
People: David L. Swain
President David Lowry Swain kept the university in session as students left Chapel Hill at eight to ten a day to enlist in late April 1861. Enrollment fell to 91 by September 1861, Swain won a Confederate draft exemption for some students in 1863, and only four students graduated in 1865.
Part of Orange County during the Civil War, 1861–1865 · 42 events
People: David L. Swain
To ease the faculty's hardship the trustees let professors, and the widow of tutor George B. Johnston, cut firewood from university land, extending the privilege in December 1864 with Bursar Fetter to mark trees. Neighbors cut freely as well, and many acres near the village were stripped of oaks and hickories.
People: Manuel Fetter · David L. Swain · William Horn Battle
President Swain wrote General Sherman that Wheeler's men and then the Federals had stripped the country of forage and horses, leaving families such as the Rev. George W. Purefoy's fifty people with no food and no work animals. Sherman replied on April 22 that seizures would stop when the war ended.
Part of Orange County during the Civil War, 1861–1865 · 42 events
People: David L. Swain · William T. Sherman
The student ball managers named Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, John C. Breckinridge, Zebulon Vance and other Confederate figures as honorary managers without asking them. Fearing hostile action by Congress, the trustees ruled the choice improper.
People: Robert E. (Robert Edward) Lee · Zebulon B. Vance · David L. Swain
Learning that the new Reconstruction trustees had declared his 1867 resignation final, David L. Swain wrote Governor William W. Holden, as chairman of the board, that no charge had been made against him and that a resignation accepted by a board that no longer existed could not be revived. He asked for reconsideration, but died later that month.
People: David L. Swain · William W. Holden
The university built Swain Hall in 1913 and 1914 as a dining hall on the site of the first president's house and named it for David L. Swain. It served as the dining hall until 1940 and later became the first home of the communications department.
Subject: Swain Hall
Buildings, schools, churches and other sites named in the dated events on this page, the most often named first. The map shows the 11 with a known location.
Map tiles © OpenStreetMap contributors. Site locations from the N.C. State Historic Preservation Office survey, Open Orange and OpenStreetMap; town and community pins mark the middle of their mapped buildings.
The index lists works with an Orange County connection. To find everything else about David L. Swain, search these catalogs.
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Picture: David L. Swain. Public domain. via Wikimedia Commons
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