Storyline · 1797–1819
Steward's Hall and the University commons, 1797–1819
On December 9, 1797 Pleasant Henderson, who had moved from Mt. Pleasant to Chapel Hill that year, was chosen steward of the University of North Carolina, following John Taylor in the post; a UNC Libraries exhibit records that he enslaved nineteen people. Complaints about the food at Steward's Hall under Taylor and Henderson helped fuel the student uprising of 1799, and in 1801 Henderson's house was stoned. He did not reapply, gave up the stewardship in 1802, declined the trusteeship he was elected to, and went into business as Henderson and Searcy; he kept his Chapel Hill residence while clerk of the House of Commons from 1807 to 1830. In 1808 thirty-eight students, John Branch among them, petitioned the faculty over too little butter and beef often unsound and full of vermin. The faculty found the wording defiant and had it rewritten, and suspended John R. Stokes and Elias Foord for refusing to sign the milder version. Board at the hall rose from $30 a year in 1795 to $95 in 1818. In 1819 the trustees ended the old commons and rented Steward's Hall to Mrs. Burton, who had to feed students for no more than $9 a month the first year and allow the commencement ball in the dining room free, and students could board where they chose.
