Fall Meeting: Presbyterians and the First State University
Join us Saturday, October 8, 2022 at historic Hillsborough Presbyterian Church for our Fall Meeting! The church building itself is a contender for the oldest continually used church in North Carolina, built in 1814 and organized as a Presbyterian congregation in 1816.
The Presbyterian Drive for Higher Education in North Carolina
In 1789, North Carolina became the first state to authorize a public university funded by the state. Students arrived in 1795, and UNC was the only state university to grant degrees in the eighteenth century. But the pressure for a university began before the Revolution - and came largely from Presbyterian leaders.
Queen’s College - Almost
The story begins with the colonial Assembly’s 1770 act to create Queen’s College in Charlotte, ratified by Governor Tryon in 1771 primarily to please Presbyterians who had assisted him against the Regulators. The Board of Trustees had one Anglican and four Presbyterians. But when the Commissioners in London reviewed the law in 1772, they recommended the king disallow it since it would be run by “dissidents” - namely Presbyterians. Word arrived in 1773 that the charter was rejected. The school continued as Queen’s Museum, then Liberty Hall Academy.
The Founders: McCorkle and Davie
After the Revolution, Rev. Samuel E. McCorkle, minister at Thyatira Presbyterian Church and president of Salisbury Academy, submitted the first proposal in 1784. The Assembly rejected it but accepted one from William Richardson Davie in 1789. Davie, raised by his Presbyterian minister uncle and a Princeton graduate (1776), helped choose the location and recruit faculty. McCorkle chaired the committee that planned the course of instruction. In 1793, Davie laid the cornerstone of Old East and McCorkle delivered the address.
Presbyterian Leadership at UNC
Joseph Caldwell, a Presbyterian licensed to preach but not ordained, became presiding professor in 1797 and the first university president in 1807, serving until his death in 1835. He raised $12,000 to complete South Building, personally paid for building the first educational observatory in the U.S. (1830), and championed improved transportation and public education.
Don McLeod will share more about this Presbyterian connection at our meeting in Hillsborough!