News Release

Photo: To download photos, see end of story.

50-item exhibition in Wilson Library
honors UNC founder William R. Davie

CHAPEL HILL — An exhibition honoring the "father" of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is on display at Wilson Library through June 30.

Nearly 50 artifacts, images, books and documents relating to William Richardson Davie can be seen in the library’s North Carolina Collection Gallery.

"William Richardson Davie: Soldier, Statesman and Founder of the University of North Carolina" coincides with the 250^th anniversary of Davie’s birth on June 22, 1756.

"What this exhibition intends to do is to introduce people not only to Davie’s eventful life, but more specifically, to that life’s impact on the creation and early development of the University of North Carolina," said Neil Fulghum, exhibition curator and gallery keeper.

Davie, a Revolutionary War hero and later a state legislator, introduced the bill in the N.C. General Assembly in 1789 that chartered the university. With the laying of the cornerstone of Old East in 1793, the new institution became a physical reality. When UNC opened to students in January 1795, it became the first operating state university in the nation.

As a trustee, Davie continued to guide the university’s operations over the next decade. He helped select professors, supervise the construction of additional buildings and monitor the curricula and students.

Davie was an influential statesman during America’s early years of independence, serving as governor of North Carolina from 1798 to 1799. At the request of then-President John Adams, Davie traveled to Paris to help negotiate a commercial treaty that brought an end to the naval conflict between the United States and France in 1800.

Davie retired from public service in 1805, left his home in Halifax, N.C., and returned to the Waxhaw region of South Carolina, where he had spent his boyhood. He died there in 1820.

Fulghum said it is exciting to have such a large and diverse collection of material about the life of someone born two-and-a-half centuries ago. He also said that the preservation of such material underscores Carolina’s commitment to saving its own 217-year history.

On display will be:

• Original correspondence from Col. Davie to American Gen. Nathanael Greene reporting on the search for military supplies in the Carolinas in 1781.
• The bridal fan carried by Davie’s bride, Sarah, in 1782. In the 18^th and 19^th centuries, fans often were carried in weddings in place of flowers.
• The original bronze plate from the laying of the cornerstone of East Building (Old East) on Oct. 12, 1793.
• An original 1793 letter of sale for a slave written by Davie. Like many other university trustees and high-ranking state officials prior to 1865, Davie was a slave owner.
• A gold pocket watch made by the Abraham-Louis Breguet firm that also made watches for Napoleon Bonaparte, the czar of Russia and the sultan of the Ottoman Empire. Davie bought the watch in Paris in 1800.
• A posthumous portrait of Davie, painted by Charles Willson Peale in 1826.

"If William Davie could rise today from his tomb in South Carolina, travel to Chapel Hill and see the University of North Carolina, I am sure his jaw would drop to the floor," Fulghum said. "The university he knew – a tiny school tucked into the backwoods of Orange County – has evolved into a sprawling academic institution and medical complex that in 2006 employs, instructs and generally accommodates more people than the total population of either Boston, Philadelphia or the island of Manhattan in 1790."

The exhibition marks the first of several university events to commemorate Davie’s 250^th birthday. Others will include the annual Gladys Coates University History Lecture, which will feature remarks by Dr. Harry Watson, a UNC history professor and director of the Center for the Study of the American South. The lecture on April 18 will be free and open to the public. UNC archaeologists in the Research Laboratories of Archaeology also have located the remains of "Tivoli," Davie’s home in South Carolina and will excavate the site this summer as part of annual field studies for students.

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(Kelly Ochs, a senior journalism and mass communication major from Winston-Salem, wrote this release for UNC News Services.)

Note: Fulghum can be reached at (919) 962-1172 or rfulghum@email.unc.edu

Photo URLs: To download a photo of the original engraved miniature portrait of

• Davie produced by French artist Gilles-Louis Chretien in Paris in 1800, go to http://www.unc.edu/news/pics/event/exhibit/davieprofile.jpg. 
• To download a photo of a drawing of East Building (Old East), sketched by UNC student John Pettigrew in 1797, go to http://www.unc.edu/news/pics/event/exhibit/oldeast1797.jpg.
• To download a photo of the type of Masonic apron Davie wore at the laying of Old East’s cornerstone on Oct. 12, 1793, go to http://www.unc.edu/news/pics/event/exhibit/masonicapron.jpg. The Masonic symbols stamped and painted on it include construction tools, a triangle and various celestial and religious signs, including God’s "all-seeing" eye at the top.

News Services contacts: Print, L.J. Toler, (919) 962-8589; broadcast, Karen Moon, (919) 962-8595