NEWS

Nancy Griffith

In 1835, Concord Presbytery authorized a committee headed by Robert Hall Morrison to establish a college in the western part of North Carolina. Morrison and his assistant Patrick Sparrow soon had pledges of $30,000.

In addition, some individuals and churches, unable to provide monetary support, provided goods and labor. In his speech for the college’s Centenary Celebration in 1887, Jethro Rumple noted that “It is also remembered that some of the people, especially those of Third Creek Church, contributed labor instead of money, and taking their wagons, teams and servants [enslaved workers], camped here in the woods, and spent several weeks in clearing off the grounds, building fences and in making and hauling brick.”

The committee then went looking for a site, and they settled on land owned by nearby planter William Lee Davidson. On November 14, 1835, Salisbury’s “Western Carolinian” listed a number of advantages of using the Davidson land. It mentioned its central and healthy location, and praised the quality of the forested land, it having been examined by a “large committee of practiced farmers.”

In addition, it was on a public road, and was a high, clean location. It was also attractive, important because “the scenes of youth are those which are most vividly and permanently impressed on the memory. It is therefore important that they should be pleasant.”

Most importantly, the new college would be placed “in the midst of an industrious, moral and religious community” so that parents could be sure that their students would maintain their moral standards. Work on building the fledgling college began that same year.

The committee hired Charlotte builder Henry C. Owens and Rowan County master carpenter and contractor Samuel Lemley to erect the first few buildings on campus. Among these were three one-story dormitory buildings, 18×66 feet, which were christened Elm Row, Oak Row, and Cedar Row.

Students gathered outside of Elm Row, 1893 (Provided by Davidson College)

Other buildings put up in time for the college’s opening in 1837 included a chapel, the president’s house, and the steward’s hall. The building committee specified that all buildings were to have river rock foundations, brick walls, and tin roofs. Aside from the tin roofs, this was a common design among local builders, who used readily available materials like local rock, hewn timber, and locally made brick for their buildings.

In September 1835, Owens published an ad in the “Charlotte Journal” seeking three or four experienced journeymen carpenters with “industrious and steady habits” to work on the project. Lemley apparently also used some of his enslaved workers to help with the buildings. The December 1837 college minutes reported that a group of students had been expelled for allegedly spending “an evening enjoying a ‘general feast’” with Lemley’s slaves.

Building began in the spring of 1836, and first to be completed were the basic, hand-laid rock foundations. As described by the Presbytery, the foundations for the first buildings were made of river rock (a term sometimes interchangeably with fieldstone), likely gathered by enslaved people and volunteers from local creeks and fields.

These were sometimes merely dry-stacked, with heavier stones on the bottom to provide stability. Smaller rocks were laid in an interlocking pattern on top. Sometimes early builders used a simple mortar made of sand, lime, and water to bind them together, keeping out moisture and pests. The abundant limestone and quartz in the area provided firm foundations.

Much of the timber used to frame the new structures was purchased from Adam Brevard Davidson of nearby Rural Hill Plantation. Excerpts from his diary, collected by Elizabeth H. Davidson, include the following:

“Jan 13, 1836 – Mr. Owens gave me this bill of lumber for manual labor school to fill between 35 and 40,000 feet, 16,000 feet one and 1/4 inch plank scanting we have about 20,000 of it saved

May 9th 1836  – have hauled 11 loads of lumber up to the college

May 20th 1836  -I rode up to the college and remained there about one hour and then to Uncle W. Lee Davidson’s for dinner and returned home in the evening

April 2nd 1838 –  Settled with Owens and Lemley last week for lumber sent to the Davidson college 114 loads amounted to 1248 dollars”

Along with these diary entries was a summary of this transaction, which he called a “little event”: “I have a little event of my life I bring to your attention if you think it worthy of notice. In December of 1835 I made a contract with Jerry [Henry] C. Owens contractor of Davidson College to furnish 150,000 feet of lumber for the college and furnished it all on the college grounds by September 1836. Sawn at my own mill and every load of it hauled away by my own teams without the contractor waiting a day.”

The brick for the college could not be foraged or hewn but had to be produced in local kilns. Fortunately, high-quality clay, sand, and water were readily available in the Piedmont. On July 11, 1835, the “Western Carolinian” carried an ad looking for someone to make 250,000 bricks for the college buildings.

John Caldwell of nearby Rosedale Plantation won the contract and was promised $4 per thousand for the delivery of the bricks. These were likely made and even laid by enslaved persons from his plantation.

The tin for the roofs was an entirely different matter. It could neither be foraged nor made locally and had to be imported. The most common source of tin at the time was Cornwall, England. The raw ore was processed there and then sent to South Wales to be coated onto iron to produce tinplate. This could be bought from British merchants and was delivered in crates to merchants and importers in ports like Charleston and Wilmington. They were then transported overland to the building site by horse-draw wagons, a rough trip on rudimentary roads.

With what we would consider primitive building methods, and in just a year and a half, the fledgling college boasted a handful of buildings which Raleigh’s “North Carolina Standard” described in 1837 as “neat and comfortable, sufficient to accommodate sixty-five pupils – the number presently enrolled in college – and a chapel now in progress.”

According to the Charlotte Landmarks Commission, however, the speedy process led to some sub-standard building, perhaps because it was left to the contractors to design the buildings: “work appears to have been hastily done. There are waves and undulations in the horizontal coursing, not at all typical of the skilled craftsmanship usually found in early nineteenth century brickwork. In Oak Row the window heads have uneven, even carelessly laid small headers over openings which do not align with adjacent courses, another rare example of poorly done work.”

However, two of these buildings, Oak and Elm Row, still survive. Although they have been remodeled and moved over the years, they still give a flavor of the old Davidson.

Excerpts from Adam Brevard Davidson’s diary are available at this website.