DAVIDSON HISTORY
Forgotten History II: Plantations near Davidson
NEWS The local slave population was much larger when one considers the numerous large plantations around Davidson, situated in both Mecklenburg and Iredell counties. Slaveowners had settled the region during the 18th century, and when Eli Whitney’s cotton gin came...
Unrecorded History
NEWS The antebellum history of Davidson and its surrounding communities is rich with accounts of Davidson College, merchants and professionals, prominent families, schools, churches, historic homes, and the plantations that remain from the antebellum period. What...
Davidson’s First Kindergarten
NEWS Publicly-funded kindergartens were common in the Northeast and Midwest by 1960. I attended one such kindergarten in Pennsylvania in 1951, under my kind but formidable teacher, Miss Fawcett. North Carolina and the other Southern states were slower to establish...
Davidson College’s Humble Beginnings
NEWS On January 17, 1837, the Cheraw Gazette published an account of the fledgling Davidson College, taken in part from the Southern Christian Herald. Projected to open in March of that year, the new institution would have three departments. The first was the...
When Dancing Finally Came to Davidson College
NEWS It may have seemed strange to read about the prohibition on dancing in Davidson described in the accounts of Lucy Phillips Russell and her Aunt Cornelia Phillips Spencer. In our modern minds, dancing is accepted as an innocent pastime and enjoyed by almost...