DAVIDSON HISTORY
“Mr. Baseball’s” Field of Dreams
NEWS Youth baseball has been a fixture in Davidson for almost 70 years. The three fields at the end of South Street have hosted almost 200,000 players and served as the site of playoff and tournament games. But it was not always so. In his book Olin, Oskeegum, and...
A History of Christmas in Davidson
NEWS Christmas celebrations in Davidson have changed greatly over the last century or so. In a 2001 interview with the Lake Norman Times, Van Lear Logan recalls that in her mother’s day Christmas was very simple. As toys were expensive, there weren’t too many under...
Echoes of Slavery: The Nortons
NEWS Davidson barber Ralph Johnson’s mother was Bessie Norton, and she, too, was a descendant of enslaved people. Her father, Charles, came from near Stony Point in Alexander County, North Carolina, and along with his parents Harry and Maria (Mariah) and his two...
Davidson College and the Civil War
NEWS William Alexander Smith was born in Anson County in 1843, and he enrolled at Davidson as a freshman in 1859. In his 1920 reminiscences, found in the Davidson College Archives, he describes his experience at the college, culminating in his enlistment in the...
Davidson Without a College?
NEWS It’s hard to imagine Davidson without Davidson College, but there were at least two discussions about moving the college to Charlotte. Although the first effort, discussed in 1888, has been described by historian Mary Beaty as an idea without a foundation, both...