Another native of Cornwall who emigrated to the North Carolina gold
mines was John Gluyas
. The Mecklenburg Gold Mining Company persuaded Gluyas to move
from New York City to Charlotte in 1838 by
paying him a salary of $84 per month and by providing him lodging
and covering his traveling expenses.
Gluyas's first job was to oversee the steam-powered machinery at
the Capps Mine. He would eventually become superintendent of mines in
Mecklenburg, Cabarrus, Davidson, and Montgomery counties.
His son's house, the Thomas and Latitia Gluyas House
, is a designated historic landmark on the Mt. Holly Huntersville Road.
|
Gluyas House |
Picture what you would have seen and heard
if you had visited the St. Catherine Mine
at Charlotte sometime during the mid-1830s. An awe-struck
itinerant preacher called one Mecklenburg mine "the greatest sight
that I ever saw." Another
visitor called the St. Catherine "the greatest establishment" he
had ever encountered. Even
from a distance you would have known that a gold mine was nearby.
The unmistakable thud of the stamp mill's weights would have told
you that rock was being pounded into small bits.
The hissing of the
steam engines that powered the pumps that removed water from the
underground tunnels would also
have pricked your ears. As
you got nearer, a cluster of buildings would have come into view on the
ridgeline just outside Charlotte. Simple,
utilitarian wooden structures, they would have included a large windlass
over the main vertical shaft, where a blind horse or a blind mule would
have been circling endlessly to provide
power for the cumbersome device
that continuously lifted
buckets of white quartz rock to
the surface.
|
Rudisill Gold Mine In Charlotte |
A newspaper reporter from
Charleston, South Carolina toured the St. Catherine Mine
in 1831. "I
went down a ladder about one hundred feet, perpendicular, and thence along
galleries well braced on the sides, and roofed with boards overhead, for
some hundred feet further," he declared.
"I then followed, in a slanting direction, the vein to the
spot where the miners were taking the ore from the earth, and sending it
aloft by means of buckets, which are drawn up by mules."
The underground workers wore short-sleeved coats and white
overalls. "A
round-topped, wide-brimmed hat of indurated felt protected the head like a
helmet," wrote a reporter for Harper's
Magazine. "In lieu
of crest or plume each wore a lighted candle in front, stuck upon the hat
with a wad of clay."
The pace of gold mining in North Carolina
began to wane in the late 1830s and early 1840s.
The national economic downturn known as the Panic of 1837 hastened
the ruin of many unwise speculative investors.
"Led on by bankrupt merchants, broken-down lawyers, quack
doctors, clergymen whose political fanaticism had robbed them of their
churches -- in short, officered by men who had failed in every pursuit
they had undertaken -- how could it be otherwise than that the operations,
conducted by them in this new field of enterprise, would have been
attended with the same failures which had marked all their former
doings?", commented one
observer. Even more
significant in prompting miners to abandon their operations in North
Carolina was the discovery of huge gold deposits in California in 1848.
Southern miners simply packed up their belongings and departed
individually and in groups for California, many taking their slaves with
them. "One stream in
McDowell County which had 3,000 miners at work in 1848," writes
historian Fletcher Green, "was practically deserted in 1850."
All that remained were abandoned wooden buildings and piles of
white quartz rock. Some gold
mines did continue to operate in the North Carolina Piedmont, some as late
as the Great Depression of the 1930s, but never even close to the level of
activity of ante-bellum days.
The most significant building that survives
from the gold mining era in North Carolina is the former United States
Branch Mint in Charlotte
. It was dismantled and moved from its original location on
West Trade Street in 1936 and now serves as the Mint Museum of Art
. Designed by renowned Philadelphia architect William
Strickland
, the facility opened for business on December 4, 1837, under the
direction of Superintendent John H. Wheeler
. The need for a branch mint in the North Carolina gold region
arose because of the tendency of many private assayers and minters to
produce counterfeit coins. A
Congressional committee reported that a lot of "imperfect
currency" was circulating in and around Charlotte and the other
boomtowns of the Piedmont. The
imposing new edifice, which cost $29,700 to build, operated until
Confederate authorities took it over in May 1861.
|
Grand buildings were also erected on the
campus of Davidson College
in the 1830s and 1840s. The
leaders of the Concord Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church, not wanting
their sons to continue having to go to Princeton College in New Jersey to
receive a Calvinistic education, voted on March 12, 1835, to establish an
institution of higher learning in western North Carolina.
William Lee Davidson, II
was a member of the committee
charged with selecting a site for the "Manual Labour School." He
was also the son of General William Lee Davidson
, who had died on February 1, 1780 in the Battle of Cowan's Ford
. At a meeting held at Davidson's home, Beaver Dam
, on May 13, 1835, "at candlelight after solemn and special prayer to
Almighty God for the aid of his grace," the committee decided to
recommend purchase of 469 acres of Davidson's land for $1521 for the
college's campus. At a later meeting, on August 26, 1835, it was decided
to name the institution "Davidson College"
... as a tribute to the memory of that
distinguished and excellent man, General William Davidson
, who in the ardor of patriotism, fearlessly contending for the liberty of
his country, fell (universally lamented) in the Battle of Cowan's Ford
.
|
Beaver Dam |
Davidson College
opened in 1837. The original curriculum included
moral and natural philosophy, evidences of Christianity, classical
languages, logic, and mathematics. There were three professors, including
Robert Hall Morrison
, who was also the college's first president, and
approximately sixty-four students. The
oldest extant structures on the campus are Elm Row
and Oak Row
. Both were originally dormitories and date from the first year
of the institution's operations. The
style and placement of the buildings suggest that the Presbyterian elders
who founded Davidson College were hoping to duplicate the feel of Thomas
Jefferson
's famous "Lawn" at the University of Virginia. The exteriors of
the buildings retain their original Jeffersonian Classical features.
The most elegant of the early college structures are Eumenean Hall
and Philanthropic Hall
. Both were built in 1848, and each served as the home of a
debating society, secret and formal in nature.
|
|
Philanthropic Hall |
Eumenean Hall |
The rules of the debating societies were very
strict about the behavior of members.
Fines were imposed for fighting, swearing, intoxication, or
"lying to the faculty." There were even "vigilance
committees" for reporting offenses. Since nearly all students were
members of one society or the other, "student government really dates
from the beginning," with the regulation of behavior coming from the
two societies. It is said "around the two halls centered college loyalty and
affection." The societies provided excellent libraries and financed
almost all the annual commencement activities.
Despite their good intentions, the two literary societies were not
always successful in controlling the deportment of their members.
On August 10, 1853, the Board of Trustees
of Davidson College
voted to invite Daniel
Harvey Hill
to become a Professor of Mathematics at their fledgling
institution of higher education. A
graduate of West Point and veteran of the Mexican War,
D. H. Hill was thoroughly familiar with Davidson.
His father-in-law was Robert Hall Morrison
. Even though he was
quite content to remain on the faculty of Washington College
in Lexington, Virginia., where he had "received not a single
mark of discourtesy, or disrespect," Hill accepted the position at
Davidson, largely because of his "desire to labor in a College,
founded in the prayers, and by the liberality of Presbyterians."
Also, the Board of Trustees had agreed to support his "views . . . in
regard to the standard of education, and system of government of the
College." C. D. Fishburne
, a former student at Washington College and a colleague
of Hill's on the Davidson faculty, explained
that Hill "entered on his duties with the assurance that he would be
heartily sustained by a large majority of the Trustees in every effort he
might make to completely change the College, in the standards of
scholarship and behavior."
What happened over the next five
years at Davidson College
illustrates just how
tenacious and persistent "Harvey" Hill could be. Nothing could
seemingly dissuade this man from trying to attain an objective once he had
decided to pursue it. To
put matters bluntly, the Board of Trustees wanted Hill to take charge and
subdue the violence that was threatening to destroy the college.
"Major Hill was . . . induced to accept the place by the urgent
request of prominent friends of the College who were dissatisfied with its
condition," said Fishburne. The 33-year-old South Carolinian was
eager to meet the challenge.
The behavior of Davidson's students, like
that on many other college campuses in the South, was raucous and
unsettling. Many of the approximately 90 students were virtually out of
control. Riots were
common. Drinking and carousing were widespread. If suspended,
troublemakers would not go home, largely because they did not have enough
money to pay their way. Waiting to be readmitted, they would walk around
campus or sleep all day in the town's boarding houses. Even worse, at
night, under the cover of darkness, they would entertain themselves by
making mischief, much of it mean spirited.
On Thursday, December 22, 1853, for
example, students attacked the houses of two professors with rocks and
eggs and set off several bombs on the campus, "the report being heard
some four or five miles around the College."
On Friday, April 21, 1854, a "wooden building was
demolished" during a campus riot.
One student even put gunpowder into a candle snuffer, which
exploded when it was used. The unsuspecting owner suffered serious damage
to one eye.
After fulfilling his obligations at Washington
College, Hill arrived in Davidson on May 28, 1854, and almost immediately
began implementing major changes in the academic program. Uppermost on his
agenda was the installation of the same military grading system of merits
and demerits used at many colleges during the 1850's, including Washington
College and West Point. Not a few students, Hill insisted, had been
"allowed to trample upon all laws, human and divine." These
surly youngsters had an "undisciplined mind, an uncultivated heart,
yet with exalted ideas of personal dignity, and a scowling contempt for
lawful authority, and wholesome restraint," he lamented.
|
Daniel Harvey Hill |
Hill insisted the he knew how to end such
fractious behavior. Never one to mince words, especially when he believed
that somebody in authority was incompetent, Hill lashed out at Samuel
Williamson
, the College's president. "The character of a College depends mainly
upon the character of its President," Hill told the Board of
Trustees. In August, 1854, Williamson resigned when
it became clear that the combative new mathematics professor was going to
prevail. Hill also offered to quit, but the Board of Trustees insisted
that he stay. As promised, the Board of Trustees approved Hill's new
grading system of merits and demerits, on August 8, 1854. The most severe
punishment was bestowed upon those students guilty of "profanity,
fighting, disorderly conduct in recitation rooms, in Chapel, or on the
Campus." There were also severe penalties for students "being
improperly dressed."
Clearly, a restrictive new regime was taking control at Davidson
College
, and Daniel Harvey Hill
was its indomitable leader. The days of lax discipline were
over.
The minutes of the Davidson College
Faculty are replete with examples of professors, especially D.
H. Hill, subjecting students to exacting regulations. These included
unannounced inspections of dormitory rooms to make sure that students were
studying, informing parents when their children were "too frequently
absent from College duties," and reading each Monday in Chapel a
"list of the delinquencies and offenses" that had occurred the
pervious week. ".
. . on account of noise on the campus, Profs. Hill and Fishburn (sic.)
inspected the College Buildings and found that Messrs. Bailey, and R. B.
Caldwell were absent from their rooms," the Faculty minutes declared
on one occasion. D.
H. Hill was particularly concerned about students drinking whiskey. The
minutes of one meeting stated:
Faculty met, and after the usual business, some
conversation was had about certain students being addicted to drinking,
and it was reported that a citizen of the village had informed a member of
the Faculty that there was a good deal of drinking this term among the
students. Where-upon, it was agreed, on motion of Major Hill, that the
Faculty visit the students' rooms one night of this week.
There was also anxiety
about the presence of firearms on campus. The Faculty stipulated that
"no student be allowed to use fire-arms (sic.), except on Saturday,
and at no time on the College premises."
The new instruments of control even extended to visitors to the
campus. In May, 1855, the Faculty hired policemen and directed them
"to disperse negroes who may collect about the College on
Sundays."
It was against the background of these
developments that a large number of students rioted with particular
ferocity on the night of December 21, 1854. No doubt harboring deep
resentments over the enforcement of Hill's restrictive measures, the
participants in this uprising expressed their anger by lighting fires and
throwing rocks and eggs at two professors' houses, including the home of
J. R. Gilland
, the president of the Faculty. Rocks flew through the air. One struck
Hill in the forehead. Undismayed, blood dripping down his face, the feisty
mathematics professor pressed the attack, just as he had done in the
Mexican War and as he would do later in battle after battle with the
Yankees during the Civil War. Gradually the students retreated and began
to slip away into the darkness. Hill ordered the Faculty -- there were
only four members -- to enter the dormitories to make sure which students
had stayed in their rooms.
All the students were either at their desks
studying or asleep in their beds when the faculty entered. One room was
locked. Hill smashed in the door with an ax, rushed in and found D.
Newton, a known mischief-maker, feigning sleep but still wearing his
boots. The repercussions of this student uprising were dramatic and
profound, at least for Davidson College
. An inquisition of sorts occurred the next day, when the entire student
body was ordered to appear before the Faculty and explain their
whereabouts the night before. Not surprisingly, everybody insisted that
they had not taken part in the recent disturbance. On December 26th, the
Faculty suspended D. Newton for three months for "his inattention to
his studies, . . . his having used in a written essay disrespectful
language to a Professor, and from the strong circumstantial evidence to
convict him of participating in a riot on the night of the 21st."
Forty-two students, more than 50 percent of those attending
Davidson College, signed a petition requesting that Newton be allowed to
remain. The document contended that convicting Newton on mere
circumstantial evidence was "inconsistent with the principles of
justice, and contrary to the dictates of reason." When D. H. Hill and
his colleagues refused to adhere to the their wishes, the protesting
students left school, many never to return.
Daniel Harvey Hill
did not seek to be popular. In his opinion, neither should
colleges. Too many colleges and universities, he insisted, had become
little more than "polishing and varnishing" institutions,
because they did everything necessary to maintain their enrollment,
including sacrificing academic standards.
And what kind of graduates did such places produce? "An
occasional scholar is sent out from their walls, whilst thousands of
conceited ignoramuses are spawned forth with not enough Algebra to equate
their minds with zero," Hill proclaimed in his official inaugural
address to the Board of Trustees on February 28, 1855.
" . . . ninnies take degrees," the acerbic major
continued, "and blockheads bear away the title of Bachelor of Arts;
though the only art they acquired in College was the art of yelling,
ringing of bells, and blowing horns in nocturnal rows."
D. H. Hill believed that human beings
are by nature wretched and sinful creatures. "Self-abasement and
self-abhorrence must lie at the very foundation of the Christian
character," Hill wrote in 1858.
Regardless of its origins, this predilection to emphasize the
negative aspects of human deportment brought a
certain harshness to Hill's rhetoric. Indeed, his inaugural address
at Davidson was full of vituperative language. Without rewards for good
behavior, the majority of students would "speedily acquire idle
habits, and learn to drone away their time between lounging, cards,
cigars, and whiskey punch," Hill maintained.
And as for those miscreants who had no desire to improve their
behavior, they would "congregate together around their filthy whiskey
bottle, like ill-omened vultures around a rotten carcass." It was
this tendency toward invective and pointing out the faults in others that
caused many people to dislike Daniel Harvey Hill
. But Hal Bridges, his biographer, reminds us that Hill was a man of many
facets. "At every stage of his career, the attractive qualities . . .
were liberally intermingled with his prickly traits of character,"
says Bridges.
Davidson College
derived enormous benefits from having "Harvey" Hill
on its faculty. In addition to leading the effort to restore discipline,
he labored tirelessly to strengthen the academic program. He persuaded the
Board of Trustees to purchase new equipment for the Mathematics
Department. He brought C. D. Fishburne
to Davidson and agreed to pay Fishburne's salary for two years
if the money could not be raised to meet this obligation -- no small
commitment when his own annual salary was just $1705. Salisbury, North
Carolina merchant Maxwell Chambers
bequeathed $300,000 to the college in 1852. Ratchford insisted
that Chambers was most pleased with the improvements that Hill brought
about. "This I presume is the largest Legacy ever left to one College
in the Southern States," said Robert Hall Morrison
, D. H. Hill's father-in-law. Anyone
doubting the importance of his contributions to the overall improvement of
Davidson College need only read what the Board of Trustees said about D.
H. Hill when he resigned from the faculty on July 11, 1859.
That whilst we, as a Board of Trustees, accede to the
wishes of Major D. H. Hill, we accept his resignation with very great
reluctance, much regretting to lose from our Institution such a pure and
high minded Christian gentleman, diligent and untiring student; thorough
and ripe scholar, and able faithful, and successful Instructor --
especially in his Department -- as Major Hill as ever proved himself to be
since he came amongst us.
In 1859, no doubt at D. H. Hill's urging,
the General Assembly of North Carolina enacted legislation which assured
that Hill's impact upon campus life at Davidson College
would endure. The law stipulated that no person could
"erect, keep, maintain or have at Davidson College, or within three
miles thereof, any tippling house, establishment or place for the sale of
wines, cordials, spirituous or malt liquors."
It prohibited "any billiard table, or other public table of
any kind, at which games of chance or skill (by whatever name called) may
be played." The
punishments for violating these prohibitions were severe, especially for
slaves. They were "to receive thirty-nine lashes on his or her bare
back." The departure of Daniel Harvey Hill
from Davidson College came as no surprise. It was widely known
that he was about to become the Superintendent of the North Carolina
Military Institute
in Charlotte.
The decade of the 1850s was a time of
propitious happenings in Charlotte. Indeed,
those ten years witnessed to a substantial degree the birth of the
community that we inhabit today, at least in terms of civic spirit.
Unlike the invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney
in 1793 or the discovery of
gold by Conrad Reed
in 1799, both of which had profoundly impacted life in
Mecklenburg County, local residents, not outside forces or good fortune,
brought this new change about.
"With our citizens, the tide and the spirit of improvements
are still as high as ever," declared a Charlotte newspaper in 1853.
There was considerable apprehension about
the future economic health of the county after the Panic of 1837 and the
discovery of gold in California in 1848.
Physician Charles J. Fox
and lawyers James W. Osborne
and William Johnston
led the effort to boost local development by bringing a
railroad to Charlotte. By
doing so, they elevated resolute and imaginative leadership to the
pinnacle of importance it has occupied in Charlotte and Mecklenburg County
ever since. There was nothing
inevitable about Charlotte's becoming the leading city of the Piedmont.
It took hard work, foresight, and imagination to achieve that
objective.
Mecklenburg planters like James Torance
and W. T. Alexander produced bounteous crops of cotton
throughout the 1830s and 1840s, but markets were far removed and difficult
to reach. Teamsters had
to traverse nearly impassable roads to Fayetteville,
Cheraw or Camden, where the “White Gold” of the South was
loaded onto flat-bottomed scows for shipment to Wilmington, Georgetown or
Charleston. “The difficulties faced by farmers in marketing their crop
led many to abandon the Carolina Piedmont for greener pastures in the
west,” writes historian Janette Greenwood.
Having experienced vigorous growth in the first three decades of
the nineteenth century, the population of Mecklenburg County declined
from 20,073 in 1830 to 13,914 in 1850. Although a substantial
number of those no longer living in Mecklenburg had become residents of
new neighboring counties, such as Union County, Mecklenburg County was
unquestionably experiencing economic stagnation.
Real estate values fell by about half during the same years.
Clearly, dramatic action was needed if Charlotte-Mecklenburg was to
continue to compete with other communities for economic prominence.
In 1847, Johnston, Fox, and Osborne began
sponsoring public meetings in Charlotte and its environs to champion a
rail line that would link Charlotte to Charleston by way of Columbia,
South Carolina. The railroad
boosters contended that only the laying of track and the arrival of
locomotives would allow the County’s farmers to enjoy “the
improvements and advantages of the age in which we live.”
They named the proposed line the Charlotte and South Carolina
Railroad
and insisted it would save
Mecklenburg County and its neighbors “from poverty and from ruin.”
Fundraisers were held in towns throughout
the region, including Lincolnton, Salisbury, Concord, Monroe, and as far
away as Rutherfordton. Typically,
Fox, Johnston or Osborne would travel by wagon to an evening banquet,
frequently held out of doors or in a tent, where they would preach the
wonders of the railroad as an instrument of progress and call upon the
members of the audience to come forward and buy stock.
The atmosphere was not unlike that at a religious revival, but in
this instance the message was entirely secular.
The response was overwhelmingly
positive. The farmers of the Providence community organized a barbecue and
pledged $14,000. A sizeable
home could be bought at that time for $3000!
By August 1847, the astounding sum of $300,000 had been raised for
the road. The dream of
connecting Charlotte to Columbia and Charleston by rail was going to
become a reality.
On October 28, 1852, a crowd of about
20,000 people – more than 15 times the population of the town --
gathered along the tracks that still parallel South College Street and
waited for the arrival of the first train.
For weeks the people of Charlotte had heard the whistle atop the
approaching locomotive announce at the end of each day how far the work
crews had come. All was anticipation and excitement. Then it happened.
Hissing and screeching its way north from Rock Hill, its plumes of
smoke signaling the opening of a new era, the train finally lumbered into
the Charlotte station, which was situated about where the Charlotte
Convention Center now stands.
More than any other event, the
arrival of the railroad in 1852 set Charlotte on its way to being the
largest city in the Carolinas," contends historian Thomas W. Hanchett.
Heretofore, nothing had distinguished Charlotte economically from
other towns in the southern Piedmont.
There had been no greater reason for farmers to congregate for
business here than in Lincolnton or Monroe or Concord.
The efforts of Fox,
Osborne, Johnston, and their supporters made Charlotte the railhead of the
region and its transportation and distribution center, a position it has
never relinquished.
"Our people seem to be inspired with
new life and new energies amounting almost to intoxication,"
proclaimed a local newspaper. Investors even began building commercial
structures in anticipation of the railroad.
Thomas Trotter
, William Treloar
and other local merchants began constructing a row of brick
commercial buildings, known as "Granite Row" or "Granite
Range," on the southwestern corner of the Square in July 1850 and
completed them in September 1851. Probably
the first brick store buildings in Charlotte, Granite Row was torn down in
the 1980s to make the center city "more attractive." Happily, William Treloar
's post-Civil War home survives at 328 North Brevard Street.
With Charlotte having the only rail
connection from the southern Piedmont into neighboring South Carolina, it
was only logical that the largely State-financed
North Carolina Railroad
, extending from
Goldsboro on the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad westward through Raleigh
to Greensboro and Salisbury, would terminate in Charlotte.
The first train traveled the entire route from Goldsboro to
Charlotte on January 31, 1856. "We now have a railroad connection
with Raleigh, Petersburg, Richmond, and with all the cities of the North,
on to the lines of Canada," the Western
Democrat
proclaimed.
In 1858, the Wilmington, Charlotte
and Rutherfordton Railroad Company
erected a passenger station
on North Tryon Street to serve as the eastern terminus of a thirty-one
mile line from Charlotte to Lincolnton, which was completed by April 1861.
Dr. Charles Fox headed the campaign to establish Charlotte's fourth
railroad of the 1850s, the Atlantic, Tennessee and Ohio Railroad
or AT&O, which despite
its boastful name only ran from Charlotte to Statesville. The Atlantic, Tennessee & Ohio Railroad reached from
Charlotte to Davidson in 1861 and to Statesville in March 1863, where it
connected with the Western North Carolina Railroad
.
Dr. Paul B. Barringer
of Concord rode the
AT&O as a child. His remarks provide a fascinating glimpse into the
early days of railroading in Mecklenburg County.
It took 8 hours to travel 4O miles.
"These engines burned nothing but wood, rich resinous pine
wood, and the sparks from the smokestack often set fields afire unless the
sparks were controlled by a sifter of fine mesh set in the upper part of
the smokestack," he reported.
Barringer explained that second-class passengers sometimes and
third-class passengers always had to "get out at every woodyard to supply the tender, their only notification being a
peculiar blow of the whistle."
Riding the train was an
exciting experience, partly because it was so
perilous. The base of
the track of the AT&O was wooden.
A flat-iron rail three-quarters of an inch thick and four inches
wide was attached by spikes to an oak beam
"This was all very well for a five to ten-ton load,"
Barringer observed, "but in time the spikes sunk through the rails
ceased to hold, particularly at the ends."
"The ultimate was reached," said Barringer, "when
the end spikes were thrown out, and the ends of the iron rail stood up,
perhaps on a cold day as much as eight to ten inches."
|
Locomotives Of The Mid-1800s |
The primitiveness of railroad technology of
the 1850s notwithstanding, the daily arrival of passenger and freight
trains meant that Charlotte was no longer an isolated courthouse town. Merchants, including Jews, began to arrive and establish
mercantile houses during that decade. Among them were two German Jews,
Samuel Wittkowsky
and Jacob Rintels
. They met as
co-workers for storeowner Levi Drucker
, a leader of the
local Jewish community and owner of a mercantile establishment. Rintels
and Wittkowsky soon became partners in a large wholesale store and
prospered. Rintels, the more
flamboyant of the two, would eventually erect an imposing Victorian style
mansion on West Trade Street. The
house, which has been moved and altered, is now located at 1700 Queens
Road in the Myers Park
neighborhood of Charlotte.
|
Jacob Rintels Built This Home On West Trade St. |
Dr. Fox and his associates, not satisfied
with just enhancing Charlotte's economic status, also wanted to make the
town an important cultural place. A
group headed by Fox provided the impetus for establishing the North
Carolina Military Institute
. "Those gentlemen who originated and pushed forward the scheme are
entitled to much credit for energy and zeal," proclaimed the Western
Democrat
. Fox and his
friends raised $15,000 by selling stock to individuals and received
$10,000 from the City of Charlotte, also to purchase stock. The voters of
Charlotte had approved this financial outlay in a special referendum held
on March 27, 1858. Dr. Fox
and his fellow boosters bought a tract of land about one-half mile south
of Charlotte beside the tracks of the Charlotte and South Carolina
Railroad
and hired Sydney Reading
, a contractor, to oversee the construction of Steward's Hall
, a massive, castle-like, three and four-story brick edifice designed to
look like the buildings at West Point.
|
Steward's Hall |
A festive ceremony was held on the grounds
on Saturday, July 31, 1858, when the cornerstone was laid. North Carolina
Governor William A. Graham
spoke to a "large assemblage of ladies and
gentlemen." Classes began at the North Carolina Military Institute
on October 1, 1859.
The institute had two departments. A Primary Department for boys
from 12 to 15 and a Scientific Department for young men from 15 to 21.
Chartered by the North Carolina Legislature to award degrees, the
Scientific Department, which had 60 cadets enrolled during the first year,
patterned its curriculum after the courses taught at West Point, which
meant that it emphasized such technical and scientific skills as
engineering, surveying, mathematics and chemistry, plus the art of
warfare.
The superintendent of the North Carolina
Military Institute
was Daniel Harvey Hill
. "As a teacher I have
never seen his superior," one of his students exclaimed. "He had
the rare capacity of interesting his pupils and of compelling them to use
their faculties, often it seems unconsciously, in a manner that surprised
themselves." "In clearness of interpretation, in relevant and
apposite illustration, he has never been excelled," proclaimed Henry
E. Shepherd
, another student
of Hill's at the North Carolina Military Institute.
D. H. Hill's influence over the educational
philosophy of the North Carolina Military Institute
was paramount. In keeping
with his gloomy appraisal of human nature, Hill insisted that discipline
must be rigorously enforced. Just as at Davidson College
, he held firmly to the belief that young men, unless closely
supervised, would inevitably go astray. "The great sin of the
age," he told the Education Committee of the North Carolina
Legislature in January, 1861, "is resistance to established
authority." Cadets had
to attend chapel twice daily -- in the morning to listen to a sermon and
in the afternoon to hear Biblical instruction -- as well as go to church
on Sunday. Henry Shepherd remembered Superintendent Hill's lectures in the
chapel with fondness. "I listened eagerly to the comments of the
'Major' as he read the Scriptures in chapel and at times revealed their
infinite stylistic power," he wrote many years later.