Historic Charlotte

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Above: Philanthropic Hall, Davidson
College. One of two secret debating societies
at Davidson College met here. In the 19th
century, the Philanthropic and Eumanean
Societies dominated campus life–even
establishing “vigilance committees” to enforce
conduct rules and impose fines on violators.
COURTESY BRUCE R. SCHULMAN.
Below: The main building on the Davidson
College campus, Davidson, 1857.
SPECIAL COLLECTIONS, ATKINS LIBRARY, UNIVERSITY OF
NORTH CAROLINA AT CHARLOTTE.
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 McCowan’s Ford.”
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.
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
HISTORIC CHARLOTTE
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