A Statue for Founder? Legislators Want Davie Back on Campus

Posted on April 17, 2013

Davie Hall opened in 1908 in an idyllic setting next to the 5-year-old Arboretum. By 1926, it needed an addition, and in 1967, it suffered the demolition of its oldest portion, replaced by what is acknowledged as one of the least-attractive structures to grace the campus. Davie is due for a larger replacement at another location.

Meanwhile, UNC founder William Richardson Davie is not represented on the campus with a statue.

That’s not unusual — Carolina has few statues of people. But a bill to direct the UNC System Board of Governors to develop a plan for a Davie statue has eight sponsors in the N.C. House, including Michael Wray, who represents Halifax County, where Davie started a law practice after the Revolutionary War.

Wray noted that Davie was an important figure not only to the University but in  the state’s history, and that is was important for the entire state to honor his legacy and memory. Legend has it that when a campus search party stopped to rest in what is now McCorkle Place, Davie declared it the spot for the nation’s first state university. The bill calls for the statue to be erected with money raised from private sources.

“As the representative of Halifax and Northampton Counties, I am honored to represent the Town of Halifax which served as home to Governor William Richardson Davie,” Wray said in a prepared statement. “Throughout his lifetime, Davie served as a proven military leader during the American Revolution, a prominent lawyer, Grand Master of the Masons of North Carolina, a Founding Father of The United States of America, a member of the North Carolina House of Commons, Governor of North Carolina, and the Father of The University of North Carolina.”

He also was a slave owner, and that, no doubt, will come up in any public hearing on the bill.

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More online…

• Our Davie Rests, to This Day, South of the Border
  Timelines department from the November/December 2011 Carolina Alumni Review, available online to Carolina Alumni members.

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