On Davidson's Campus

College Foundation

Davidson College’s conception and construction are inextricably linked to enslaved labor.

Initial fundraising efforts in 1835 were successful because of the degree to which local Presbyterian donors profited off enslaved individuals (Blodgett & Levering 2012, 2). The land upon which Davidson College sits was contributed by local enslaver William Lee Davidson II, who owned Beaver Dam Plantation (Blodgett & Levering 2012, 3-4; Shaw 1923, 17).

There is some debate regarding whether or not the college land was donated or sold at a discounted price since the college was to be named after William Lee’s father. The Presbytery Minutes from August 1835 describes the acquisition of said land:

By the call of the moderator the Revd. P. J. Sparrow the presbytery of Concord met at Bethel Church on the 25 Aug 1835 for the transaction of business connected with the proposed Manual Labor School of Concord Presbytery and to receive such members from other presbyteries as may regularly apply and was constituted with prayer.

The committee appointed at the last meeting of Presbytery to purchase Lands and appoint agents to collect funds for the Manual Labor School reported and their report was accepted and is as follows: viz. Agreeably to appointment the Committee met on the 13th of May 1835 at the House of Wm L. Davidson, Esq., in Mecklenburg County; Present Revd R. H. Morrison, W. S. Pharr & P. J. Sparrow with Messrs. Wm L. Davidson, Esq. & Col. Wm L. Allison

After examining the lands which appeared most favorable for the Institution location, and receiving and deliberating on the information they could collect relative to different situations, the committee resolved as instructed to select a Site for the School.

Convinced of their entire dependence on God for direction and feeling the responsibility of the decision to be made the committee engaged in prayer for wisdom from above– After supplication at the throne of grace and mature deliberation it was resolved to purchase two Tracts of Land the property of Wm L. Davidson Esq. in the North Western corner of Mecklenburg County, the one known by the name of the Jetton Tract containing 269 acres and the other joining the same known by the name of the Linn Tract containing 200 acres.

For the above named 469 acres of Land the committee contracted to pay Wm L. Davidson, Esq., the sum of fifteen hundred and twenty one dollars to be paid by the 1st of Janry 1836.

The committee received from Wm L. Davidson a bond in the personal? sum of four thousand dollars to convey to them or any other person or persons whom the Presbytery may appoint a right in fee simple to the above named tracts of Land; and also gave to him in behalf of the Presbytery an obligation for the payment of fifteen hundred and twenty one dollars on the condition of the title to the above named tracts of Land being secured as above stipulated (Called Meeting 1835, 92-93).

The bricks constituting Davidson’s original campus buildings were made and laid by enslaved individuals. 250,000 bricks were made on Major John Caldwell’s plantation, for which Caldwell was paid $4 per thousand (Shaw 1923, 15). In a speech delivered at Davidson’s Semi-Centenary Celebration in 1887, Jethro Rumple, class of 1850, provides an account of the initial construction phase:

It is also remembered that some of the people, especially those of Third Creek Church, contributed labor instead of money, and taking their wagons, teams and servants, camped here in the woods, and spent several weeks in clearing off the grounds, building fences and in making and hauling brick (Rumple 1888, 36-37).

Restricted Movement On Campus

The following faculty minutes represent the evolution of restrictions faced by African Americans on Davidson’s campus. The first mention of such restrictions occur in the faculty minutes for May 5, 1855:

Faculty met, and with the concurrence of the citizens of "Davidson College", established a Patrol, who shall attend to this duty at least three nights in each week, for the period of one month; and who shall receive 50 cents per night for their services.

They are also required to disperse negroes who may collect about the College on Sundays.

Messrs. Brady, Allison, and Adams were appointed and funds were raised to meet the expense.

Signed

E. F. Rockwell

D. H. Hill

C. D. Fishburn

J. A. Leland

This Patrol is considered to be Davidson’s first police force (Blodgett & Levering 2012, 9).

Beginning in September 1865, black townspeople were forbidden from entering college buildings without express permission, and in January 1875, this regulation expanded to include Davidson's campus as a whole, with some exceptions.

The Faculty met to arrange the programme of recitations for the opening Session. Mr. Douglass was present and assumed the duties of Prof. Mclver, according to the arrangement of last meeting.

The following Resolution was adopted, to wit:

RESOLVED: That negroes, all and every one (the College servants excepted) are prohibited from entering the College building at any hour, and for any purpose, without written permission from the President or some member of the Faculty.

Opened with prayer. All present.

Minutes read and approved. Absences reported and recorded.

A petition of the students was granted wherein they asked that they might keep out of the College Campus all colored persons to whom express permission had not been given to enter or labor there. This exclusion was not authorized in any case where attendance on divine worship was intended, and the permissions in all other instances are to be recommended by the Bursar, and given by the Faculty.

Charles Phillips, Clerk.

Opened with prayer. Minutes read and the usual weekly business transacted in the presence of all the Faculty.

The Committee on the Course of Instruction (See Jan. 15th) made a report which was discussed and re-committed with instructions.

The Bursar recommended Jim Burton and George Wilson in addition to those employed hitherto as colored persons worthy to be laborers about the College buildings and campus. (See Jan. 8).

Charles Phillips, Clerk.

College Servants

In the vast majority of archival sources, enslaved people working on Davidson’s campus are referred to as “servants” rather than “slaves”. This terminology is rooted in Presbyterian tradition, which sought to reconcile ‘Christian ethics’ with reliance on enslaved labor (Mellin 2020, 44-45). The term “servant” persists in college records well after Emancipation, referring to any black laborers, especially custodial staff.

The duties of the 1855 “College Servant” are outlined in the faculty meeting minutes from that year. For Davidson students, the cost of these services were typically included with their room fees.

Faculty met.

After prayer by the President, the duties of the College servant were determined, as follows:

1. First in the morning - making fires in the Chapel and recitation rooms.

2. Making fires in students’ rooms.

3. Carrying water to the students' rooms.

4. Making beds and cleaning rooms of students. Carrying water to students’ rooms in the evening.

He is required to black boots and shoes for the occupants of the Dormitories on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and for the occupants of the Halls on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, the blacking to be provided by the students.

He is not required to make fires for the students unless the wood is already cut and in their rooms.

Mr. Alexander agreed to board and furnish lodging for the servant, and employ him about his premises when not engaged in College duties.

Those students who do not room in College are each required to pay fifty cents (l/2 the regular tax on others) for the remainder of the session; the Board of Trustees having required the Faculty to collect from the students a tax for the hire and support of the College Servant.

Signed

Drury Lacy

E. F. Rockwell

D. H. Hill

C. D. Fishburn

Though “College Servants” were exempt from the regulations that barred most black Davidsonians from campus, they faced other challenges.

But the professors themselves were not without their temptations. I well remember a struggle through which I passed. To stop some petty pilfering from the dormitories that had become a nuisance the Faculty resolved one day that no negroes should be allowed on the campus except such as were given permits. As I was the Superintendent of Grounds just then it developed on me to enforce this ruling. It soon appeared that a negro of shady reputation who had recently acquired a horse and car was planning a huge monopoly in tranportation. He had previously operated more or less successfully, possibly with a wheelbarrow, as the agent of several laundresses. But now he aspired to a wholesale business. So he came to me for a permit to enter the Campus for the weekly collection and return of the clothes. When this was refused he proceeded to argue the case with much more insistence but without success. At last in desperation he blasted out, “I tell you just how it is Mr. Carson. If you will let me go after that washing I will give you 25 cents.” The above reference to a negro reminds me that we also had our troubles.

The above reference to a negro reminds me that we also had our troubles. It may interest other to know here one of these was roofed. The College paid its janitors somewhat more than laborers received on the adjacent farms. But the College had trouble in getting men on one occasion, though the farms apparently had none. [illegible] my perplexity I went to one of the janitors and in a hear to heart talk asked him to tell me frankly what the trouble was. He responded with his fullest confidence. His informed me that the trouble lay in the mental strain to which a janitor was necessarily subjected and that a man who plowed or chopped “don’t have to study about nothing” but that this would be very far from the case with one who had “to dust, or sweep, or take up ashes.” But to return –

In this letter, former Professor of Mathematics and Superintendent of Grounds William Carson remembers a black townsman approaching him about bringing his business to campus, which Carson refused. Carson then reminisces on the college’s difficulty hiring servants despite the college offering “somewhat more than laborers received on the adjacent farms”. Carson asked one of the college janitors for his insight, who confidently informed Carson that “the trouble lay in the mental strain to which a janitor was necessarily subjected and that a man who plowed or chopped “don’t have to study about nothing””. Carson’s response was dismissive: “this would be very far from the case with one who had “to dust, or sweep, or take up ashes.”” 

As Blodgett and Levering point out, the “mental strain” that this unnamed janitor referenced likely referred to the scrutiny that black individuals faced on campus. In the event of any theft or other crime, the blame could easily be placed on black employees, who would have been well aware of this fact (Blodgett & Levering 2012, 47). This was something that Carson did not seem to understand, linking “mental strain” to employee responsibilities rather than the atmosphere of surveillance and suspicion.

Although Carson claimed that the college paid more than the surrounding farms, “College Servants” were still paid very little, if at all. In fact, this diminutive compensation was reportedly instrumental in Davidson College’s financial recovery after the Civil War left it in near bankruptcy. When discussing “College Servants” in the 1870s, Mary Beaty remarks that they “were called nothing, in keeping with the amount most of them were paid” (Beaty 1988, 195). Another account describes the uncompensated labor of Amos Caldwell during Professor John Rennie Blake’s administration:

Faithful Amos was the servant of all work. Well do I remember how he and Professor Blake worked to keep up the repairs, stopping leaks, mending windows and other necessary work because there was no money to pay for such work (Banks 1888, 153-154).

The Board of Trustees meeting minutes suggest that at least some of these "College Servants" lived on campus. The minutes from June 1869 imply that the then "College Servant" occupied rooms in one of the campus buildings that would later become student dorms.

The Bursar would suggest that the rooms now occupied by the College Servant be fitted up for that purpose. Would it be expedient to erect a small and cheap house for the College Servant on College grounds somewhere outside of the Campus?

All of which (with my books & vouchers) is respectfully submitted.

Signed

J. R. Blake, Bursar.

Later meeting minutes include numerous references to cheap cabins being erected exclusively for "College Servants", the locations and owners of which are largely unknown.

The Committee approved the action of the Bursar in building a cabin for a College servant on the College land at a cost of $70.75, and all his transactions as reported to them.

The Committee on the Grounds and Buildings submits the following report of expenditures for the past year:

Account covering the expenditures of the Committee on Grounds and Buildings for the whole of the year 1879-80:

Improvement of campus: $96.72

Painting roofs of College Buildings: $184.18

Re-covering shingled part of Main Bldg. with tin: $291.28

Re-covering roof of Elm Row with old tin: $23.00

Re-covering roof of Oak Row with shingles: $45.00

Re-covering roof of Servant’s Cabin: $4.00

We beg leave to report that the following work has been done, as ordered by the Executive Committee of Colleges:

A stable has been built for Dr. Harding, suitable for a cow, a house for the College servant, just North of the College, on the campus, and near enough for the occupant to have charge of the property of the College during vacation. The cost of these two buildings was charged to the permanent fund, as will appear in the Treasurer’s Report.

For information on named “College Servants”, see the Named Individuals page.

Black Women and the College

Comparably less is documented about black women in the Davidson area during this period.

While black men typically performed manual labor on Davidson’s campus, black women remained largely restricted to domestic-style work. According to 19th century sources, the main college-linked professions black women could have were cooks in college boarding houses or student-founded boarding clubs, or laundresses (Blodgett & Levering 2012, 46). Black women did laundry for the college from the 19th century up until the 1970s (Lingle 1947, 23). For more information on these topics, see the Dining Staff and Laundry History pages on the Women of Davidson website.

Bibliography

Banks, Alex R. “The Administration of Professor J. R. Blake.” In First Semi-Centenary Celebration of Davidson College. Addresses, Historical and Commemorative, Delivered at the Annual Commencement, Wednesday, June 13, 1887. Raleigh, NC: E.M. Uzzell, 1888.

Beaty, Mary D. A History of Davidson College. Davidson, NC: Briarpatch Press, 1988.

Blodgett, Jan, and Ralph B. Levering. One Town, Many Voices: A History of Davidson, North Carolina. Davidson, NC: Davidson Historical Society, 2012.

“Called Meeting, Bethel Church, 25 August 1835.” Concord Presbytery Records, 1832-1836, v.3. 1835.

Lingle, Walter L. Memories of Davidson College. Richmond, VA: John Knox Press, 1947.

Mellin, Sarah H.D. “Beneath the Bricks: Reckoning with Legacies of Colonialism, Slavery, and White Supremacy at Davidson College,” 2020.

Rumple, Jethro. “An Historical Sketch of Davidson College.” In First Semi-Centenary Celebration of Davidson College. Addresses, Historical and Commemorative, Delivered at the Annual Commencement, Wednesday, June 13, 1887. Raleigh, NC: E.M. Uzzell, 1888.

Shaw, Cornelia R. Davidson College: Intimate Facts. New York, NY: Fleming Revell Press, 1923.