Violent Incidents

This page contains upsetting material pertaining to discrimination and racially motivated violence. The following accounts describe violent altercations between white individuals associated with Davidson College and local black individuals.

These accounts are included in order to: 1) acknowledge the historically contentious relationship between black Davidsonians and Davidson College, and 2) promote understanding of the social and cultural positioning of local black individuals during the 19th century.

Little is known about the black individuals involved in these incidents, as they are filtered and documented through white perspectives if they are documented at all; these are also most certainly not the only such incidents that occurred.

These events exist on their own page to both grant them the space they deserve, and because their sensitive nature makes them difficult to integrate with other sections of this exhibit. That being said, certain accounts have been omitted from this page, namely those detailing blackface and minstrelsy (save for the account below that does involve a black victim). Though these did occur on Davidson’s campus, their inclusion would not be conducive to centering the experiences of actual black individuals.

While none of these accounts are especially detailed, the following themes are present: implied sexual harassment/assault, gun violence, and physical violence.

In 1853, a group of three Davidson students harassed several black men in and around a local store. A summary of the event exists in the December 27, 1853 faculty minutes.

The Faculty having heard that a fight had occurred on the 26th inst., at the lower store, between some of the students and some men from the country, proceeded to investigate the facts in the case. They found as follows:

That there was a wagon near the store, and several negroes, together with two young men by the name of Washam, near it. Two students, Robert H. Neagle and H. T. McDugald, in passing the wagon, accosted some of the negroes, telling them to take off their hats, and on their declining to do so, Neagle knocked off the hat of one of them; these two students then passed on into the store, where they met more negroes whom they accosted in the same way; and McLugald, with a stick in his hand, knocked off the hat of one of them. The two Washams followed them into the store and asked them if the store belonged to them, and repeated the question, when, after some dispute and rough language between the parties, the students came back upon the College Hill to get help; and several other students went down, and among them, J. T. Kell, who, when he entered the store before the other, enquired for the man (or as some have it, the negro) who would not take off his hat. One of the Washams came out of the counting room, and replied to him. Neagle and McDugald came in. after Kell, and after some words passing between the parties, one of the Washams hit Neagle, and then a voice was heard from outside of the door to Kell - "Hit him", and he knocked down Washam with a club which he had brought with him, and Neagle either jumped on him or kicked him in the side, when the other Washam attempted to interfere, but the parties were separated.

The Faculty having deferred final action in the case till January 6, 1854, in order to become more fully informed of the facts, took up the case, and unanimously decided that Neagle and Kell and McDugald be suspended from College till the close of this term.

In 1859, a student’s room was entered through the window and looted while he was attending a concert. A black man was eventually blamed for the theft and whipped, allegedly on the basis of his shoes matching the track “with some peculiarities”. The incident is documented in one of Mary Lacy’s letters.

Mr Banks is also here. They always seem in a great bustle and excitement at this time. Some almost always fail. Something happens here once in a while. Last Sunday, when we were all at Monthly Concert, one of the students rooms was entered through the window, his clothes hanging round the room, trunks, all his money, everything in it stolen. The whole college went out on Monday to try to track the thief & they succeeded in doing so for two miles nearly, but lost it. A negro of Mrs White’s was whipped, whose shoe exactly fitted the track with some peculiarities of half soling, pegs etc. but he confessed nothing. Another was whipped for having a pistol. Poor Barry never got back his things. Our Society made him six shirts & six collars.

Yesterday they caught a wagoner hanging about the woods to sell liquor to the students & some bought of him, so they sent him down to jail at Charlotte. You have no idea what a lawless com-

Two incidents occurring in 1863 appear in the faculty minutes for that year. The first is documented in the minutes for February 19, 1863:

The Faculty met at the call of the President, who stated that the subject of the meeting was to consider the following case:

Mr. W. H. Scott (pupil in the preparatory department) had been seized by Messrs . Moore, Knox, Glover, Troy, and Watts, and blacked and otherwise insultingly treated by them, and Mr. H. W. Scott, brother of the aforesaid Scott, had been beaten by Mr. Troy for resenting the treatment that his brother had received.

The two Messrs. Scott being called before the Faculty, H. W. Soott was found to be very much bruised about the face, and had evidently been very seriously beaten. Mr. W. H. Scott testified that he went into Mr. Glover’s room on Wednesday night, and having been there a very few minutes, he was seized from behind by Mr. Moore, and thrown on the bed and held there by Moore, Knox, Watts and Glover, and that Mr. Troy blacked his face with soot and tallow. That after he was released, an attempt was made by the same students to make a negro boy kiss him.

H. W. Scott, being asked the cause of the fight between himself and Mr. Troy, said that he was not present when his brother was so much insulted, but that he went to Mr. Gibson’s room immediately after he heard it, and that Mr. Troy was there; that Mr. Troy said to him ’’You ought to have been around to see us black Heathly", and that he replied that if he had been there it would not have been done without a fight, and that he would cut anyone with his knife who attempted to black him. That Mr. Troy then called him a "damned South Carolina son of a bitch", and that he (Scott) struck him, and the fight ensued.

Mr. Troy was called before the Faculty and frankly acknowledged all that he had done and said, which was substantially the same testimony given by the Scotts; and said moreover, that the Scotts had been guilty at various times of stealing wood and other things, and that the blacking was intended to drive them out of the West Wing. That he could prove that they had been guilty of theft, though he had not seen them himself in the act, that he could mention those who had, and that he was ready to prove it.

Several students were then called up who Mr. Troy said had seen the Scotts stealing. They gave conflicting evidence, though evidently there was an impression among the students that the Scotts had been stealing wood and other things.

After very carefully considering all the circumstances of the case, the Faculty adjourned to meet on the morrow.

The white aggressors in this incident utilized blackness as fodder to humiliate one of their fellow students. First, they “blacked” another student using soot and tallow, and then they attempted to coerce an unnamed black boy into kissing said student. The methods by which these students attempted to coerce the unnamed black boy or any other details about him are not specified.

In another incident documented in the April 3, 1863 faculty minutes, two Davidson students assaulted a black woman.

It was stated by the President that he had been informed by one of the citizens, that Messrs. Denton and Ingraham had assaulted a negro woman, and beaten her for not complying with base proposals they had made to her. That he had questioned them on the subject, and that they had confessed that they had a difficulty with a negro woman, but that they had only resented an insult which she had given them.

The Faculty were, moreover, led to suspect that Messrs. Denton and Ingraham, together with Messrs. Weaden and Knox, had assisted Mr. Sparrow in the assault on the recitation rooms. Messrs. Denton and Ingraham had also left College without permission. The following Resolution was, therefore, adopted:

RESOLVED: That Messrs. Denton and Ingraham be indefinitely dismissed for leaving college without permission, for profane and filthy language, for assaulting a negro woman, and for their probable connection with the outrage of Tuesday night last.

It was also ordered by the Faculty that the parents of Messrs. Weaden and Knox be requested to remove them from College.

The wording of the entry suggests that the “base proposals” that the students made to this woman were sexual in nature, and when she refused, they became violent. While the two students in question did end up being dismissed, the faculty minutes also state “leaving college without permission”, “profane and filthy language”, and “for their probable connection with the “outrage of Tuesday night last” as causes for expulsion. It is unclear how serious of an offense that the assault was considered, or how much it factored into the final decision.

Sometime in 1865, several Davidson students violently beat a freedman after he allegedly pushed a student off the sidewalk. It is important to note that at that point in the Reconstruction, Charlotte was garrisoned by Federal troops. After “old Shaffner”, who held a position of leadership in the Freedman’s Bureau, heard of this altercation, he sent a company of soldiers to the college. Four students ended up being arrested and fined $50 each, a considerable amount during that time. However, they did not end up having to pay; then college president John Lycan Kirkpatrick ended up procuring the money for their release. Kirkpatrick was allegedly incensed by the students’ punishment, and saw their arrest as an injustice. Others from the town seemed to agree; the freedman from the original altercation was forced to flee Davidson after his home was fired at for three consecutive nights (Blodgett & Levering 2012, 48; McDowell 1912, 307; Mellin 2020, 71-72; Shaw 1923, 118).

Sometime between 1865 and 1869, another incident took place involving violent retaliation on the part of Davidson’s white population. After a black man allegedly insulted a professor’s daughter, a group of twelve men decked in “ghostly paraphernalia” took it upon themselves to terrorize the local black community. This ‘clan’ was organized by one “Lieutenant Verner”, a Davidson college professor and former Ku Klux Klan member, and included a combination of Davidson students and store clerks. In historical accounts, this event is characterized as an “outlet for some of the indignation that the prevailing conditions produced” for the white aggressors, disregarding the likely traumatic experiences of local black individuals (Blodgett & Levering 2012, 48; Mellin 2020, 71-72; Shaw 1923, 118).

Walter Lee Lingle, class of 1892, recounts an incident from his time as a student. One spring between 1888 and 1892, a pair of black baseball teams from Concord and Davidson respectively received permission to play on the Davidson College baseball diamond. The game was reportedly going well until a black spectator from Concord blocked a Davidson student’s line of sight. The student became aggressive, and when the black man did not immediately move, the student cut him with a riding whip. The man moved and said nothing, presumably to avoid further confrontation. However, another black spectator, angered on his behalf, allegedly became aggressive towards the student. In response, the student drew a pistol and chased the man in the direction of the Richardson athletic field. He fired at least once, but missed. Meanwhile, chaos broke out at the baseball diamond, with several students wielding baseball bats. The field was cleared, and reportedly no one was seriously injured. Sometime after the fact, the Concord team had to send a black Davidsonian to retrieve their bats and sweaters (Blodgett & Levering 2012, 69-70; Lingle 1947, 43-44).

In his recollection, Lingle seems to view this altercation as an isolated incident. He remarks that “the relationship between the students and the Negroes of the town of Davidson has always been friendly so far as my memory and observation go.”

Bibliography

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

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

McDowell, Franklin. “Reminiscences of the Sixties,” Davidson College Magazine 28, no. 8, May 1912.

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

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