Entries

Escheats

To provide funding for the newly founded university in 1789, William R. Davie wrote and helped pass through the legislature an act that would give to the university all unclaimed land and property in the state. Known later as the Escheats Act, after a legal term for the reversion of property to the state, this would be the primary source of revenue for the university for decades. These funds were essential for the early growth of the school but also led to some unusual and troubling results. During the first few years of the university, a good bit of the land that was sold to fund the school was in far western North Carolina, in what is now Tennessee.

In the early to mid-nineteenth century, the unclaimed property allocated to the university sometimes included enslaved women, men, and children. Agents working on behalf of the university participated in the domestic slave trade, seeking to earn as much as possible for the university through these transactions. In some cases, including one described in Kemp Plummer Battle's History of the University of North Carolina (1907—12), this meant breaking apart families.

The state of North Carolina still has an escheats fund, but it is no longer earmarked solely for UNC—Chapel Hill. Money in the fund is used to support scholarships and other education initiatives statewide.

Date Established: 1789

Date Range: 1789 – Present

Engineering, School of

The university began offering courses in applied sciences in the 1850s as part of an effort to prepare students for careers in engineering, mining, agriculture, and medicine. This was a new area for UNC and required some preparation: after Charles Phillips was selected to teach engineering, he left for a year to study the subject at Harvard before taking over classes in Chapel Hill. Engineering remained on the curriculum when UNC reopened in 1875, with specialties in mechanical engineering, civil engineering, mining, and military science. By the 1890s chemical and electrical engineering were being taught at UNC, and in 1922 the university created a School of Engineering. The school became of point of contention in the discussions over consolidation of the UNC System in the early 1930s. Both UNC and North Carolina State College of Agriculture and Engineering had strong engineering programs, but the consolidation plan sought to avoid this sort of duplication. In 1936, over the objection of the UNC faculty, the board of trustees accepted the recommendation of President Frank Porter Graham and voted to consolidate engineering instruction in Raleigh.

Date Established: 1850

Date Range: 1850 –
1938

Emerson Field

Emerson Field was completed in 1916 and used as the university's main athletic field for football, baseball, and track. It was named in honor of alumnus Isaac Emerson (class of 1879), who donated funds for the field. Emerson, who studied chemistry at UNC, made a fortune when he invented and sold a new headache remedy called Bromo-Seltzer. Emerson Field was hailed as a state-of-the-art athletic facility when it was opened, boasting concrete bleachers holding up to 3,000 spectators, modern locker rooms, and a cinder running track. The football team quickly outgrew the field, moving to Kenan Stadium in 1927, and track events moved to Fetzer Field in 1935, but the baseball team remained at Emerson through 1965, leaving in time for the field to be cleared in 1967 for a major construction project. The field was located along Raleigh Street at the current site of the Graham Student Union and Davis Library.

Date Established: 1916

Date Range: 1916 –
1967