07/07/2026
He was a fearless cavalry officer in the Revolution, a governor, and a diplomat, but William Richardson Davie may be remembered longest for a single autumn day in 1793. That October, in a freshly cleared forest in the Piedmont, he laid the cornerstone of the first public university in the nation to open its doors. 🎓
The University of North Carolina admitted its first students in 1795, and Davie had fought for it every step of the way, drafting legislation, raising money, and helping choose the site at Chapel Hill. He is rightly called the Father of the University.
It is fitting that a man who risked his life for independence understood that a free people needed education to stay free. From that lonely clearing grew an institution that has shaped the state for more than two centuries. I like to imagine what Davie would make of the campus that stands there now. 📚
