At the date of the transfer of authority from the Lords Proprietors to the Crown the white population is estimated by Martin at about 13,000. During the first twenty years of royal rule the educational condition of the masses was but little changed. Throughout the colonial period it was the custom of gentlemen of means living in the country to maintain tutors for their children. In the Cape Fear section it seems to have been the custom from 1740 to the Revolution to send the young men to Harvard to be educated.1

1 Wheeler's Reminiscences, p. 257.

Wheeler says that the William Hill here referred to was graduated at Harvard in 1716, and came to North Carolina on account of his health, and settled at Brunswick, where he taught school. He became the ancestor of the distinguished Hill family on Cape Fear. His son, the Hon. William Hill, married a daughter of General John Ashe, and represented the Wilmington District in Congress from 1799 to 1803. The Hill and Ashe families were for many years patrons of Harvard. He adds, “It would seem that while the Cape Fear region largely patronized Boston, the north-eastern section sent her sons to England, and the Presbyterians of the interior sought higher education at Princeton.”2

2 Ibid., p. 258.

It is said that “Gabriel Johnston, who was appointed Governor in 1734, was the first who urged on the Assembly the importance of making some provision for schools. He was a native of Scotland and a literary man. Having been educated in the University of St. Andrews and afterwards professor of Oriental languages in that institution, he knew the value of learning and wished to see it promoted; but when appropriations were made for it, they were either wasted or taken to meet some other demands of the treasury.”1

In 1736 Governor Johnston, in his address to the Legislature, said: “In all civilized Societys of men, it has always been looked upon as a matter of the greatest consequence to their Peace and happiness, to pollish the minds of young Persons with some degree of learning, and early to instill into them the Principles of virtue and religion, and that the Legislature has never yet taken the least care to erect one school which deserves the name, in this wide extended country, must in the judgment of all thinking men, be reckoned one of our greatest misfortunes. To what purpose, Gentlemen, is all your toil and labour, all your pains and endeavors for the advantage and enriching your families and Posterity, if within ourselves you cannot afford them such an education as may qualify them to be useful to their Country and to enjoy what you leave them with decency.” He further asked them, among other things, to consider a country “where no care has been taken to inspire the youth with generous sentiments, worthy Principles, or the least tincture of literature,” and then added, “lay your hands upon your hearts and consider how you can answer it to God and your own consciences, how you can answer it to your country or your Posterity, if you either neglect this opportunity of pursuing such valuable ends, or are diverted from it by the trifling arts of designing men.”2

The General Assembly in their reply to the address of the Governor said: “We lament very much the want of Divine Publick worship (a crying scandal in any, but more especially in a Christian community) as well as the general neglect in point of education, the main sources of all disorders and corruptions, which we should rejoice to see removed and remedyed, and are ready to do our parts towards the reformation of such flagrant and prolifick evils.”3

3 Ibid., p. 231.

The first account we have of legislative enactment for the promotion of schools is to be found in the legislative journals of the General Assembly held in Newbern, April 8-20, 1745. On April 15th, “Mr. Craven brought in a Bill for an act to Impower the Commissioners for the town of Edenton to keep in repair the Town fence, & to erect and build a Pound Bridges Public Wherf & to erect and build a school house in the said Town and other purposes, which he read in his place.” On April 19th this bill had passed its several readings, and was sent to the Council for approval, receiving the Governor's assent the following day.1

The first act establishing a free school by the Government was passed in 1749.2

2 Ibid., p. 977.

There was no marked educational advancement manifested till the arrival of the Scotch-Irish, who began to settle in the State in large numbers about 1736; this immigration continued till 1776, the new comers bringing with them in a great measure the same spirit and the same principles that prompted the establishing of Icolumkill and Lindisfarne.

The history of the introduction of this people into North Carolina is concisely stated by the Rev. J. Rumple, D. D., in the Home Magazine of March, 1881, as follows: “In June, 1736, Henry McCulloch, from the province of Ulster, Ireland, secured a grant from George II of 64,000 acres in the present county of Duplin, and introduced into it between three and four thousand emigrants from his native county. These were the Scotch-Irish descendants of the Scotch settlers whom James I had induced to move to Ireland and occupy the immense domains that escheated to the Crown after the conspiracy of the Earls of Tyrconnel and Tyrone in 1604. About the same time (1730-1740) the Scotch began to occupy the lower Cape Fear, and after the fatal battle of Culloden Moor, in 1746, great numbers of Highlanders implicated in the rebellion of ‘Prince Charlie’ emigrated to America, and occupied the counties of Bladen, Cumberland, Robeson, Moore, Richmond, Harnett, and parts of Chatham and Anson. Thus it happened that the Scotch obtained the ascendency in the region of the upper Cape Fear, and have retained it till this day.

“In the meantime thousands of Scotch-Irish from the province of Ulster, Ireland, laboring under disabilities in consequence of their religion, began to seek homes in America. Most of them landed at Philadelphia and a few at Charleston. The northern stream first flowed westward to Lancaster County, Pa., and the Alleghany Mountains, and as the French and Indian War, about the time of Braddock's defeat (1755), rendered frontier life dangerous in Pennsylvania, multitudes changed their course and moved down parallel to the Blue Ridge through Virginia and North Carolina, till they met the other stream of their countrymen that was moving upward from Charleston along the banks of the Santee, Wateree, Broad, Pacolet, Ennoree, and Saluda Rivers. And this was the way the Scotch-Irish came into this region, beginning to arrive about 1736 and continuing to the opening of the Revolution in 1776, during forty years.”

From the arrival of these immigrants dates the impulse for the establishment of schools throughout the State. It is to the Presbyterian Church that North Carolina owes the establishment of her first classical schools, and during the second half of the eighteenth century the history of education in this State is inseparably connected with that of this denomination. Rev. Dr. Rumple, in writing of this period, says: “And so the Presbyterian Church of this age has regarded it as indispensable to her welfare to maintain schools where her sons should learn to read the Latin tongue, the language of western Christianity, and the Greek, in which the New Testament was written, as well as the mathematics and the liberal sciences—the ‘Trivium’ and the ‘Quadrivium.’”

About 1745 the New York and Pennsylvania Synods of the Presbyterian Church began to send missionaries to North Carolina. Numerous churches were established, and in nearly every instance a school was planted by the church. “Almost invariably,” says Foote, “as soon as a neighborhood was settled, preparations were made for the preaching of the Gospel by a regular stated pastor, and wherever a pastor was located, in that congregation there was a classical school,—as in Sugar Creek, Poplar Tent, Centre, Bethany, Buffalo, Thyatira, Grove [Duplin County], Wilmington, and the churches occupied by Patillo in Orange and Granville [Counties].”1

In North Carolina, as in several other States, the higher education owes its first impulse to the Presbyterian Church and Princeton College.

Presbyterian missionaries, graduates of Princeton, sent to this State in the first half of the eighteenth century by the Pennsylvania and New York Synods, gathered the scattered families of their faith into churches, and by the side of the church was planted a classical school.

For more than half a century Princeton influence was predominant in North Carolina. Many of the leading divines, teachers, and politicians were alumni of that institution, as is demonstrated by the following list of native and adopted sons of the State who were graduated by that institution in the eighteenth century. The first of these to make his home in North Carolina was the Rev. Hugh McAden, class of 1753, a native of Pennsylvania, who came as a missionary in 1755. His biographer says he was one of the chief founders of the Presbyterian Church in the Southern States.

The most illustrious name in the educational history of North Carolina is that of the Rev. David Caldwell, D. D. For many years “his log cabin served for North Carolina as an academy, a college, and a theological seminary.”1

1 The early classical schools of the Presbyterian Church in North Carolina, Virginia, and New Jersey were called “log colleges.”

Dr. Caldwell was a full graduate of Princeton, and such was his reputation as an instructor and disciplinarian, that in his school were students from all of the States south of the Potomac. It is claimed that he was instrumental in bringing more men into the learned professions than any other man of his day, certainly in the Southern States. While many of his students continued their studies at Princeton, and at the University of North Carolina after the establishment of that institution, the larger number, and several of those who became the most distinguished in after-life, never went anywhere else for instruction, nor enjoyed other advantages for higher education than those afforded at his school. His biographer says: “Five of his scholars became Governors of different States; many more members of Congress, some of whom occupied a high standing, and still (1842) occupy it; and a much greater number became lawyers, judges, physicians, and ministers of the gospel. It would be a credit to any man to have been the instructor of such men as Judge Murphey, Judge McCoy, and many others who, in the same road to honor and usefulness, fell very little, if any, behind them; and to one who knew the value and importance of religion as he did, it must have been a matter of very pleasant reflection that he had been instrumental in bringing into the gospel ministry such men as the Rev. Samuel E. McCorkle, D. D., and the Rev. John Anderson, D. D., who died a few years since in Washington County, Pa., and many others who were burning and shining lights in the world.”1

Dr. Caldwell's life presents many valuable lessons, and a short sketch of this patriot and scholar can but prove interesting. David Caldwell, the son of a sturdy Scotch-Irish farmer, was born in Lancaster County, Pa., March 22, 1725. In early youth, after receiving the rudiments of an English education, he was apprenticed to a carpenter, and until his twenty-sixth year he worked at the bench. He then decided to enter the ministry, and his first steps were to obtain a classical education. For some time he studied in eastern Pennsylvania at the school of Rev. Robert Smith, the father of John B. Smith, so favorably known in Virginia as president of Hampden-Sidney College, and of the Rev. Samuel Stanhope Smith, D. D., at one time president of Princeton College.2

2 Foote's Sketches of North Carolina, p. 232.

It is not certainly known what year he entered Princeton, though he was graduated in 1761. At the time he became a student the requirements for admission were as follows: “Candidates for admission into the lowest or Freshman class must be capable of composing grammatical Latin, translating Virgil, Cicero's Orations, and the four Evangelists in Greek; and by a late order (made in Mr. Davies's administration) must understand the principal rules of vulgar arithmetic. Candidates for any of the higher classes are not only previously examined, but recite a fortnight upon trial, in that particular class for which they offer themselves; and are then fixed in that, or a lower, as they happen to be judged qualified. But, unless in very singular and extraordinary cases, none are received after the Junior year.”3

His assiduity as a student may be gathered from the following incident related by Dr. Caruthers: “An elderly gentleman of good standing in one of his (Caldwell's) congregations stated to me a few weeks since that when he was a young man Dr. Caldwell was spending a night at his father's one summer about harvest, and while they were all sitting out in the open porch after supper, a remark was after some time made about the impropriety of sitting so long in the night air, when he (Dr. Caldwell) observed that, so far as his own experience had gone, there was nothing unwholesome in the night air; for while he was in college, he usually studied in it and slept in it, during the warm weather, as it was his practice to study at a table by the window, with the sash raised, until a late hour, then cross his arms on the table, lay his head on them, and sleep in that position till morning. This was not very far behind the most inveterate students of the seventeenth century, whether in Europe or America, and a man who had strength of constitution to pursue such a course of application, though of moderate abilities, could hardly fail to become a scholar.”1

The character of the instruction given at Princeton is shown by the following extract from an account of the college by President Finley, published in 1764; and as Dr. Caldwell was graduated in 1761, it is to be supposed that the courses are substantially the same as while he was a student. After taking his degree in 1761 he taught for a year at Cape May, when he again returned and took a graduate course and at the same time acted as tutor in languages, so it is certain that he had the system of instruction as it was under Dr. Finley's administration. In his account of the courses and methods President Finley says: “As to the branches of literature taught here, they are the same with those which are made parts of education in the European colleges, save only such as may be occasioned by the infancy of this institution. The students are divided into four distinct classes, which are called the Freshman, the Sophomore, the Junior, and the Senior. In each of these they continue one year, giving and receiving in their turns those tokens of respect and subjection which belong to their standings, in order to preserve a due subordination. The Freshman year is spent in Latin and Greek languages, particularly in reading Horace, Cicero's Orations, the Greek Testament, Lucian's Dialogues, and Xenophon's Cyropedia. In the Sophomore year they still prosecute the study of the languages, particularly Homer, Longinus, etc., and enter upon the sciences, geography, rhetoric, logic, and the mathematics. They continue their mathematical studies throughout the Junior year, and also pass through a course of natural and moral philosophy, metaphysics, chronology, etc.; and the greater number, especially such as are educating for the service of the church, are initiated into the Hebrew. * * * The Senior year is entirely employed in reviews and composition. They now revise the most improving parts of Latin and Greek classics, part of the Hebrew Bible, and all the arts and sciences. The weekly course of disputation is continued, which was also carried on through the preceding year. They discuss two or three theses in a week, some in the syllogistic and others in the forensic manner, alternately, the forensic being always performed in the English tongue.” Besides the above there were public disputations on Sundays on theological questions, and once each month the Seniors delivered original orations before a public audience. Members of the Senior and lower classes were also required from time to time to declaim.2

Such was the course of instruction taken by Dr. Caldwell, and such the educational system which prevailed in the first institutions for higher education established in North Carolina.

At a meeting of the Presbytery held at Princeton in September, 1762, David Caldwell was received as a candidate for the ministry. He was licensed to preach in 1763. In 1764 he labored as a missionary in North Carolina, returning to New Jersey in 1765, being ordained to the full work of the ministry at the Presbytery held at Trenton in July of that year. He immediately returned to North Carolina, where he labored as missionary, until on March 3, 1768, he was installed as pastor of the Buffalo and Alamance congregations.

At this time there were but few Presbyterian ministers in North Carolina, and Dr. Caldwell was one of the very first to make the State his permanent home. His history is more identified with the moral and educational history of North Carolina than is that of any other one man of the eighteenth century. In 1766 he married the daughter of the Rev. Alexander Craighead, and as the salary from his churches was not sufficient for the support of a family, it became necessary for him to supplement it by teaching a school. At this time schools for primary education existed in various parts of the colony, but to him is due the honor of having established the first institution for the higher education that achieved more than local fame. Mention has already been made of the reputation which this school acquired. The average attendance of students was from fifty to sixty, which was a large number for the time and the circumstances of the country. The exercises of the school were not interrupted by the war till 1781, at that time nearly all his students having taken service in the American Army. The exercises of the school were resumed as soon as circumstances permitted, “though the number of students was small until peace, and with it incipient prosperity, were restored to the country.” Dr. Caldwell continued his labors as a teacher till about 1722, when he was forced by the infirmities of age to retire from active work.

Judge Archibald D. Murphey, in an address before the literary societies of the University of North Carolina in 1827, referring to the facilities for higher education before the opening of the State University in 1795, has this to say about the Caldwell school: “The most prominent and useful of these schools was kept by Dr. David Caldwell, of Guilford County. He instituted it shortly after the close of the War, and continued it for more than thirty years. The usefulness of Dr. Caldwell to the literature of North Carolina will never be sufficiently appreciated, but the opportunities for instruction in his school were very limited. There was no library attached to it; his students were supplied with a few of the Greek and Latin classics, Euclid's Elements of Mathematics, and Martin's Natural Philosophy. Moral philosophy was taught from a syllabus of lectures delivered by Dr. Witherspoon, in Princeton College. The students had no books on history or miscellaneous literature. There were indeed very few in the State, except in the libraries of lawyers who lived in the commercial towns. I well remember that after completing my course of studies under Dr. Caldwell I spent nearly two years without finding any books to read, except some old works on theological subjects. At length I accidentally met with Voltaire's History of Charles XII, of Sweden, an odd volume of Smollett's Roderick Random, and an abridgment of Don Quixote. These books gave me a taste for reading, which I had no opportunity of gratifying until I became a student in this University in the year 1796. Few of Dr. Caldwell's students had better opportunities of getting books than myself; and with these slender opportunities of instruction it is not surprising that so few became eminent in the liberal professions. At this day [1827], when libraries are established in all our towns, when every professional man and every respectable gentleman has a collection of books, it is difficult to conceive the inconveniences under which young men labored thirty or forty years ago.”

The Rev. Dr. Caruthers says: “But the most important service he (Dr. Caldwell) rendered as a teacher was to the church or to the cause of religion, for nearly all the young men who came into the ministry of the Presbyterian Church for many years, not only in North Carolina but in the States south and west of it, were trained in his school, many of whom are still living (1842); and while some are superannuated, others are still useful men, either as preachers or as teachers in different institutions of learning.”1

It is said that his mode of discipline was peculiar to himself, and while it did not admit of imitation, yet it was so successful that it could not be surpassed. His students were bound to him with bonds of affection, and an approving word from their “Dominie” was eagerly sought for. If the course of instruction at his school was not very extended it was thorough, as is testified by those who were prepared by him for future usefulness. Governor John M. Morehead, one of North Carolina's most distinguished sons, who studied under Dr. Caldwell and was prepared by him for the Junior class half advanced in the University of North Carolina, gave him the highest praise as a teacher, though at the time he was under his instruction Dr. Caldwell was between eighty-five and ninety years old.

Dr. Caldwell's services to his country in the hour that “tried men's souls” deserve to be mentioned here. He had his full share of the troubles of the times. It was the delight of both the Tories and the British to persecute him. He was driven from his home, and to keep from falling into the hands of his enemies was forced to spend many nights in the forest. His library and the many valuable papers which he had prepared were destroyed with great wantonness. An effort was made to seduce him with British gold, but neither money nor persecution could shake his loyalty to the cause he had espoused.

Alexander says: “The first bloodshed of the Revolution was not at Lexington, but on the Alamance, in North Carolina, May 16, 1771, in an engagement between Governor Tryon's troops and the Regulators, as they were called. These Regulators were not adventurers, but the sturdy, patriotic members of three Presbyterian congregations, all of them having as their pastors graduates of Princeton. Mr. Caldwell was one of them, and on the morning of the battle was on the ground, going from one side to the other, endeavoring to prevent the catastrophe.”1

Dr. Caldwell was a member of the State convention of 1776, which drew up the “Bill of Rights” and framed the Constitution. He was also a member of the convention to consider the Constitution of the United States in 1778, where he took a decided stand as an advocate of States' rights; but in the party conflicts preceding the second war with Great Britain he was on the side of the Federalists.

Such was the esteem in which he was held by his State, and such his reputation for scholarship, that on the establishment of the State University the presidency was tendered him. On account of his years the honor was declined. In 1810 this institution conferred on him the honorary degree of doctor of divinity.

This great and good man died August 25, 1824. It is a fit testimonial of his many virtues that “time-worn veterans in the service of their country, men who have stood firm against the intrigues of ambition and the assaults of power, men who have fought the battles of freedom and maintained the rights of the people in the halls of our National Legislature, year after year, until they have grown gray in the service, have been known to shed tears at the mention of his name when passing in public-conveyance by the place where his remains lie buried, and by the church in which he preached and they were hearers from Sabbath to Sabbath, while preparing under his instruction for future distinction and usefulness in the world.”2

The most celebrated institution for higher education in North Carolina during the colonial period was Queen's College, also known as Queen's Museum, located at Charlotte, and its history is interesting to the friends of literature as a bold and vigorous effort made for its promotion under the most discouraging circumstances.

The beginnings of this institution are found in the classical school established in 1767, by the Rev. Joseph Alexander,3 a graduate of Princeton of the class of 1760, and a Mr. Benedict, at the Sugar Creek Presbyterian church, near Charlotte.4

3 After a few years Dr. Alexander removed to South Carolina, where he was as active in the cause of education as he had been in his native State. In 1797 the South Carolina Legislature bestowed a charter upon Alexandria College, named in his honor.

Rev. Henry Patillo, a contemporary of Rev. Dr. Caldwell, for many years maintained a classical school in Orange County. Although this school is mentioned by writers as one of the best schools in the province, no detailed information concerning it can be obtained. Mr. Patillo studied at Princeton during the presidency of the Rev. Samuel Davies, so noted in the religious controversies in Virginia during the first half of the eighteenth century, and who afterwards did so much to establish the reputation of Princeton and put it on a firm financial basis. Such was Mr. Patillo's reputation as a scholar that in 1789 the degree of A. M. was conferred on him causa honoris by Hampden-Sidney College, of Virginia.

Like many of the other Presbyterian ministers of his day, he took a prominent part in the political questions in which the colony was involved. In 1775 he was a member of the Provincial Congress of North Carolina, being at the same time chaplain of the body. He had the honor of being the chairman of this Congress in committee of the whole in considering the arrangements for confederation. The reputation made by some of the students of his school during the first years of the history of the State after independence had been achieved evidences that “he was a faithful and successful teacher,” and his services to his country during the war of the Revolution will entitle him to a high place in the history of North Carolina when it is written as it deserves to be, and the records of her patriotic sons are made known and become a part of the history of our whole country.2

In October, 1779, “Granville Hall,” Granville County, was incorporated. This school was liberally supported, and for many years was one of the leading educational institutions in the State.

The preamble to the act of incorporation reads as follows: “Whereas, The proper education of youth in this State is highly necessary and would answer the most valuable and beneficial purposes to the good people thereof; and whereas, the county of Granville, from its situation both pleasant and healthy, well watered and abounding with provisions, is a fit and proper place to erect buildings for a seminary of learning; and whereas, large sums of money have already been subscribed to promote and encourage such a laudable and beneficial establishment, which together with such other sums as may be given in donations and otherwise will answer all the expense attending the same, Resolved, etc.”

The following trustees were appointed: Governor Richard Caswell; Abner Nash, Speaker of the Senate; Thomas Benbury, Speaker of the House of Commons; John Penn, Rev. George Micklejohn, Rev. Henry Patillo, Thomas Person, Edmund Taylor, John Taylor, Memucan Hunt, Philemon Hawkins, Jr., Howell Lewis, Robert Lewis, Charles Rust Eaton, John Young, and Samuel Smith. They were instructed to purchase five hundred acres of land and erect suitable buildings.1

For several years the Rev. Henry Patillo was principal of this institution.

Clio's Nursery, located on Snow Creek, Iredell County, was opened about the beginning of the Revolutionary War. For many years the Rev. James Hall, D. D., a patriot, scholar, and divine of western North Carolina, was the superintendent of this institution, where so many whose memory North Carolina now delights to honor studied. But the school is remembered chiefly on account of the history of its superintendent, James Hall, who was born at Carlisle, Pa., August 22, 1744, but in early youth made North Carolina his home. In 1774 he was graduated from Princeton, where he stood first in his classes. As a student he especially distinguished himself in the exact sciences, and such was the reputation he made in those studies that soon after his graduation President Witherspoon proposed to have him appointed teacher of mathematics in Princeton. Mr. Hall declined this honor, feeling that duty called him to labor in North Carolina. The Orange Presbytery licensed him to preach in 1776, and two years later he became pastor of churches within the bounds of that presbytery.

He was an earnest advocate of the cause of liberty, and the following tribute to his memory is worthily bestowed: “A full account of the actions of Mr. Hall during the Revolutionary War would fill a volume. His active, enterprising spirit would not let him be neuter; his principles, drawn from the Word of God and the doctrines of his church, and cultivated by Dr. Witherspoon, carried him with all his heart to the defence of his country. To that he gave his powers of mind, body, and estate.”2

2 Alexander's Princeton College during the Eighteenth Century, p. 176.

In 1779 Science Hall, at Hillsborough, Orange County, was incorporated, with William Hooper, Alexander Martin, and others as trustees. They were given the same privileges as the trustees of Liberty Hall Academy.

The Legislature in 1784 accorded this institution the privilege to raise money by means of a lottery, and also gave the school the old Episcopal church, built in colonial times by taxation, for recitation halls, reserving the right of holding sessions of the Legislature in it when the General Assembly should convene in Hillsborough.3

Zion Parnassus, a classical school established by the Rev. Samuel Eusebius McCorkle, a native of Pennsylvania, at Thyatira, on the road between Salisbury and Statesville, in 1785, is noted as the first institution, certainly in North Carolina (and President Battle, of the University of North Carolina, thinks in America), having a distinct normal school attachment. At this school worthy young men needing assistance were given their tuition and furnished with the necessary text-books. Dr. McCorkle was a graduate of Princeton, class of 1772, and his course of instruction was modelled after the course of that college. We are told that a high standard of scholarship was maintained in Zion Parnassus, and that the idle and vicious were excluded. That so large a proportion of his students became useful in the liberal professions is due to the fact that he only encouraged those to pursue advanced courses who manifested decided talent. It is said that forty-five of his pupils became ministers of the Gospel. Six of the seven first graduates of the University of North Carolina were prepared for that institution by Dr. McCorkle. At the establishment of the State University Dr. McCorkle was elected first professor, and given the chair of moral and political philosophy, which was declined. Alexander says: “He was a thorough scholar, and kept up his acquaintance, not only with the Latin and Greek classics, but with mathematics, philosophy, and every important branch of learning.” The degree of D.D. was conferred on Dr. McCorkle by Dartmouth College in 1792. He was a man of fine conversational powers, of noble physique, and is said to have much resembled Thomas Jefferson in appearance and gait.1

1 Alexander's Princeton College, p. 156; Foote's Sketches of North Carolina, p. 361.

In 1791 the Rev. David Kerr, pastor of the Presbyterian church in Fayetteville, opened a classical school under the direction of a board of trustees in that town. Mr. Kerr was a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin, and in his day was considered one of the best scholars in the State. In July, 1794, he was elected a professor in the University of North Carolina, and some incidents in his life will be noted in the sketch of that institution.2