Duke University - Chanticleer Yearbook (Durham, NC)

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GROVER CLEVELAND INAUGURATED AS PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES ALARCH 4, 1885 by Julian S. Carr, J. W. Alspaugh, and James A. Gray, all of whom were members of the Board of Trustees. On April 5, 1887, John Franklin Crowell, a young Pennsylvanian, who had just recently received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Yale University, was elected President. The Board had been convinced of his ability by Dr. Henry Horace Williams, but it doubted the wisdom of ap- pointing a Northern man. Dismaye d at first at the disappointment which he felt upon arriving at Trinity, hav- ing supposed it to be one of the finest schools in the South, Crowell was, nevertheless, by temperament and training well-fitted for the task which the conditions of the College and the State imposed upon him. Being the first modern university-trained man to be- come president of a college in the South, he is credited with bringing to North Carolina the modern concept of a college, the first real breath of progress from the outside. During his administration he not only succeeded in reorganizing and modernizing the curriculum, but he also established the right of the college to discuss public questions regardless of partisan objection or personal interests involved. Perhaps his chief contribution to Trinity College was to effect its removal to Durham, North Carolina, in 1892. President Crowell felt that in order to insure the future welfare of the College, the institution should be located in a larger center of population and wealth. Opposition to his plan came from some of the faculty and alumni, and from the citizens of Randolph County, many of whom were preju- diced because the move was being sponsored by a North- ern man. The College was about to be moved to Raleigh when certain citizens of Durham intervened in behalf of estab- lishing the institution in Durham. Impelled by religious and educational reasons and in part by civic pride, two Methodist laymen, Washington Duke and Julian S. Carr, became interested in bringing Trinity College to Durham. Upon the promise of Carr to donate a sixty-two acre tract of land known as Blackwell ' s Park and used as a race- track, along with the offer of Washington Duke to give eighty-five thousand dollars to be used in the erection of DR. MARQUIS L. WOOD BECOMES PRESIDENT OF THE COLLEGE 1883 JOHN FRANKLIN CROWELL

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BRAXTON CRAVEN CIVIL WAR. CRAVEN RESIGNS IN 1863 The Civil War brought to Trinity a fate shared by many other Southern institutions. President Craven resigned in 1863 and the Trustees elected Professor William T. Gannaway as his successor. But in October, 1865, Dr. Craven was reelected to the presidency. The work of the college hav- ing been suspended in April of that year, his new responsibility did not actually begin until January, 1866. Thence until his death in November, 1882, he remained President of Trinity College. Dur- ing this second part of his administration, the school was prosperous. Since the Republican scalawags and carpet-baggers had closed the State University, Trinity enjoyed the enrollment of the keenest students and the finest gentlemen. Many young men who were later to become prominent studied under Braxton Craven. Upon his death came a decided decrease in enrollment because the school lost much of the confidence which the public had placed in it. With affairs in a very disorganized state, Professor William Howell Pegram was elected Chairman of the Faculty; and it was he who directed the school for the academic year which ended in June, 1883. The Reverend Marquis L. Wood, D.D., was elected President in 1883. His real profession was the ministry, in which he had served for many years as preacher and as missionary to China. Never having sought after this position in any sense, only the ideals to which he was true and his loyalty to Trinity College persuaded him to under- take the duties of a college administrator. Faced with the discouraging prospects of few students, a disrupted faculty, and a declining public interest. President Wood felt that he was not fitted for this work. In December 1884, he resigned and sought permission to return to his true field, the ministry. When Doctor ' ood resigned, the Board of Trustees elected Professor John F. Heit- man as Chairman of the Faculty. He was empowered to act as President until one could be chosen. For the next two years the financial manage- ment of the college was underwritten CRAVEN ADDRESSES THE METHODIST CONFERENCE

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Washington Duke Building