Queens University of Charlotte - Coronet / Edelweiss Yearbook (Charlotte, NC)

Page 21 text:

%4 e d c c i s s i g An Historical Sketch of Queens College QRIOR TO 1770 there were in the province including Mecklenburg County only two academies which were chartered by the Legislature and approved by the King and Council, and which had the power to confer degrees. One was at Edenton ; the other at New Bern. However, there were within the province other classical schools having a more or less extended curriculum. Of these Queens College or Museum was the best. Thi , school was established at an early date and flourished about 17C6 under the Rev. Joseph Alexander, who was connected with Sugar Creek Church. On January 15, 1771, the Colonial Legislature granted Queens College a charter and empowered it to confer the degree of B.A. and M.A. upon its graduates. The notorious Edmund Fanning is named first in the list of trustees, and was the first president of the institution. Many of his interests were in the North ; so on June 21, 1771, he left North Carolina and went to New York with Governor Tryon. What time he had resided in North Carolina he had lived in Orange County ; consequently he could have had but little to do with the operation of the school, though the charter rec[uired that all the diplomas be signed by the president who had to be of the Established Church and who had to be licensed by the Governor after his appointment by the Fellows and Trustees of the college. The next session of the Legislature, in December, 1771, amended the charter so that degrees could be conferred in the absence of the president, who is now out of the Province. A section of this charter stated that a duty of six pence per gallon should be put on all rum or liquors brought into and dispensed in Mecklenburg County, which duties were to be collected and paid to the treasurer of the college. The amended charter was approved by the Royal Governor and the Crown Attorney, and was forwarded in March, 1771, to the King for his action. In April, one year later, 1771, the act was disallowed by the King. The furor raised by this disallowance led directly to the demand for the Education Clause in the Constitution of the United States. In April, 1777, the first Legislature of the State of North Carolina incor- porated the institution under the name of Liberty Hall, but referred in the act to its former existence and usefulness. Its operation had been disturbed just previous to this date by the Revolutionary War, during the year of which 13