The Civil War in North Carolina



Reminiscences and Memoirs of North Carolina and Eminent North Carolinians

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and therefore that he had still the inestimable blessings of meus sana in corpore sano, and that other still greater blessings, mens sibi conscia recti. In his autobiography, printed only for his relatives--a copy being given our Historical Society at the urgent request of Mrs. Spencer, we find an account of the Ball given in compliment to his class, when graduating. I must extract a description of his dress:

        "The style of costume," says Gen. Mallet, "and even the manners of the present generation are not in my opinion an improvement on a half century ago. The managers would not admit a gentleman into a ball-room with boots, or even a frock coat; and to dance without gloves was simply vulgar. At Commencement Hall, (when I graduated, 1818,) my coat was broadcloth of sea-green color, high velvet collar to match, swallow-tail, pockets outside with lapels, and large silver-plated buttons; wnite satin damask vest, showing the edge of a blue undervest; a wide opening for bosom ruffles, and no shirt collar. The neck was dressed with a layer of four or five three-cornered cravats, artistically laid, and surmounted with a cambrick stock, pleated and buckled behind. My pantaloons were white canton crape, lined with pink muslin, and showed a peach blossom tint. They were rather short, in order to display flesh colored silk stockings, and this exposure was increased by very low cut pumps with shiny buckles. My hair was very black, very long and queued. I should be taken for a lunatic or a harlequin in such costume now."


        I challenge Mr. Chief Manager Roberts to produce a dress as gorgeous as this on any student of the Ball of 1883.

        Having provided dormitories for sheltering the students and food for their bodily sustenance, and halls for their mental instruction, the Trustees next addressed themselves for provision for the religious and moral training. The old ante-revolutionary Chapel of the Church of England, from which the place took its name, originally New Hope Chapel, the place being likewise New Hope Chapel Hill, had gone to decay. A building under the control of the Trustees must be erected. When it was barely above the ground the treasury ran low; when the strong box was tapped it gave a hollow sound. An old bachelor, one of that class, which having no immediate claims on its bounty, sometimes redeems by beneficence to public objects their failures in social duty, came to their relief. His name was Thomas Person. He had been an ardent lover of liberty, had sympathized with the Regulators in their abortive effort to shake off colonial oppressors, and had suffered from the ravages of Tryon's army. He was prominent in resisting the exactions of the British Government, which led to the war of Independence. He appeared at Newbern as a delagate from Granville to the first Assembly held in defiance of the royal authority in August, 1774, of which that noble patriot, John Harvey, was moderator. He was one of the thirteen Council of Safety which was the supreme Provisional Government, after the end of the Royal authority. He assisted in 1776, as a member of the Congress at Halifax, in forming our State constitution, in which alone of all others was a provision requireing the establishment of a University. He was the first Brigadier General of the District of Hillsboro. He was among the band of forty of the greatest men the State had in 1789--the first Board of Trustees of the University, among whom were six Governors; eight Judges, of whom two were Judges of the Supreme Court of the United States; fifteen members of Congress, of whom three were Senators, besides able men like Archibald Maclaine, Frederick Hargett, Stephen Cabarrus, Wm. Lenoir, Joel Lane, John Haywood, Joseph McDowell, Joseph Graham, and others, who were great in war, or as
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