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Born on the level! Born on the square!
BIOGRAPHY OF WILLIAM MECKLENBURG POLK 1758-1834
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Forty-four years serving the University
Education was imbedded in the Polk family from early times. William’s father Thomas helped found the first secondary school in western North Carolina. He was a member of the legislature that sponsored a bill to create Queens College. The education legacy was passed on to William’s son Leonidas who ultimately founded the University of the South at Sewanee.
William Polk was a Trustee of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for 44 years from 1790 to 1834, some of them as President. A Documentary History of the University of North Carolina edited by R. D. W. Connor, 1953, cites 40 entries about Polk in the historic Board of Trustees minutes.
In Polk’s Folly, written by direct descendant William R Polk, we find, “Will was certainly a hands-on trustee of the university, as we read in a broadsheet of instructions for parents and students he signed on behalf of the board. ‘…sensible of the ill consequences of Students having more money at their disposal that is sufficient to meet their necessary disbursements during the Session,’ and to avoid ‘temptation to dissipation, misapplication of time and a relaxation of morals,’ he recommended that in the first session, students be given no more than $58. Of that, $34 went for board, $12 for tuition and $1 for room rent. With perhaps more realism than encouragement, the schedule allotted $5 for washing and mending but only 50 cents for books. Laws were set forth to govern conduct which specified, among other things, that ‘A student shall not make horse races, or bet therein, nor shall they keep cocks or fowles of any kind for any purpose.’ Assemblies for prayer were to be held twice daily. Students were required to study ‘from the time of morning prayers till eight o’clock, from nine till twelve in the forenoon, and from two till five in the afternoon, and at all other times the Students shall observe a proper silence and a respectful deportment.’
“There is scant evidence that the rules were observed. Perhaps $34 for half a year’s food was not the right proportion, but young James (the future president of the United States), while a student, walked six miles a day to eat elsewhere. In 1815, when he entered, the university had a faculty of only five professors, but they had very grand pretensions. Entering candidates were subjected to examination on an astonishing range of subjects including Latin and Greek grammar, Caesar’s Commentaries and works of Sallust and Virgil. James did well and graduated in 1817 at the top of his class, but his brother, William Hawkins Polk, twenty years his junior, would later have considerably more trouble. As James wrote to Will, the boy was a spendthrift, with ‘a very great disposition to extravagance in dress, in attending theaters—and other places of light amusement’ who ran up bills at every store he could reach. So James, the Jeffersonian, turned to Will, the Federalist, to administer discipline; Will did not take the bait. He found young William wild but charming and gave him permission to do as he wished upon his promise that he would study hard. Whether he did or not, he did not gain entry as a regular student…”
Paying bills for construction labor on the campus of North Carolina’s young university was one of William Polk’s responsibilities. A May 22, 1823, settlement document was sent personally to Polk for approval and payment of a $245 balance:
“Building Committee of the University at Chapel Hill,
To William Polk for the labor of his hands at the New College---
Feb. 11 Saunders $156.00, Jim $135, Stephen $135, Charles $45
June 1 Saunders $104, Jim $90, Stephen $90, Joe $90
Feb and May 22 paid: $600
Bal. due (from) W.P. $245”
read more | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8
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Produced by the public relations committee of the Grand Lodge AF&AM of Masons in North Carolina,
2921 Glenwood Avenue, Raleigh, NC 27628 MMVIII
Author/editor: Walter J. Klein wklein(at)carolina.rr.com
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