As part of the Moore County Historical Association Lecture Series, Donald C. McLeod, FSAScot., will present The Creation of the University of North Carolina in 1795 by Scots-Irish Presbyterian Graduates of Princeton University.

The Piedmont and western North Carolina were settled before the American Revolution largely by Scots-Irish descendants from Pennsylvania and the middle colonies. The Great Wagon Road from Philadelphia to Georgia also brought Quakers, Lutheran Germans and Moravians into NC. There were few university graduates in NC during the 1770s. Remarkably, about 25 Princeton graduates who were lawyers, doctors and especially Presbyterian ministers, were also leaders and fierce defenders of education and the Revolution. Princeton University was steeped in the Scots-Irish enlightenment thanks to John Witherspoon, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. A number of these Princeton men, including William R. Davie, Samuel McCorkle, David Caldwell, and Joseph Caldwell, founded UNC-Chapel Hill in 1795. It was the first state university to construct facilities and graduate students.

Lecture takes place on Sunday, August 18th | 3pm-4pm at the Southern Pines Civic Club. Admission is free.