Wake Forest College
About 1832 much interest was taken in many parts of the United States in manual labor schools. In 1832 the Baptist State Convention, then less than two years old, bought a farm of 615 acres, lying inWake County, sixteen miles north of Raleigh, for $2000, and began a manual labor school, under the name of Wake Forest Institute.
In 1833 the Baptist State Convention, which held a session of six days at Cartledge’s Creek, in Richmond County, appointed a board of forty trustees, all of whom are now dead except the Rev. Thomas Stradley, of Asheville, and Hon. George W. Thompson, of Wake County.
In December, 1833, Dr. Samuel Wait was chosen as principal of the school, and Rev. John Armstrong, one of the teachers, was put into the field to raise money to equip the school properly. There were no adequate buildings on the place, and but little furniture on hand when the school began operations in February, 1834, with twenty-five pupils. By August there were seventy pupils, and within a little more than a year from its origin the institution was blessed with three gracious revivals, a token of the spiritual tone and power which have marked the whole history of the institution.
In 1839 the manual labor system was abandoned, and a college charter was procured with some difficulty. The bill passed the lower branch of the Legislature by a considerable majority, but was a tie in the senate, and was saved by the casting vote of Mr. Mosely, the president. In 1839 the college building was finished. It was of brick, 132 feet long, 60 feet wide, and four stories high, and cost something over $14,000.
Dr. Wait was president till 1846, when Dr. Wm. Hooper was called to that position. Discouraged by the heavy debts of the college, he retired after two years’ service, when Rev. J.B. White, a graduate of Brown University, and a native of New Hampshire, became president. In 1853 he removed to Illinois, and Prof. W.H. Owen was chairman of the faculty until June, 1854, when Dr. W.M. Wingate, who had been laboring for two years to endow the college, became president, and continued to hold the position till his death, in February, 1879, — a period of twenty-five years.
In July, 1879, Rev. Thomas H. Pritchard, D.D., was chosen president, and is working earnestly to build up the college.
At the opening of the war the college had an invested endowment of about $85,000, with bonds worth $30,000; at its close, all was gone except about $14,000 of railroad stock. It now has an invested endowment of $48,000. Three good buildings, one of which, the one mentioned above, is devoted to dormitories; the second, to chapels and lecture-rooms; the third, to societyhalls, library, and reading-room. The last-mentioned building was a present three years ago, from Messrs. J.M. Heck and John G. Williams, of Raleigh, and cost, with furniture, about $14,000. The second building was erected in 1879, and cost about $12,000, and is called Wingate Memorial Hall, in honorof the late president. The library contains about 8000 volumes, and is handsomely fitted up.
The college had last year 181 students in attendance, and its income was about $9000. Thirty-two young ministers attended, who paid no tuition fees. The whole college expenses for a year are a little less than $200. The faculty of the college consists of eight members: T.H. Pritchard, D.D., president, and Professor of Moral Philosophy; W.G. Simmons, Professor of Natural Science; W. Royall, D.D., Professor of Modern Languages; W.B. Royall, Professor of Greek; L.R. Mills, Professor of Mathematics; C.E. Taylor, Professor of Latin; W.L. Poteat, Assistant Professor of Natural Science; and C.W. Scarboro, Tutor of Mathematics. The college is nearly out of debt, and the last year (1880) has been the most prosperous of its history.
Besides Wake Forest, the Baptists of North Carolina have excellent female schools in the Chowan Institute; Wilson Seminary, of which Mr. John B. Brewer, a grandson of Dr. Wait, and a graduate of Wake Forest College, is president and proprietor; Thomasville Female College, presided over by Mr., H.W. Rinehart, who is also the proprietor; Oxford Female College, of which Prof. F.P. Hobgood is principal. In Hendersonville there is a mixed school, known as Judson College, and, in addition, there are male academies, such as Reynoldson Institute, in Gates County; Cedar Creek and Carolina Academies, in Anson County; Salem Academy, in Sampson County; Warsaw. I-sigh School, in Duplin County,; Yadkin Institute; Lillington Academy, in Harnett, and others.
-From
The Baptist Encyclopedia VOLUME 3: R-Z
By William Cathcart D.D.
Here is Wake Forest Universities website today: http://www.wfu.edu/
I doubt there are many there that have any clue of how that school began. I wonder if the name of Jesus is even welcome there today.
