State

Academic Fireworks Was the Scene Restoration in Chapel Hill recalls two off North Carolina's most contra versial figures. By Marguerite Schumann A pleasantly eccentric Victorian cottage, made up of several mis¬ matched parts and live pocket-sized porches — the home of two persons who fought Chapel Hill's most famous intellectual wars— is in the final stages of restoration by the Chapel Hill Pres¬ ervation Society. The creamy-yellow, black-shuttered house has been recently renamed the Benjamin Hedrick-Horace Williams House, to celebrate its most contro¬ versial residents. The house greets the visitor approaching from Durham on business 15-501 (Franklin Street), on the right side of the last curve just be¬ fore the road straightens into the his¬ toric area and downtown business dis¬ trict. The house lot is a full block deep, and is park-like with huge oaks, mag¬ nolias and other trees. Parking is avail¬ able on Rosemary Street, where a small lot is provided at the back of the historic structure. F.nragcd the State The house has had a distinguished procession of owners over its eighty year span. But two. particularly, brought high academic drama home with them from work. Chemist Benja¬ min Hedrick, who lived in the house in the 1850s and was probably its builder, so enraged the state with his Republi¬ can politics that he is the only person to have been dismissed for political be¬ liefs in the 180-year history of The University of North Carolina. Philosopher Horace Williams, who owned the house from the I890’s until his death in 1940. was the author of so many heresies that during his first quarter century on the faculty nearly every preacher in North Carolina at¬ tacked him from the pulpit. It is interesting, however, to note how a century has made a difference in the treatment of dissidents. The Executive Committee of the University settled the Hedrick case on October 18. 1856 with these words: "Whereas Professor B. S. Hedrick seems disposed to respect neither the opinions of the Faculty nor the Trust¬ ees of the University but persists in retaining his situation to the manifest injury of the University . . . (he) ... is hereby dismissed as Professor in the University." The Horace Williams case— the man who spent a lifetime respecting neither the opinions of the faculty nor trustees— was never settled, but in the 1930’s, President Frank Porter Graham responded to a citizen’s com¬ mittee: "Much of what you gentlemen say is true. Horace Williams is out of step with the majority; he’s' an indi¬ vidualist. an eccentric. In a faculty vote, if all agree save one. I know that one is Horace Williams. But as far as I'm concerned, this university cannot destroy Horace Williams' freedom to think and speak his opinions without altering the concept of the university itself." Anti-Slavery Benjamin Hedrick was a victim of his time in history, a time in which Southern freedom of speech and opin¬ ion was abidged on the issue of slav¬ ery. In their day Washington. Jefferson. Clay and other distinguished sons of the South were frank in their opposi¬ tion to slavery. This opposition was echoed by many small farmers and working men who saw slavery as a bar .o their own progress. On the Chapel Hill campus, thirty years before the firing on Fort Sumter, slavery was dramatically condemned by North Carolina Justice William Gaston, in a famous address given from the plat¬ form of Person Hall. Yet. as abolitionist sentiments strengthened in the North. North Carolina and other Southern states re¬ fused to tolerate utterance of anti¬ slavery sentiment. It was in this political climate that Hedrick, a native North Carolinian and a first honors graduate in the class Profe»»or Beniomm HedncK wo» the only person ever to hove been fired from U N.C for his politKol belief», (courtesy of N.C Collection) of 1851 . returned to his Alma Mater to teach, after a period of study at Har¬ vard. At first, he took no pan in the constant discussions on the subject of slavery. In the fall of 1856. however, as Kemp Battle has recorded, "in the heated contest between Buchanan and Fremont. Professor Benjamin Sher¬ wood Hedrick stanled the public by declaring himself a Free-soiler and supporter of Fremont. He was at¬ tacked in the Raleigh Standard in a letter written by a law student, an honor graduate of 1854. Joseph A. Engelhard. Being a man of pluck (Hed¬ rick) replied defending his position with ability, but taking the peculiar ground that the prevention of carrying slaves to the territories would increase the wealth of North Carolina by keep- i a THE STATE. DECEMBER 1975