Davidson’s Creek and Centre Church: the land before the town

Before there was a college, the high ridge between the Catawba and Rocky rivers was farm and forest on the edge of Catawba country. NCpedia’s entry on the Catawba Indians describes a Siouan-speaking people of the Catawba River Valley. Epidemics in 1738 and 1759 cut their numbers from about 1,400 to about 500, and in 1759 they accepted a reservation in South Carolina. Davidson College says the Beaver Dam property southeast of campus was once inhabited by the Catawba people. The college now plans to use the site for teaching about archaeology, Native American lands, slavery and early American history.

The settlers who followed were mostly Scotch-Irish Presbyterians. The state’s “Early History” marker (MM-1) was researched while Lake Norman was being built. Its essay describes pioneers from Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland on the east side of the Catawba, where several homesites and John Oliphant’s grist mill now lie under water. Among them was the Davidson family. Chalmers G. Davidson’s NCpedia biography of Gen. William Lee Davidson says the general’s father brought the family from Pennsylvania when the boy was about two. They settled on Davidson’s Creek in what is now southern Iredell County.

The settlers’ church was Centre. The Centre Church marker (M-22) on NC 115 at Mount Mourne says the Presbyterian congregation was organized in 1765. It first met as the Osbourne Meeting House, on Col. Alexander Osbourne’s land about two miles north of today’s college. Its present brick building dates to 1854, and it joined the National Register in 1980. Farther south, Hopewell Presbyterian Church on Beatties Ford Road organized in 1762. Both congregations would supply families, money and labor for the college to come.

General Davidson and Cowan’s Ford (1781)

The town is named for a man killed at a Catawba River ford on a winter night. William Lee Davidson was born about 1746 in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. The state’s William Lee Davidson marker essay (L-23) says he studied at Sugaw Creek Academy and married Mary Brevard. Her brother Ephraim Brevard helped write the Mecklenburg Resolves of 1775. Davidson was a major in the 4th North Carolina Continentals and endured the winter at Valley Forge. He was badly wounded at Colson’s Mill in July 1780 and was then made a militia brigadier general for the Salisbury District.

In the winter of 1781, Gen. Nathanael Greene posted Davidson on the Catawba to slow Lord Cornwallis’s pursuit. The Battle of Cowan’s Ford marker essay (L-22) says Davidson had about 500 militia, and rain had swollen the river to roughly 400 yards wide. Cornwallis sent a detachment to Beatties Ford as a feint. Early on February 1 his main force crossed at Cowan’s Ford, using the “wagon ford” instead of the “horse ford” where Davidson expected them. Davidson rode to the bank to rally his men and was shot in the chest. His militia fled and regrouped at Torrence’s Tavern. NCpedia’s biography says his body was buried by torchlight that night in Hopewell churchyard.

The delay helped Greene escape across the Dan River. About six weeks later came the Battle of Guilford Courthouse. The British took Davidson’s pistols, sword and wallet as trophies, and the L-23 essay says they are now displayed at Guilford Courthouse National Military Park. The ford itself now lies under Lake Norman.

A college in the woods (1835–1860)

The general’s son made the college possible. William Lee Davidson II (1781–1862) was a month old when his father died. In 1829 he built a two-story Federal-style house called Beaver Dam, at today’s 19600 Davidson-Concord Road. In March 1835 the Concord Presbytery approved Robert Hall Morrison’s plan for a school to train young men for the ministry. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Landmarks Commission says that on May 13, 1835, a committee met at Beaver Dam and agreed to buy 469 acres from William Lee II for $1,521. The college was named for his father.

The college’s own historical timeline, produced alongside its Commission on Race and Slavery, does not hide where the labor came from. The first buildings went up in 1835–36 with 250,000 bricks made by enslaved people on a nearby plantation. President Morrison, the two faculty members and the college steward all owned enslaved people in 1837. The Davidson College marker essay (L-9) adds that nearby congregations sent enslaved laborers to clear land and build the campus.

The school opened in 1837 as a manual labor college under the Concord and Bethel presbyteries. Students worked three hours a day. James I. Martin Sr.’s NCpedia history of the college counts 65 students and three faculty members in the first class. In 1841 the manual labor program gave way to a classical curriculum. Two original dormitories, Elm Row and Oak Row (1837), are the only survivors of the first eight buildings, according to the Davidson Historic District National Register nomination. The debating societies followed with Greek Revival halls, Eumenean Hall and Philanthropic Hall, built in 1848–1850.

Then came a windfall. Maxwell Chambers, a Salisbury planter and moneylender, left the college a bequest in his will. NCpedia gives it as $250,000 in 1856, and the college timeline gives $260,000 in 1855. Either way, the marker essay says it made Davidson the most generously endowed college south of Princeton. The essay also notes that Chambers built much of his fortune on slavery.

The money paid for the $90,000 Chambers Building, designed by New York architect Andrew Jackson Davis and erected in 1857. “Old Chambers” burned on the morning of November 28, 1921. Its replacement was started in 1924, completed in 1929 and dedicated on June 3, 1930, according to the Davidson College Archives encyclopedia. The college motto still sums up the founders’ hopes:

Alenda Lux Ubi Orta Libertas, which the state’s L-9 marker essay translates roughly as “learning cherished where liberty has arisen.”

War, the railroad and a town called “Davidson College” (1860–1900)

The railroad arrived just before the Civil War. Former archivist Nancy Griffith, writing in News of Davidson, says the Atlantic, Tennessee and Ohio Railroad reached Davidson in the early 1860s. The track between Charlotte and Statesville was finished by 1860. In 1863 the Confederate government pulled up the rails to build a line between Greensboro and Danville, Virginia. The first train on the rebuilt line ran in 1871.

The war emptied the campus. The college timeline says faculty and students generally favored secession and the Confederacy. NCpedia notes that Davidson was one of two men’s colleges in North Carolina to stay open through the war, partly because President John Kirkpatrick added a preparatory course. Even so, only 24 students were enrolled when the war ended. The archives’ coeducation history says Kirkpatrick enrolled his five daughters in the 1860s to help fill the classrooms.

The archives’ Civil War guide points out that three of President Morrison’s sons-in-law became Confederate officers: Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson, Rufus Barringer and D. H. Hill. Hill had taught mathematics at Davidson. His grave is in the town, and state marker L-40 on North Main Street, recorded by the Historical Marker Database, notes it.

The village around the college was incorporated in 1879 under the name “Davidson College.” It became plain “Davidson” in 1891. By then the college had a famous student in its past: Woodrow Wilson attended in the 1873–74 academic year before moving on to Princeton. The railroad turned the town into a cotton market and a service center for farmers. Linden Cotton Factory went up on Depot Street in 1890, and the frame Southern Railway depot that still stands on Jackson Street was built in 1897.

That cotton trade had a side effect. In the late 1880s a quarrel over who could weigh cotton in Davidson sent R. J. Stough’s scales just south of the town line. The Landmarks Commission says that move laid the foundation for the town of Cornelius. The campus also produced a scientific first for the state. Marker L-108 on Concord Road, erected in 2008, says Prof. Henry L. Smith made X-ray experiments and radiographs in the physics lab in February 1896 and pioneered medical uses for X-rays.

Main Street, mills and Black Davidson (1900–1972)

The National Register nomination, prepared by Richard L. Mattson and Frances P. Alexander in 2008, describes how the business district was rebuilt in brick after a devastating fire in 1906. A Carnegie Library was built in 1909. Delburg Cotton Mills was built in 1908 on the northwest side of town and later became the Davidson Cotton Mill, and worker houses lined Delburg and Depot streets. Davidson United Methodist Church at 304 South Main was built in 1908.

Davidson’s Black community, concentrated on the west side of town, built its own institutions. Before 1937, Black children went to small frame schools in the Westside neighborhood that taught only through eighth grade. Local residents raised money for a brick six-classroom school, led by teacher Ada Jenkins and PTA president Logan Houston. The Landmarks Commission says the Davidson Colored School at 212 Gamble Street opened in 1937. The National Register nomination gives 1938 and notes help from the federal Public Works Administration. Jenkins also led the glee club and played piano and organ. She died in 1944, and in 1955 the school was renamed for her. It closed in 1966 when Mecklenburg schools integrated and reopened in the 1970s as a community center. The Ada Jenkins Center still serves the town.

Nancy Griffith’s account of the 1950 fire in Brady’s Alley draws on the Statesville Daily Record of December 22, 1950. The alley ran from Main Street to the railroad tracks and was crowded with rental shacks. About eleven of them housed 87 people, who shared four outdoor spigots. When fire broke out during a Sunday service, the Rev. Carlton Pritchett led the Davidson College Presbyterian congregation across the street to fight it. Pritchett then organized a Citizens’ Housing Committee. By late fall 1950 ten new houses stood on the Westside, and the town spent $30,000 on sewer service and required bathrooms and electricity in houses. In December the college YMCA’s $5,000 Christmas fund paid for ten more homes. A plaque marks where Brady’s Alley stood.

The effort continued in Lakeside Park, which a town marker calls Davidson’s first affordable neighborhood. Its first homes were built in 1967. The college changed too. Benoit Nzengu, the son of a Presbyterian missionary from the Congo, enrolled in 1962, and the first Black American students, Leslie Brown and Wayne Crumwell, arrived in 1964. On May 5, 1972, the trustees opened the college to women as full degree candidates. In 1973 Marianna “Missy” Boaz Woodward graduated with honors as the only woman among 217 graduates.

Planning a small town in a big region (1960s–today)

Lake Norman filled in 1963 and I-77 reached the area by 1975. Davidson then faced the same pressure as its neighbors and handled it differently. Chuck McShane’s A History of Lake Norman, excerpted by UNC Charlotte’s Urban Institute, recalls that in 1973 a Marine World theme park was proposed for Exit 30. It died when the Davidson Town Board refused to extend sewer lines. The town later adopted a General Plan in 1993, a Land Plan in 1995 and a Planning Ordinance in 2001 that pushed walkable, mixed-use growth, Wikipedia’s town history notes. The International City/County Management Association credits that 2001 ordinance as North Carolina’s first affordable housing ordinance. It also required sidewalks, connected streets, greenways and open space, and the town assembled 600 contiguous acres of public open space. Davidson won the EPA’s National Award for Overall Excellence in Smart Growth in 2004.

The results are easy to find on foot. Fisher Farm Park covers 200 acres, with about four miles of mountain-bike trails, and connects to the West Branch Greenway. In 2009 the core of town joined the National Register as the Davidson Historic District, with 398 contributing resources and a period of significance from 1837 to 1959.

Holiday traditions grew from the same Main Street. David Boraks, writing for DavidsonNews.net and WFAE, traced Christmas in Davidson to 1988. Three merchants, Elaine McArn of the Needlecraft Center, Irene Blackwell of the Village Store and Barbara Freund of Main Street Books, started it as an extra night of holiday shopping.

Growth came anyway, though more slowly than in Cornelius. The census counted 4,046 residents in 1990 and 15,106 in 2020, and the Census Bureau estimated 16,662 in 2025. The college, meanwhile, has been reckoning with its past. In 2017 it created a Commission on Race and Slavery. It bought Beaver Dam in 1997, and the town leased the site as a park and event space until about 2022, when the college ended the lease. In 2023 the college announced plans to give the property an educational purpose.

Where to see Davidson history today

• Davidson College campus, Main Street at Concord Road. Elm Row and Oak Row (1837), the Chambers Building (1929) and the twin society halls. Eumenean Hall and Philanthropic Hall were each listed on the National Register on April 13, 1972.
• Davidson Historic District. The district runs along North Main Street, Concord Road and the streets around the college, and was listed June 1, 2009. Walk Main Street’s rebuilt brick blocks and the faculty houses along Concord Road, which the nomination traces to the mid-19th century.
• Railroad and mill landmarks. The 1897 depot is at 215 Jackson Street. The 1890 Linden Cotton Factory stands at 301 Depot Street and the 1908 Delburg Cotton Mills at 209–210 Delburg Street.
• Ada Jenkins Center, 212 Gamble Street. The former Davidson Colored School of 1937–38 is a designated landmark and still a community center.
• Brady’s Alley plaque, on Main Street, and the Lakeside Park marker on Lakeside Avenue south of Griffith Street.
• Highway historical markers. L-9 Davidson College stands on North Main Street (NC 115), L-40 D. H. Hill on North Main north of Jackson Street, and L-108 X-Ray Experiments at Concord Road and D Road. L-23 William Lee Davidson and L-22 Battle of Cowan’s Ford are on Beatties Ford Road and NC 73 to the southwest.
• Chairman Blake House, 318 Chairman Blake Lane. A house from about 1861, moved in 2000 and listed on the National Register in 2004.
• Beaver Dam, 19600 Davidson-Concord Road. The 1829 house where the college land deal was arranged, listed on the National Register in 1979. Davidson College plans to reopen it with interpretation, so check before visiting.
• Centre Presbyterian Church, Mount Mourne (marker M-22 on NC 115), and Hopewell Presbyterian Church, 10500 Beatties Ford Road, Huntersville, where General Davidson is buried.
• Research. Davidson College Archives & Special Collections in the E. H. Little Library sees visitors by appointment (archives@davidson.edu, 704-894-2158). The Davidson Historical Society, founded in 1991, offers lectures and walking tours. The archives also keeps a reading list on town history, including Jan Blodgett and Ralph Levering’s One Town, Many Voices (2012).

Sources

• David G. Moore, “Catawba Indians,” NCpedia (2006)
• Davidson College, “College Plans Educational Role for Beaver Dam Property” (August 17, 2023)
• N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, “Early History” marker MM-1
• N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, “Centre Church” marker M-22
• N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, “William Lee Davidson” marker L-23
• N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, “Battle of Cowan’s Ford” marker L-22
• N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, “Davidson College” marker L-9
• Chalmers G. Davidson, “Davidson, William Lee,” NCpedia / Dictionary of North Carolina Biography (1986)
• James I. Martin Sr., “Davidson College,” NCpedia / Encyclopedia of North Carolina (2006)
• Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Landmarks Commission, Hopewell Presbyterian Church
• Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Landmarks Commission, Beaver Dam
• Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Landmarks Commission, Davidson Colored School / Ada Jenkins School
• Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Landmarks Commission, Roosevelt Wilson House
• Davidson College, “Historical Timeline: From the College’s Inception to the Commission on Race and Slavery” (2021)
• Richard L. Mattson and Frances P. Alexander, Davidson Historic District National Register nomination (2008)
• Davidson College Archives, “What year did Old Chambers burn?”
• Davidson College Archives, Davidson Encyclopedia: “Chambers Building – New”
• Davidson College Archives, Davidson Encyclopedia: “Coeducation”
• Davidson College Archives, “Davidson and the Armed Forces: Civil War” research guide
• Davidson College Archives, “When did the town of Davidson become incorporated?”
• Davidson College Archives, secondary sources on the history of the Town of Davidson
• Davidson College Archives, hours and location
• Nancy Griffith, “All Aboard!” News of Davidson (August 7, 2019)
• Nancy Griffith, “1950 Fire Changed Davidson Forever,” News of Davidson (February 17, 2018)
• Historical Marker Database, “D.H. Hill” (L-40)
• Historical Marker Database, “X-Ray Experiments” (L-108)
• Historical Marker Database, “Davidson College” (L-9)
• Historical Marker Database, “Lakeside Park” (Town of Davidson marker)
• “I-77: Expressway to prosperity,” UNC Charlotte Urban Institute (2014), excerpt from Chuck McShane, A History of Lake Norman
• ICMA, “Stopping Urban Sprawl by Displaying Courage”
• Wikipedia, “Davidson, North Carolina” (planning history and decennial census table)
• Town of Davidson, Fisher Farm Park
• David Boraks, “25 Years of Christmas in Davidson,” DavidsonNews.net / WFAE (November 30, 2012)
• Wikipedia, National Register listings in Mecklenburg County (listing dates and coordinates)
• Davidson Historical Society, “About Us”
• U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts, Davidson town (2020 census)
• U.S. Census Bureau, Vintage 2025 subcounty population estimates