measure through. Gifted with less tact, with less eloquence, or with less popularity, Davie must have failed. The institution is no less a monument also to his public spirit, boldness, and foresight. He was a member of the first board of trustees. The selection of a site for the university, the superintendence of the erection of the buildings, the choice of professors, the arrangement of a course of studies, the adoption of regulations, the maintenance of discipline, engaged his personal and active attention. The course of studies adopted at Davie's instance in 1795 was the "optional" system, which now generally obtains. In this he anticipated the course of other colleges full fifty years. When Dr. David Caldwell was elected president this was set aside, and the old iron-bound curriculum was adopted and remained in force eighty years. In 1787 the Free Masons of this state organized the Grand Lodge of North Carolina in the town of Tarboro'. At that meeting were many of the most distinguished men of the state, Colonel Davie among them. Governor Johnston was elected the first grand master of North Carolina, and Governor Caswell the second grand master. Davie was elected grand master in December, 1792, and was successively re-elected for seven years. In that capacity he laid the cornei-stone of the university, October 12, 1793, the old East building, and on April 14, 1798, he laid the corner-stone of the old South building at the same place.

The project of a digest of the laws was brought forward by him, and the appointment of Judge Iredell, the accomplished jurist, to do the work was made at his suggestion. The cession of the territory which now forms the state of Tennessee was effected mainly by his influence. In 1791 he was appointed by the legislature one of three commissioners to establish the unsettled part of the boundary between North and South Carolina. He was again elected for the same purpose in 1796, and again in 1803. None of these commissions, however, were successful.

In 1794 he was commissioned by Governor Spaight to be major-general of the third state division, in view of the likelihood of war with France. By act of congress, the 24th of June, 1797, an embodiment of troops was directed from the several states. The number to be raised by North Carolina was seven thousand two hundred and sixty-eight, and in September of that year Davie was appointed major-general to command this detachment. As matters became more serious, congress, in May, 1798, authorized a provisional army of the United States of ten thousand men, and in this he was appointed a brigadier-general by President Adams, July 17, 1798, and was confirmed by the senate July 19th. Of this army Washington was made commander-in-chief, and he, in effect, committed to General Davie

the selection of the officers for that part of the troops which should be raised in North Carolina. In the same year Davie prepared a system of cavalry tactics which was adopted by the legislature and ordered to be printed. A copy of this is now in our state library. General Davie came out of the war with the first military reputation in the state, and these successive appointments so many years after prove that North Carolina still turned to him as her greatest soldier.

At this juncture, singularly enough, when in the receipt of high honors, state and national, his election for the borough of Halifax was first endangered. The circumstance is thus stated in a private letter from that town, written in August, 1798: "The 'true whigs,' as they styled themselves, dined together under the oaks and toasted Mr. Jefferson. The other party, who were called 'aristocrats,' ate and drank in the house on entirely different principles. General Davie dined with the aristocrats.' The true whigs' took offense at this and resolved to oppose his election. and it was only with much address that they were kept quiet." The writer adds: "If any person had had the impudence to dispute the election General Davie would certainly not have been returned. The rabble which in all places is the majority, would have voted against him."

He took his seat when the legislature met. By that body-the then constitutional mode-he was, on joint ballot, elected governor of the state December 4, 1798, over Benjamin Williams (afterward governor), and was inaugurated December 7th. Nothing of special note took place during his tenure of the office. President Adams appointed an embassy to treat with the French Directory, consisting of Mr. Murray, then our minister to Holland, Chief Justice Ellsworth, and Patrick Henry. The latter having declined on the ground of age and ill health, on June 1, 1799, Governor Davie was appointed in his stead. On the 10th of September he resigned the office of governor, and on the 22d left Halifax to join Mr. Ellsworth at Trenton. At his departure the people of Halifax and vicinity presented him with a complimentary address, which was written by a political adversary and signed by large numbers of the same party.

On November 3, 1799, Messrs. Ellsworth and Davie embarked in the frigate United States, from Newport, Rhode Island. Uncertain as to the changeable form of government in France, they touched at Lisbon, which they reached the 27th of November. They left the 21st of December, but being driven out of their course by a storm, they put into Corunna the 11th of January, 1800, which they left by land on the 27th of January, and on February 9, at Burgos, in Spain, they met a courier from Talleyrand, the French minister, inviting them, on the part of Bonaparte, who

had become first consul, to proceed to Paris, which place they reached on the 2d of March. These dates will show the vast difference which less than a century has made in the modes of traveling and the transmission of intelligence. On April 8, the commissioners were received with marked politeness by the first consul. Napoleon having left for Italy on the famous campaign of Marengo, the negotiations dragged till his return. On the 30th of September, 1800, the treaty between the United States and France was signed by our commissioners and by Joseph Bonaparte, Roederer and Fleurieu on the part of France. The conclusion of the treaty was celebrated with éclat at Morfontaine, the country seat of Joseph Bonaparte, the first consul and a brilliant staff attending. One who was then in Paris writes: "A man of Davie's imposing appearance and dignified deportment could not fail to attract especial attention and remark wherever he went. I could not but remark that Bonaparte, in addressing the American legation at his levees, seemed for the time to forget that Governor Davie was second in the commission, his attention being more particularly directed to him." In the brilliant circles of the nascent empire of Napoleon he was distinguished by his elegance and his popular manners. His sojourn in Paris was very agreeable to him. He was an accomplished linguist, and spoke French and Spanish fluently.

In the fall of that year Governor Davie returned directly home. Chiefjustice Ellsworth, coming by London, was presented at court, and Mr. Murray returned to the Hague. It is significant that the very day after this treaty was signed, France, by the treaty of St. Ildefonso, re-acquired Louisiana from Spain, which it so soon after sold to the United States. On his return home Davie was solicited to become a candidate for congress in 1801, but his private affairs, by reason of his long absence, required his attention, and he declined. Willis Alston, then a member of the same political party, was elected. In June of that year President Jefferson appointed Governor Davie head of a commission, with General Wilkinson and Benjamin Hawkins, to negotiate with the Creeks and other Indians for further cession of lands. This he declined for the same reason he had refused an election to congress. In 1802 he was appointed by President Jefferson a commissioner on the part of the United States in the treaty to be made between North Carolina and the Tuscaroras, most of whom had moved from North Carolina, but retained a valuable landed interest in Bertie county. He met the agents of the state and the chiefs of the Indians at Raleigh, and the treaty was signed December 4, 1802, by virtue of which King Blount and the remainder of the tribe removed to New York in June, 1803. In the spring of 1803, Alston having gone over to the

opposite political party, General Davie was again solicited by his friends. to become a candidate for congress. He accepted the nomination, but declined to make any canvass. He was charged with being an aristocrat and with being opposed to Mr. Jefferson, whose prestige was then all powerful. He was defeated at the polls.

He had lost his wife not long after his return from France. This, together with his political defeat, determined him to withdraw altogether from public life. In November, 1805, he removed to an estate he possessed at Tivoli, near Landsford, in South Carolina, just across the line from Mecklenburg county, in this state. Here he lived in dignified ease

and leisure. General Davie's seat at Tivoli on the Catawba was the resort of many of the Revolutionary characters of the state. In their journeys by private conveyance to Virginia or the North, the custom was to arrange to spend a day or two there with him, where he kept open house for his friends, and sitting under an immense oak from which there was a view of miles of the Catawba, they fought over the war together or discussed the workings of the new government and the Constitution they had established. This was all the more interesting as much of his campaigning had taken place on and around this very spot. In this connection it is interesting to state that after his retirement to Tivoli he was much sought after and engaged in drawing wills. He drew some of the most famous wills in South Carolina-indeed, it is said, all the wills in that part of it in which he resided, not one of which except his own was ever assailed. His correspondence and other materials for history must have been very large and very valuable. It was from his papers that the copy of the Mecklenburg Declaration of May 20, 1775, was procured which is known as the " Davie copy." Unfortunately, all his family papers and all the historical material which had been carefully preserved by him for publication at some future time, were destroyed during Sherman's raid. The banks of the Catawba were strewn with them, and nothing of the collection now remains.

In retirement he displayed his accustomed public spirit by introducing improved methods of farming, and mainly at his instance a State Agricul tural Society in South Carolina was formed, of which he was the first pres ident. He had accumulated a large estate, which he dispensed with liberality and hospitality. When the end came he met it with the firmness of a soldier. His sun of life went down in a cloudless sky, the 18th of November, 1820, in the sixty-fifth year of his age.

RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA

Haller Chark.

AMERICA'S EARLIEST THANKSGIVING DAYS

The terrors of the first winter (1620-1621, at Plymouth) have been told in poetry and in oratory, so that the world knows them. Of the one hundred who were living the day the compact was signed in the Mayflower, only fifty were living on the first of April following. After these months

of suffering there followed years, not of wealth, but more and more of personal comfort. They were able in the autumn to celebrate the first American Thanksgiving with good heart. The fortunate discovery, within this generation, of Bradford's history makes it certain that wild turkeys crowned their Thanksgiving feast.

The pressure upon men's consciences under the arbitrary effort of Charles I. and his party to govern without a parliament, especially under the oppression of the star chamber and Archbishop Laud, several gentlemen offered to go themselves to America, if they might be permitted to take with them the charter of the company (the Massachusetts Bay company), and carry on its government on the ground. No bolder move was ever made—and, as it proved, no wiser. The leader of these men was John Winthrop. When they arrived, in June of 1630, and found the destitution of the previous winter, they knew that they had not stores enough from England to carry them through another such experience, with the increased number of settlers. They therefore dispatched the Lion with instructions to bring back provisions immediately; and the return of the Lion became a critical matter for the colony. The period of history when the state of Massachusetts was most in peril comes, therefore, in the early winter of 1630-1631. But on the fifth of February the Lion appeared with the stores which had been provided by the forethought of Winthrop when she was sent home.

In the cargo were thirty-four hogsheads of wheat flour, four hogsheads of oatmeal, four of beef and pork, fifteen of peas, with cheese and butter and suet. And Winthrop, who with his own grim humor had taught people to thank God for the treasures hid in the sand, before they dined on clam chowder, called his council together, and they issued the first "Proclamation for Thanksgiving." They had previously ordered a day of fasting and humiliation. They changed it to a day of thanksgiving and praise, the twenty-second of February. And then and thus for the colony of the bay did "Thanksgiving day" begin.

EDWARD EVERETT HALE'S Story of Massachusetts.