Agenda - 08-26-1985 - Laserfiche WebLink

Browse Search

- - - - • 036 Porn No.10.30C. 10-74) UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR FOR NPS USE ONLY; :. ' NATIONAL PARK SERVICE RECEIVED NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES INVENTORY•- TE NOMINATION FORM IOATE ENRE1....•• • • CONTINUATION SHEET ITEM NUMBER 8 PAGE 1 "6 and crossed the road that led to the University at Chapel Hill. Bingham's purpose in moving the school to Oaks from Hillsbor9ugh was to rear his sons and teach his students away from the distractions of a town. The Bingham circular of the 1850s said little of the Oaks environment except that boys were to go th church on Sundays and not make accounts at business houses. However, students had the run of God's great gymnasium in their free hours, and they engaged in a variety of vigorous enterprises: hunting, fishing, trapping and games, including skinny, a rustic version of field hockey. Bingham's was an outdoor school. Charles Lee Raper, in his Church and Private Schools in North Carolina, wrote that the second headmaster of Bingham School raised both the nobility of the teaching profession and the reputation of his school in a short time: "He increased tuition fees from $20.00 to $150.00 a year. He limited his number to 30 students and his school had such a reputation §11 over the country that he bad to refuse admission to 300 pupils in a single year." The esteem in which Bingham and his school were held by North Carolina families was remarkable, since tuition had to be paid in gold, never paper money, and the .discipline was strict. Sawney Webb remembers from his days at the Oaks school that "Old Bingham" did not spare the rod: "When a boy missed declining a word, he thrashed him. • • He wasn't mad. He thrashed a boy, all the 0,0 time looking nice and sweet like he was doing the nicest job he ever did in his life. ' In 1857, William James' sons, Robert and William, join il their father in running the school, which then became Willi. T J. Bingham and Sons. They increased the facilities and accepted up to 60 students. Many of these students were board with nearby families, since there were no living quarters at the Oaks location. Robert's tenure with the school was interrupted, by the Civil War, and in 1861 he raised a company and left the operation of the school to his aging father and elder brother William. With his group of recruits, Company G of the Forty-Fourth North Carolina Troops, Robert saw igntinuous service until the surrender and was present at Appomatox Courthouse. William, unlike his brother, could not fight in the war because of frail health but served with distinction in the local militia. It was under his leadership that - the school continued during the difficult years of the war, because his father virtually retired from the principalship in 1863. In deference to the war effort, William incorporated the school as a military academy in 1864, and that was the character of the school at its subsequent locations at Nabanesville and Asheville. One distinguisehd North Carolinian has written of the school following the transition: 411 "Colonel Bingham introduced the military discipline at Oaks while I was in school. The boys were drilled every evening, and a regular guard was maintained at night. He yessisenam'ON