Orange County NC Website
rwm No. 104008 <br /> iAw. 10- 741 <br /> UNITED STATES DEPARTiMENT OF THE INTERIOR FOR NPS USE ONLY <br /> _ NATIONAL PARK SERVICE -- <br /> lee <br /> RECEIVED , • - . <br /> A <br /> NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES Ale <br /> INV.ENTOR `-��1TOMINATION FORMDATE ENTERED <br /> CONTINUATION SHEET - ITEM NUMBER 8 PAGE I <br /> and crossed the road that led to the University at Chapel Hill . " 6 <br /> Bingham ' s purpose in moving the school to Oaks from Hillsborgugh was to rear his <br /> sons and teach his students away from the distractions of a town . <br /> The Bingham circular of the 1850s said little of the Oaks <br /> environment except that boys were to go th church on Sundays <br /> and not make accounts at business houses . However , students <br /> had the run of God ' s great gymnasium in their free hours , and <br /> they engaged in a variety of vigorous enterprises : hunting , <br /> fishing , trapping and games , including skinny , a rustic version <br /> of field hockey . Bingham ' s was an outdoor school . <br /> Charles Lee Raper , in his Church and Private Schools in North Carolina , wrote <br /> that the second headmaster of Bingham School raised both the nobility of the teaching <br /> profession and the reputation of his school in a short time : "He increased tuition <br /> fees from $ 20 , 00 to $ 150 . 00 a year . He limited his number to* 30 students and his <br /> school had such a reputation § 11 over the country that he had to refuse admission to <br /> 300 pupils in a single year . " The esteem in which Bingham and his school were held <br /> by North Carolina • families was remarkable , since tuition had to be paid in gold , <br /> never paper money , and the discipline was strict . Sawney Webb remembers from his days <br /> at the Oaks school that '.'Old Bingham" did not spare the rod : "When a boy missed <br /> declining a word , he thrashed him . He wasn ' t mad . He thrashed a boy , all the <br /> time looking nice4and sweet like he was doing the nicest job he ever did in his life , " 10 <br /> In 1857 , William ' James ' sons , Robert and William ,, joingl their father in running the <br /> school , which then became Willin J . Bingham and Sons . They increased the facilities <br /> and accepted up to 60 students . Many of these students were boarlsd with nearby <br /> families , since there were no living quarters at the Oaks location . Robert ' s tenure <br /> with the school was interrupted by the Civil War , and in 1861 he ' raised a company <br /> and left the operation of the school to his aging father and elder brother William . <br /> tl'ith his group of recruits , Company G . of the Forty- Fourth North Carolina Troops , <br /> Robert saw f � ntinuous service until the surrender and was present at Appomatox <br /> Courthouse . <br /> William , unlike his brother , could not fight in the war because of frail health <br /> but served with distinction in the local militia . It was under his leadership that <br /> the schoolrcontinued during the difficult years of the war , because his father �' <br /> virtually retired from the principalship in 1863 . In deference to the war effort , <br /> William incorporated the school as a military academy in 1864 , and that was the <br /> character of the school at its subsequent locations at Mebanesville and Asheville . <br /> One distinguisehd north Carolinian has written of the school following the transition : <br /> " Colonel Bingham introduced the military discipline at Oaks while I was in school . . <br /> The boys were drilled every evening , and a regular guard was maintained at night . He <br />