Maxwell Chambers Professorship; an endowed professorship memorializing Maxwell Chambers.
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Memorial Honor
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Maxwell Chambers Professorship; an endowed professorship memorializing Maxwell Chambers.
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Maxwell Chambers, a major enslaver and participant in the domestic slave trade, gave Davidson College a large bequest in his will. The money, land, stocks and bonds, enslaved people, and other assets made the school into one of the wealthiest colleges before the Civil War.
At its August 7, 1855 meeting, trustees carried out one of the provisions of the Chambers's will. They created the terms, selection process, and other details for the professorship. They endowed the initial $20,000 through the transfer of 200 Bank of Cape Fear shares received in the bequest. The professorship allowed Davidson College to inaugurate the teaching of chemistry.
Between 1856 and 1998, six individuals held the endowed professorship: W.C. Kerr (1856-1861); J.R. Blake (1869-1870); William J. Martin (1870-1896); William J. Martin, Jr. (1896-1912); Howard Bell Arbuckle (1912-1945) and J. Nicholas Burnett (1981-1998). After the last recipient, bankruptcy of the funding source resulted in additional awarding of the professorship.
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Davidson College trustees
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August 7, 1855
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1998
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Davidson College, Board of Trustees, Board of Trustees Minutes, 1836-1875, Digital Davidson, Davidson College, Davidson, NC.
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Hilary Green, PhD., Maxwell Chambers and His Complicated Connections to Davidson College. Davidson: Davidson College, 2023.
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