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Davidson board endorses removing marker honoring professor, Confederate general



The current state marker that triggered the Davidson town board’s recent discussion honors Daniel Harvey Hill, who among many other notable experiences during his 68-year life, was a Confederate officer during the war between the states. /Lee Sullivan

DAVIDSON – Continuing its engagement with town history and state-installed historic sign matters, the Davidson town board has authorized Mayor Rusty Knox to submit an official request to the North Carolina Highway Historical Marker Program for the removal of a marker commemorating the burial site of a Confederate officer.

Citing the program’s guidelines stating that a “double-marking” of an individual or incident can warrant review, the board – by a 4-1 vote at its Aug. 25 meeting, with Commissioner David Sitton opposed – agreed to pursue the removal of a marker near the entrance of the Davidson College cemetery on Main Street referencing D.H. Hill, who was an instructor at the college before serving as the superintendent of the N.C. Military Institute in Charlotte and as a Confederate general in the Civil War.

In comments prior to his ‘No’ vote, Sitton said his opposition to the motion stemmed from the fact that – with connections to slavery as the underlying motive for seeking the marker’s removal – the conversation should be expanded with the same rationale applied to other aspects of local history, including the town’s namesake, local Revolutionary War hero and slaveowner William Lee Davidson.

“There’s going to be a point here where this same question gets asked for Davidson,” Sitton told fellow commissioners. “The question is, is the reasoning for which you are casting this vote going to apply when the same question gets asked about (William Lee) Davidson?”

The Aug. 25 action was a follow-up to an Aug. 11 board discussion about options for the D.H. Hill marker that included participation by Ansley Wegner, director of the state highway marker program, and Joseph Beatty, the program’s research supervisor.

Wegner and Beatty said that while each of the program’s 1,100-plus markers are thoroughly researched for significance prior to installation, there are established paths for changes, including instances when another marker references the same topic.

In the weeks between meetings, according to Town Manager Jamie Justice’s presentation, Assistant Town Manager Karen Whichard discovered Hill is also mentioned on the marker at the former site of the state’s Military Institute in Charlotte.

Knox and several board members expressed support for seeking the change based on what Commissioner Matthew Fort acknowledged as a “loophole” in the rules he was “happy to use.” But double-marking, even about unpleasant pieces of history, does not automatically trigger change, as multiple state markers acknowledging the pirate Blackbeard (Edward Teach), British Revolutionary War General Charles Cornwallis, Civil War Union General William Sherman’s destructive war-time march and the Flood of 1916 illustrate.

In discussion prior to the vote, commissioners also endorsed Commissioner Autumn Rierson Michael’s proposal that Davidson initiate conversation and consideration of its own historical marker program.

Each in their own way, commissioners endorsed an approach to include the good and bad in the local program depicting the past:
“Negative history is still history,” Michael said.

“I believe there will be some hard markers,” Jane Campbell said.

“Truth is truth,” Jim Fuller said

And “warts and all” was Fort’s description.

The majority of the board and Knox also agreed removal, or at least rewording, of the D.H. Hill marker was the first priority.

Other board actions

Also at the meeting, public hearings cleared the way for September board decisions about development plans and annexations.
Items include:

• Lake Forest Church’s plans along South Main Street (480 to 496 S. Main) for a multi-story commercial building and church facility.

• The annexation of 30-plus acres and parts of roads in the Kistler Farm area for a planned development of 15 single-family homes.

• The annexation of the Mayes Hall project including 66 residential units (single-family and duplex homes) on 24 acres along Mayes Road.

• A scheduled public hearing for developer Saussy Burbank’s Davidson Cottages project – 30 single-family homes and two duplexes on 3.135-acres off Davidson Gateway Drive – was continued until Sept. 22 to await more information about potential water quality impacts.

The Aug. 25 meeting also included unanimous board approval of a Strategic Plan denoting short-term priority projects and objectives along with full support for the Davidson Fire Department’s plan to donate a surplus 1992 fire engine to the Millers Ferry Fire Department in Rowan County.

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