The
University of North Carolina was chartered by the North Carolina General Assembly in 1789. The year of
its foundation coincides with the beginning of the French
Revolution. Accordingly, Franklin Street in downtown Chapel Hill, which serves as the northern border of the University's campus, is named after the
famous eighteenth-century Enlightenment figure Benjamin
Franklin.The university opened in a single building, which came to be called Old East, and which is still in use as a residence hall. Its cornerstone was laid October 12,
1793, near an Anglican chapel in what
therefore became "Chapel Hill, North Carolina." Today, the University celebrates University Day each year on October 12. The
first student, Hinton James, arrived on foot from Wilmington, February 12, 1795. He was the only student for two weeks.UNC operated as a state university before any other in America. The University of Georgia was chartered in 1785, but did not open
its doors until 1801. The College of Charleston opened in 1770, and was chartered in
1785, but was a private school until 1836, when it
became a municipal college; it did not join the South Carolina state
university system until 1970. The College of William and Mary was founded in 1693, but was
a private institution until 1906. Which of those schools should be called the oldest state
university is a subject of debate; however, UNC is the only public university in the United States that awarded degrees as a
public institution in the eighteenth century.The spot of the original well providing water for the school is marked by a small neoclassical rotunda known as the Old Well,
which has become a symbol for the university. There is a symbolic drinking fountain (providing city water) at the center of the
rotunda so that one can "drink from the old well" as a token of good luck. It is tradition for entering freshman to drink from
the well, and the superstition is that if one does this, one will make straight A's for all four years. However, some UNC seniors
urinate on the well, and so do some North
Carolina State students, so the tradition is widely considered to be a reason to laugh at freshmen.In 1932 UNC became one of the three original campuses of the Consolidated University of
North Carolina (since 1972 called the University of North Carolina System). In 1963 the Consolidated University was made fully coeducational. As a result, the Woman's College of the University of
North Carolina was renamed the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and the University of North Carolina
itself became the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.