William Richardson Davie was one of the lesser-known framers of the Constitution, but he achieved his renown in other forms. After moving to South Carolina and helping draft the state constitution, he introduced a bill to charter a public school. It was incumbent on the government, he wrote, to educate the youth in order to prepare them “for an honourable discharge of the social duties of life.” With that, he obtained public funds to build one of the oldest public universities in the country.

On this day, February 13, in 1795, the University of North Carolina began admitting students. Among state schools, it was the first to do so; although the cornerstone for the University of Georgia was laid down before UNC. Georgia did not open its doors until a year later.

One of the first graduates from UNC was an ambitious young man named John Branch, who for six years served as the governor of North Carolina, before moving on to accept a position as Secretary of War and then as the territorial governor of Florida.