essman Willis Alston. His defeat, and the state’s grudging support for UNC, left Davie embittered. The “friends of science in other states,” he concluded, “regard the people of North Carolina as a sort of Semi-Barbarians, among whom neither learning, virtue, nor men of Science posses any Estimation.” At fifty, Davie retired from politics and moved to his Trivoli plantation near Lancaster, South Carolina.
After his wife, Sarah, died in April 1802, Davie never remarried and seemed to age prematurely. He complained that rheumatism and other aliments plagued him. He even turned down military and political appointments, such as when President James Madison, during the War of 1812, offered him a commission as a major general. Davie died in South Carolina in 1820 and was buried in the family plot at the Old Waxhaw Presbyterian Church.
Davie may well have been the most impressive North Carolinian of the Revolutionary Era, but by 1800 he was wholly out of step with his times. As a natural aristocrat, he believed that social progress occurred only when the masses were under the tutelage of an educated elite. He unsurprisingly opposed the democratic tendencies that dominated North Carolina politics, especially after Jefferson’s election as president. His contributions were not completely forgotten; in 1811, he received the first honorary doctorate to be awarded by the University of North Carolina.
Samuel A. Ashe, “William Richardson Davie,” in Ashe, ed., Biographical Dictionary of North Carolina (Greensboro, 1917); Kemp P. Battle, History of the University of North Carolina 2 Vols. (Raleigh, 1907); William S. Powell, ed., Encyclopedia of North Carolina Biography (Chapel Hill, 1979-91), Blackwell P. Robinson, William R. Davie (Chapel Hill, 1957); Ruth Rosenberg, “Davie, William Richardson,” in John C. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes, eds., American National Biography (New York, 1999); Louise Irby Trenholme, The Ratification of the Federal Constitution in North Carolina (New York, 1932).