Create a timeline or chronology based on your reading of Hilary Green’s 2023 report, “Maxwell Chambers and His Complicated Connections to Davidson College.” Include every possible date and event that you find in her account. Then, reflect on your timeline/chronology. Possible directions: What do you now know that you didn’t before reading? What gaps exist in your timeline?
1780 – Maxwell Chambers born to Joseph and Mary Campbell Chambers.
1784 – Death of Joseph Chambers.
1820 – After receiving an education and working in Charleston, Chambers returns to Salisbury.
1854 – Chambers frees 19 enslaved people.
1855 – Chambers dies. In his will, 29 enslaved persons are freed. Additionally, Davidson is gifted money and property, specifically a factory that employed enslaved men.
1857 – After Chambers heirs sue Davidson, the will is now settled.
1860 – Original Chambers building opened at Davidson.
1861 – Davidson sells Rowan Factory (the one included in will) to Confederates. It is repurposed as a lsprison for prisoners of war.
1863 – More Salisbury properties sold by Davidson trustees.
1890 – “Maxwell Chambers” day established.
1919 – Maxwell Chambers day no longer celebrated.
1921 – Original Chambers building burns down.
1930 – Second Chambers building open.
2017 – Commission on Race and Slavery established with members, changing of building names suggested, specifically the Chambers building
2020 – Name changing policy approved, Dr. Green begins to research Maxwell Chambers
2023 – Dr. Green’s report on Maxwell Chambers is published.
After reflecting on my timeline, I understand better now how the actions of a person in their brief lifetime could possibly impact communities and families hundreds of years after. Because of this, it makes sense why the names of buildings can be offensive, as well as statues and other commemorations, as they celebrate morally deplorable individuals. As the semester progressed, reflecting on this timeline has yielded new results. In the prompt, the second step recommended reflecting on what was not revealed by the chronology, which reflects the constructed nature of history. In several first-unit plenaries, history was discussed as a less-objective account than a chronological one, because it the active recollecting of the human experience. Additionally, analysing the primary document “Maxwell Chambers and His Complicated Connections to Davidson College ” and ‘picking out’ all the dates to form a timeline leaves behind context with the ‘recollectors’ of history often having disproportionately high representation. The omission of information is often not conscious, somewhat apparent in the above chronology, which tells a drastically different narrative than Dr. Hillary Green’s paper.
