Amy Lotven /Herald Staff Writer

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Halifax - North Carolina history, the celebration of one of the state's founders and a group of new University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill faculty members blended together in a unique gathering Monday.

The educators are touring the state as part of their official introduction to the university system and North Carolina.

Monday, they stopped in Halifax.

Additionally, next month marks the 250th anniversary of the birth of Revolutionary War, political leader and university founder William R. Davie. The group met in front of the site Davie called home from 1785 until 1805.

Officials gave a brief history of Davie's participation in founding the college. As a member of the North Carolina House of Commons, Davie not only wrote the 1789 legislation creating the university, he chose the site, instructors and the curriculum.

The crowd, which included Davie's great-great-great-great granddaughter Deas Capeharte Linville, received a surprise visitor.

Around 10 a.m., a stately man dressed in Revolutionary era garb bounded - well, rode carefully - up on horseback. It was William R. Davie himself, or rather English Professor Christopher Armitage, offering a fine impersonation.

Davie - or Armitage - greeted all of the students and fellow Haligonians, which he explained is the approved name for one hailing from Halifax, England, Nova Scotia or Halifax County, N.C. He welcomed the new faculty members to his home, joking with a few of them and wishing them all well.

The group moved over to the lawn, where University Chancellor James Moeser and other officials, gathered to plant a seedling cut from the “Davie poplar” located on the main UNC campus in Chapel Hill.

The party and history lesson were part of the 2006 Tarheel Bus Tour, which is designed to teach participants about the state that UNC serves and from where 82 percent of Carolina students hail. Thirty-six new faculty and administrators are participating in this year's tour.

Chancellor Moeser said 30 percent of the research faculty members eventually conduct is somehow related to their experience on the tour.

Jennifer Ho, a new English professor who will be focusing on Asian-American literature, said she doesn't expect her research to grow from the tour, but was enjoying the experience nonetheless. Even as the amount of information she was handed was “kind of overwhelming.”

Her colleague, Jordynn Jack, said it was good to learn more about the state. Student Body President James Allred, the only student representative involved in the day's activities, said there was a lot of shared history between the university and the site.

He said although Davie was a figure who lived more than 200 years ago, his legacy lives on through the ideal he proposed - that the state should provide accessible and affordable higher education.

The Davie house is located at the corner of St. David and Norman Streets in Halifax, and is part of the Historic Halifax exhibition.

The Davie home was purchased in the late 1990s from a private owner and is in need of restoration.

Betty Ray McCain, who also attended the event, was one of the people who pushed for the purchase of the home. When the state originally offered only $152,000, only three-quarters of the asking price for the house, she encouraged a preservation society to come up with the rest.

Now, she is hoping to raise the “several million” it will cost to restore the structure to it's original state. She's hoping to raise that money through private donations and possibly with the help of the Masons, since Davie was once a grandmaster Mason.