LOUISBURG AND ITS ACADEMY IN 1808.
Wedn. Nov. 30th [1808] * * * Soon after my arrival [at Louisburg] I sent my name to Mr. M. Dickinson the principal of the Academy, who graduated at Yale one year before me. Dickinson soon came, took tea with me at Hill's. Spent 2 or 3 hours pleasantly; when we walked to his academy, a pleasant building on the hill about 1/4 m. from the Village of Louisburg. We staid at his room about an hour, drank porter, read, talked and walked back to Hill’s. L. is in a hilly part of the country has perhaps a dozen houses and 2 or 3 stores and mills on Tar river about as large as Farmington K. The shire town of Franklin Co. The County was named after Dr. F. and the village after Louis XVI at the time Dr. F. as our agent in the revolution went to F. and obtained supplies from the French. The river was thought (and is still thought by Mr. Dickinson) capable of being rendered navigable up here for boats at the time the town was built. The ground being hilly and the current bold, it would suit well for manufactures. Neuse River which I crossed about 12 or 15 miles back is a much larger stream. The Tar is navigable to Tarborough 50 m. below this. From 10 m. beyond Raleigh and onward this way the soil is more stony, the roads less even and the land better, though the greatest part is still barren. Old worn-out fields in abundance present a dreary decaying aspect. Mr. D. has acquired a very decent little estate since he first came here 4 years ago. He thinks himself worth between six and seven thousand dollars. The first year he had about seven hundred dollars—the next, the avails of his school 1000 Dlls— the next they amounted to 1500 and the last year to 1200. Besides this too he pays an Usher (Mayhew from Wms. Col.) 300 Dlls. But he has improved opportunities to speculate by lending say 600 Dlls. cash to a young Sportsman and taking a Bond for 1000. Till lately he owned a house and farm of more than three hundred acres, six slaves, and a quantity of stock, as horses, sheep and cattle. Lately he sold his land for 4000 Dlls. which was one thousand more than it cost him. He now keeps a Gig, two horses and a servant or two and designs in the spring to visit Conn, in this style. Dickinson says literature is much respected in these parts and literary men reverenced. The first year he came when he had no property and nothing to recommend him but his books and education, he received flattering testimonials of respect and was treated with equal civility as at present. When in Raleigh Gov. Turner sent him a polite note inviting him to dinner with the British Consul, the Judge of the Fed. C. and several characters of eminence to all of whom he was introduced and by all of whom treated with respect. He says men of information and liberality respect literary men from principle and the rest of the community see in literary characters something so superior to themselves that they are impelled to homage. D. has had at times 90 students in his Academy. 20 or 30 or more as large and as old as himself. 20 once came at a time from the Univ. of N. C. having conceived disgust at the Monitorial law, imposing an oath on all by turns to act the part of spies on each other's conduct. He has taught all branches taught in colleges, except Conick Secns.

[The above is copied from the Diary of Edward Hooker, a native of Farmington, Connecticut, who graduated at Yale in 1805. Hooker had been a tutor in S. C. College and was on his way to Yale to accept a similar position in 1808. The Diary is printed in the Annual Report of the American Historical Association for 1896, Vol. I. C. L. C]
(Source: North Carolina Schools and Academies, 1790-1840, By Charles L. Coon 1914)