Davie retired to Waxhaw and was buried in the church's cemetery in 1820. In 1927, a distant relative moved the family's graves to a specially constructed enclave at the far end of the cemetery and gave the University $1,000 to invest and use to maintain the compound.

The large, cross-shaped Davie enclave consists of a brick wall about five feet high with a wrought-iron gate at one end. Davie is buried there along with other family members. His tomb, at the end, is by far the most ornate. It is a tabletop tomb with columns, set up on a tile base. The wall rises up behind the tomb, as if "framing" a picture.

Davie was a devoted Freemason, and the enclave shows traits of a Masonic lodge. Lodge rooms are closed on the north and open to the south; so is the Davie enclave. Lodge rooms have checked floors. Davie's tomb is the only one in the enclave that sits on a checked, tile base.

The tabletop tomb was a fad during the mid-19th century. "The people are buried in the ground, underneath the box tomb," Ruedrich said. "Yet half the box tombs I've worked on have had their tops taken off by curiosity-seekers looking for a body. So the more people who understand that no one is buried in there, the better off we'll be."

The elements have weathered the inscription on Davie's tomb, which reads, in part, "Soldier, jurist, statesman and Patriot . . . polished in manners, firm in act, candid without impudence, wise above deceit; a true lover of his country . . . a Great Man in an age of Great Men."

Church trustee and cemetery caretaker Nancy Crockett alerted the University to the need for repairs. Crockett was honored for her caretaking by Chancellor Paul Hardin during the University's bicentennial observance. An offshoot of the Davie Poplar now grows in front of the Davie enclave.

Ruedrich, who restored the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery and the Old Burying Grounds in Beaufort, said the secret to preserving gravesites is to accept what they have become and not force them to be what they are not.

"When you go into a cemetery this old, the stones shouldn't look like they were all carved yesterday," he said. "You should do the gentlest work possible for conservation and preservation, rather than restoration."

Materials and labor for the restoration cost $19,000, about $10,000 of which came from the 1927 gift. The other $9,000 came from private donations. Charlotte physician J. Dewey Dorsett '47 is leading an additional effort to raise money to buy ornamental trees and bushes for the compound.

by Karen Stinneford '87