This marble obelisk, located a few feet north of the Davie Poplar, marks the gravesites of Joseph Caldwell, the University’s first president, and his wife and stepson. This monument, dedicated at the University’s 1858 Commencement, replaced the grave’s original sandstone obelisk. Members of the Class of 1891 rededicated the first obelisk, now located in the African American section of the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery, to four enslaved men who served the University and its early presidents: Wilson Caldwell, November Caldwell, David Barham and Henry Smith.
Caldwell presided over the university from 1804 to 1812 and again from 1816 to his death in 1835.