Hedrick, Benjamin Sherwood, 1827-1886

Professor of chemistry and U.S. Patent Office official.

Benjamin Sherwood Hedrick was born near Salisbury, Davidson County, N.C. After graduation from the University of North Carolina in 1851, he worked for the Nautical Almanac in Cambridge, Mass., 1851-1853. In 1854, he became professor of analytical and agricultural chemistry at UNC. On 11 October 1856, he was dismissed from the faculty for having expressed his antislavery views. Beginning in 1861, he worked as examiner in the Chemical Department of the U.S. Patent Office, remaining with that agency until his death in 1886. Hedrick married Mary Ellen Thompson of Orange County, N.C., in 1852. They had eight children.

Benjamin Sherwood Hedrick was born on 13 February 1827 near Salisbury in western Davidson County, N.C., the son of Elizabeth Sherwood and John Leonard Hedrick, a farmer and bricklayer of comfortable means. The family was descended from German immigrants who had settled in the Piedmont section of North Carolina in the 1700s.

After attending local schools, Hedrick received college preparation at Rankin's (or Lexington) Classical School, an academy directed by the Reverend Jesse Rankin near Lexington. In 1848, he entered the University of North Carolina as a sophomore. At UNC, he distinguished himself particularly in mathematics, and, upon his graduation in 1851, he was awarded first honor in the senior class. President David L. Swain recommended Hedrick to former governor William A. Graham, then Secretary of the Navy, for a clerkship in the office of the Nautical Almanac in Cambridge, Mass. While in Cambridge, Hedrick also took advanced instruction at Harvard College under such prominent scientists as Eben N. Horsford, Benjamin Pierce, and Louis Agassiz.

Hedrick was offered a professorship of mathematics at Davidson College in 1852, but he declined it deciding to wait for a position at UNC. In January 1854, the University appointed him to the chair of analytical and agricultural chemistry.

In Chapel Hill, Hedrick acquired a certain notoriety because of his antislavery views, although he initially made no attempt to disseminate his opinions on the issue. In August 1856, however, he was asked at the polls whether he would vote for the Republican presidential candidate, John C. Frémont, in the national election. Hedrick replied that he would do so if a Republican ticket was formed in North Carolina. The next month, a short article entitled Frémont in the South appeared in the North Carolina Standard, a leading Democratic newspaper published in Raleigh. The article recommended that those with black Republican opinions at schools and seminaries in the state be driven out, apparently suggesting that Hedrick be dismissed.

Against much advice, Hedrick published a defense in the Standard, explaining his opposition to slavery and likening his beliefs to those of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Subsequently, the University faculty passed resolutions denouncing Hedrick's political views, and, on 11 October 1856, the executive committee of the board of trustees formally approved the faculty's action, which, in reality, constituted a dismissal.

Newspapers throughout the state were generally unsympathetic to Hedrick's case. On 21 October, while he was attending an educational convention in Salisbury, an unsuccessful attempt was made to tar and feather him. Hedrick soon headed north, where he remained except for visits south in January 1857 and in 1865.

For a time, Hedrick lived in New York, where he was employed as a chemist and then as a clerk in the mayor's office. He also lectured and taught at such institutions as Cooper Union. After his services in the mayor's office were terminated in 1860, he was successful in finding a job with the newly elected Republican government in Washington, D.C. Beginning in 1861, he was successively appointed assistant examiner, examiner, and chief examiner in the Chemical Department of the United States Patent Office, remaining with that agency until his death on 2 September 1886.

During his tenure at the Patent Office, Hedrick was also active in several other areas. Beginning in 1865, he worked to secure a speedy restoration of North Carolina to the Union. It appears that he was well acquainted with both President Andrew Johnson and North Carolina Governor Jonathan Worth. In April 1865, Hedrick petitioned the President for permission to visit North Carolina. Afterwards, H. M. Pierce appointed him an agent of the American Union Commission to ascertain the condition of refugees and the poor in the South, with particular emphasis on the schools in the region. In 1867, Hedrick was nominated as a delegate to the North Carolina constitutional convention, but was defeated in the election. From 1872 to 1876, he was professor of chemistry and toxicology at the University of Georgetown.

Hedrick married Mary Ellen Thompson, daughter of William Thompson, on 3 June 1852 in Orange County, N.C. They had four daughters and four sons, one of whom, Charles J., became a patent lawyer in Washington, D.C.

[Based on the note by Sharon E. Knapp in the Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, William S. Powell, ed., Volume 3, 1988.]