Order of Gimghoul (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)

In the fall of 1889, Edward Wray Martin, William W. Davies, Shepard Bryan, Andrew Henry Patterson, and Robert Worth Bingham decided to form a secret junior society at the University of North Carolina available to others by invitation only. However, they did not decide on the exact nature of their proposed society until, during a lecture on American politics, Dr. Kemp P. Pres Battle told his class about the legend of Peter Dromgoole, a student who disappeared from the university in 1833 under disputed circumstances. The five men then decided to use the legend as the basis for their secret society and so formed the Order of Dromgoole, shortly thereafter changed to Gimgoole and then amended to Gimghoul, as explained by W. W. Davies, in accord with midnight and graves and weirdness. E. Wray Martin created the initiation ritual, constitution, and bylaws. As years passed, the order consolidated its beliefs and customs into a combination of the Dromgoole legend and the ideals of Arthurian knighthood and chivalry. Only male students (rising juniors or higher) and faculty were invited to join the organization, and no list of current members was provided until the end-of-year publication of the campus yearbook. As of the late 1990s, the society remained purely social and avoided publicity.

In 1915 a Durham land company sought to purchase Battle Park from the university. The park was of special significance to the Gimghouls, because it was there that Peter Dromgoole may have been killed. The order made a counteroffer and won; members contributed 50 dollars each toward the purchase price. In 1923 the order decided to sell its old lodge, a small house located at the corner of Rosemary and Boundary streets and build a new one. Battle Park was divided into thirds: one part was donated back to the university to be used exclusively as a park; one part was sold in lots to individuals for residential development; and one part was kept for the new Gimghoul lodge, a stone castle that still stands in the Historic Gimghoul District neighborhood. Nathaniel Cortlandt Curtis, New Orleans architect and Gimghoul alumnus, drafted the plans for the castle in 1924. In 1925 stone masons from the town of Valdese, near Morganton, N.C., were employed to help construct the castle, which was completed in 1926. The masons also built the Battle Seat, a rough semicircular bench made from the freshman rock pile, a stone cairn that formed over time when students, typically freshmen, would walk to Point (Piney) Prospect and leave a stone on a rock pile that was started in the 19th century by President Battle.

Thomas F. Hickerson, professor of civil engineering and applied mathematics at the university and a Gimghoul alumnus, assisted in the planning of the castle. Until his death in 1967, he acted as custodian, advisor, and primary contact for the order. Charlie Shaffer and Professor of English Lyman A. Cotten, Jr., succeeded Dr. Hickerson in these duties. Dr. Cotten had joined the Gimghouls in the 1930s and was a trustee of the order from 1952 until his death in 1991. George Watts Hill, Sr., another alumnus and trustee of the order, was also active in its affairs, contributing sizable sums of his own money to the upkeep of the castle, until his death in 1993.

The Gimghoul neighborhood was declared a historic district in 1993; at that time the property on which the castle is located was owned by the Gimghoul Corporation and leased out yearly to the Active Order. The castle grounds remain off limits to the public.

From the guide to the Order of Gimghoul of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Records, 1832-2009, (bulk 1940-1997), (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. University Archives.)