4

year-old Quintard by his co-worker, Fairbanks, for being the one who "put our shoulders to the wheel" and refusing to let Sewanee die.
However, Fairbanks does not exaggerate the new vigor of progress. he realistically notes (another unique documentation) that the $8000+ raised by Quintard in England, though wonderful, was still economically minimal even for the bare assembling of basic buildings ("it has proved not sufficient").
A further item found uniquely in this letter of 1868 is the assertion that the English money could not be applied to old University debts, that it was strictly for erecting "some plain buildings."
Originial deeds to the Sewanee properties stipulated that if the "University" was not "in operation" by September 23, 1868, the lands "would revert to the donors." How could a "university" for young men find any academically qualified applicants when virtually every young male in the owning dioceses had been deprived of regular schooling during the all-consuming years of the war?
The University's legal charter (1859) did not define whether or not a high-school division might qualify as a constituent element of the intended University. Fairbanks does not say with whom he discussed this slim thread to survival, but his 1867 letter appears to be the idea's oldest documentation. Clearly he hoped a "High School would be an expression of sufficient legal intent "to build up an Instituiton such as this was designed by its founders to become." This is the only known official document that ever used the team.
In their April, 1868, Savannah meetng, after discussion of the risks involved in opening anything called a High School, the Trustees passed a resolution that "the junior department" of the University should be opened in September of that very year.
Accordingly, in the second of these two Fairbanks letters he completely drops the unsure term of "High School" and reports with great relief the official opening of the Junior Department. He is still nervous: "If we stop, our lands revert to the donors." As of 2007, we have not stopped.

The originals of the two letters discussed here are permanently filed in the South Carolina Historical Society's manuscript collection, Box 28-338: "McCrady: Personal and Religious, 1832- 1879, "folder No. 8, items 3 and 4. They were apparently turned over to Edward McCrady (1802-1892, great-grandfather of the Vice-Chanellor of the same name) for filing with his law firm. They have never before been published, and appear here by permission of the South Carolina Historical Society, Fireproof Building, Meeting Street, Charleston, SC., 29401.