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FACTS PERTAINING TO THE FOUNDING OF THE UNIVERSITY OF THE SOUTH LAYING OF THE CORNER STONE
Quotation from manuscript of Major George R. Fairbanks:
"........ I returned to Floriday November 1860....... During meeting of Board of Trustees in October 1960 at Sewanee and attendant ceremonies of the laying of the corner stone, our buildings were all made to accommodate as many as possible and it was wonderful to see how five{underlined} hundred{underlined} people could be fed and housed with such meagre accommodations, but with improvised bed ticks filled with straw and blankets etc. no great inconvenience was felt."
Note: see hand written account by Fairbanks in bound miscellaneous letters.
ESTIMATE TO ACCOMMODATE 500{underlined} guests:
300 pairs sheets 33 heads cabbage $2.00 300 blanks horse trough 4.40 300 ticks 2 days laborputting 20 bales of hay up tables 6.00 50 turkeys clearing roads 2.00 40 quarters mutton John Castleberry for 20 hams putting up shed 505.73 30 cheeses 2- tongues 13 1/2 lbs lard 1.20 150 Lbs butter, and condiments 8 1/4 butter 1.23 20 gals. pickle 42 lard 5.25 J.B. Hawkins 500 loaves bread 12 dozen eggs 3.20 210 yards table cloths 4 doz. candle sticks 4.00 12 gals coffee 9.00 12 dippers 1.20 for lunches and breakfast additional
200 coffee 200 sugar 1oo crackers consolidated milk
The shed for eating was to be 75 feet long by 100 feet wide to accommodate 500 people.
From these figures it would seem that they planned to accommodate sleeping quarters for 300 people and to provide meals for 500 people, not the 5,000 as legend has it.