David Ker

David Ker (February 1758 – January 21, 1805), was an Irish-born American Presbyterian minister, educator, lawyer and judge. He was the first presiding professor (equivalent of a modern-day university president) of the University of North Carolina.

Early life

David Ker was born in February 1758 in Downpatrick, Ireland. He was of Scottish ancestry. He graduated from Trinity College in Dublin.

Ker became a Presbyterian minister with the Temple Patrick Presbytery and married Mary Boggs. Ker emigrated with his family to the United States in the 1780s and was recorded in Orange County, North Carolina, by 1789, when their son was born there.

Career

In 1791, Ker served as a Presbyterian minister in Fayetteville, North Carolina. He was a schoolteacher on weekdays and gave sermons in the courthouse on Sundays.

Ker moved to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, in 1794, where he conducted the high school prior to being chosen as the first presiding professor (the position is now known as president) of the University of North Carolina. At the university, Ker was the professor of languages. He was one of the earliest donors to the University of North Carolina library, and donated three volumes. He resigned two years after taking the position, in 1796, after arguing with the trustees and students. William S. Powell wrote that the trustees had tried to demote him to Professor of Languages, but he refused. After it became evident that they wouldn't budge, he decided to leave. Kemp P. Battle's History of the University of North Carolina: From its Beginning to the Death of President Swain, 1789–1868 mentions that after eighteen months of being president, Ker resigned after he "went off into infidelity and wild democracy", and made "two sets of enemies in the Board of Trustees, Christians and Federalists". Charles Wilson Harris, who succeeded him as presiding professor, said that Ker was "a man of talent" and "a furious Republican".