The next time you want to avoid calling home to your parents, try this excuse, courtesy of the library archives.
On March 17, 1829, senior David M. Lees wrote a letter his family in Charlotte in which he apologized for his tardy response by saying that the letters they had sent were delayed in getting to him because his family had spelled “Chapel Hill” incorrectly.
“For instance some of you spell Chapel Hill thus Chapilhill, others thus Chapple Hill, & sometimes thus Chaplehill. Now none of these is correct. This is the way to write it, Chapel Hill , making two words instead [of] one, each of which begins with a capital letter & the first having but one ‘p’ in it.”
According to the library’s archives, David McMichen, Lees served as president of the Dialectic Society in 1828. After graduating from UNC in 1829, he became an attorney.
Lees also attributes the delayed receipt of his family’s letters to their use of what he calls, “coarse, unsuitable paper.”
These excuses come in a letter in which he calls on his siblings to take care of their recently widowed mother. A little harsh David? Apparently, it worked back in the days of snail mail.
The Daily Tar Heel is not responsible for parental fall-out resulting from the use of this excuse.
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