(I wrote this several years ago and am resurrecting it because Professor Gulley is one of the vital parts of Wake Forest history.)
I’m reading This Astounding Close: The Road to Bennett Place by Mark L. Bradley, and I’ve been struck by two place names that were repeated as waves of retreating Confederate troops and advancing Federal troops headed for Raleigh: Gulley’s Station and Hinton’s Bridge.
Hinton’s Bridge near Milburnie certainly was named for the Hinton family which descended from Col. John Hinton who moved into the eastern part of Wake County and built a log house with a door above head height to deter marauding varmints and humans. The family acquired land and slaves, built houses and married into almost every Wake, Franklin and Johnston family that owned more than five acres.
And Gulley’s Station on the North Carolina Railroad, a vital link in those days, was surely named for the Johnston County forbearers of Wake Forest’s N.Y. (Needham Yancey) Gulley. I was struck by his name when I first read it years ago and then developed a great regard for the man as I read more.
After graduating in 1879 from Wake Forest College with a master’s degree, Gulley taught school in Raleigh and Smithfield and then began to read law under E.W. Pou, the training for lawyers at the time. He became a licensed lawyer in 1881 and in 1882 moved to Franklinton where he taught and became the principal of the public school at the same time he began a law practice. As an apparent sideline, he was the editor of a newspaper, the Franklinton Weekly. He was also elected in 1885 to the N.C. General Assembly.
In 1893 the Wake Forest College trustees decided to establish a school of law, and N.Y. Gulley became its first and (then) only professor. It was not an instant success. In fact, there were no students all that first year even though Gulley rode his buggy from Franklinton to Wake Forest once a week to give free lectures about law in hopes of attracting someone. There was just one someone in the summer of 1894, but that fall 12 students enrolled. By 1905 Gulley was the dean of the School of Law and had an assistant instructor.
He served on the county board of education for many years and fought in the legislature to improve public education. He helped revise the state’s statutes. But his real stature was in the classrooms.
Gulley had a better won-lost record than any Wake Forest athletic team for almost a quarter century. For 23 years every student in his law classes passed the state bar exam on the first try. They made headlines, and so did he.
Although Gulley and his family lived on Faculty Avenue (North Main Street) for many years in the white Victorian that was Dr. George Mackie’s office for many years and is now the Cooke family business, Utility Service Agency, he also had a farm near Forestville. His Forestville Dairy sold milk in and around town, and he retired there in 1938. However, World War II disrupted his plans and he returned to teaching until his death in 1945.
One of his sons, Donald, followed his father through Wake Forest College and the School of Law and was a lawyer in Wake Forest for years as well as the elected judge for the Recorder’s Court in town (the forerunner to today’s District Court.
He and his wife, Sybil, built the rock-faced house on Durham Road, selecting each rock themselves, and the house remains in the family. In 1950 Sybil Gulley and Inez Black, wife of a college professor, purchased The Wake Weekly and published it for four years.
(I have always wondered where the Forestville Dairy was and where the house was or is that Professor Gulley retired to. Does anyone know?
(Also, do you have any stories about him during his years of teaching?)
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4 Responses
Thanks for sharing Dr Gulley’s story, especially to those not aware of the history of the law school. He was my Grandfather. My Dad was Tom Gulley, Donald’s brother. I was named Needham Thomas Gulley, and named my son after Dr Gulley. ( Needham Yancey Gulley, who later earned his PhD and is now the second Dr NY Gulley )
Yes. Thank you for sharing this. The internet continues to surprise us with new tidbits about the lives of this incredible man as records begin to be digitized and connections are made between points of history.
There is a wonderful display of the history of the law school in the lobby of the current law school building at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem. It starts with some awesome pictures and quotes about and from him. The display ends in saying that they are still living by his educational philosophies.
Carol,
Thank you for the time that you put into researching the rich history of our community and then sharing that knowledge of our history with us in your articles.
Ryan
Dr. Gulley’s farm was across the RR tracks and south of the stream behind your house that runs into the Holding Pond-bounded by the RR, Forestville Road, the stream, and the creek on the east. It contained about 90 acres. There was a recent-post-1920’s house-in the middle of the field that was abandoned in 1970’s and then demolished.
W. W. Holding, Jr. purchased it from the Gulley’s in the early 1940’s, and it was part of the farm that my father managed.