Drury Lacy Jr.

Drury Lacy Jr. was the third president of Davidson College. A native of Virginia, he was ordained as a Presbyterian minister in Powhatan County in early 1833. He served churches in New Bern, North Carolina, and then in Raleigh, North Carolina before becoming president of Davidson.
As president, Davidson received a large financial commitment from a Maxwell Chambers, making Davidson the wealthiest private college in the entire South. Lacy left Davidson in 1860 and eventually became a chaplain in the Confederate States Army. In 1863, he was appointed by the Executive Committee of Domestic Missions to serve as missionary commissioner to the Confederate soldiers in eastern North Carolina and southeastern Virginia. After the war, he returned to the ministry until his death.

Personal life

Drury Lacy died on Aug. 1, 1884, in Jonesboro, NC, at the home of his son, William S. Lacy, who was pastoring a church there. His wife, Mary Rice, eldest daughter of Benjamin H. Rice, died in 1880. They had had another son, William, who died as a two-year-old child on Nov. 21, 1832.