John Motley Morehead III

Born on November 3, 1870, John Motley Morehead III was graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1891. Although most widely known during his lifetime as a successful businessman, chemist, and engineer, Mr. Morehead was also an internationally known inventor, author, and scientist.

Following his graduation from the University, John Motley Morehead and his father were searching for an inexpensive method for manufacturing aluminum and instead discovered acetylene gas at their mill in Spray (now Eden), North Carolina. Mr. Morehead then developed an economical process for the manufacture of calcium carbide and laid the groundwork for the development of the Union Carbide Corporation. At the time of his death in 1965, Union Carbide had more than seventy-three thousand employees throughout the world and produced more than six hundred products.

Mr. Morehead's illustrious career also included the invention of an apparatus for analyzing gases and the publication of a book on the subject that remained the authoritative source for years. He served as mayor of Rye, New York, and was appointed by President Herbert Hoover as envoy and minister to Sweden from 1930 to 1933. As a result of his exceptional work as ambassador Mr. Morehead became the first foreigner ever honored with Sweden's gold medal for outstanding service.

In 1915, at the age of forty-four, Mr. Morehead married Genevieve Margaret Birkhoff. A few years after Genevieve Morehead's death in 1945, he married Leila Duckworth Houghton. Neither marriage produced children.

Mr. Morehead gave generously to his alma mater. In 1931, Mr. Morehead and Rufus Lenoir Patterson, a classmate and fraternity brother, donated the Morehead-Patterson Bell Tower to the University. In 1945, Mr. Morehead created the Morehead Foundation for the purpose of erecting the Morehead Building and establishing the Morehead Award. The Morehead Building, dedicated in 1949, houses the Morehead Planetarium, the Genevieve B. Morehead Art Gallery, the Copernican Orrery, the Morehead Observatory, scientific exhibition galleries, and the Morehead Foundation offices. The Foundation has tendered more than 2,300 Morehead Awards over the course of the last half-century.

To his hometown, Mr. Morehead gave the Morehead Stadium and Chimes to what was then known as the Tri-City High School of Leaksville, Spray, and Draper, since renamed John Motley Morehead Senior High School. He also made a significant gift to the local hospital which was later renamed John Motley Morehead Memorial Hospital.

John Motley Morehead's greatest loves were his native state of North Carolina and its university at Chapel Hill. The legacy of Mr. Morehead's dedication and devotion to the University continues to thrive today through the Morehead Program.

John Motley Morehead III died January 7, 1965.