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Tall, husky, redheaded, kinetic Buck Duke had more learning and less piety than his tobacco-spitting father. He had been sent off to college but he came home in a hurry. Said Old Man Wash: "There's two things I just can't seem to understand. One of them is the Holy Ghost and Free Grace. The other is my son Buck." But years later Son Buck liked to say: "My old daddy always said that if he amounted to anything in life it was due to the Methodist circuit riders. If I amount to anything in this world I owe it to my daddy and the Methodist Church."
It was because of its Methodism that Trinity College first attracted Duke patronage. Originally the college stood 100 mi. to the west of its present location in Randolph County. When it decided to move to a city, Wash Duke offered to better any bid by $50,000 if Trinity would move to Durham. His son Ben said: "Go ahead, father, it's a good cause." So Trinity went to Durham in 1892. Thereafter, until it became Duke University in 1924, it received some $2,103,500 from the Duke family, was the richest college in the South Atlantic States.
When Trinity changed its name and received some $17,000,000 cash for physical expansion, there were of course jibes. Said Author James Boyd (Drums): "Why don't they call it the Father, Son & J. B. Duke University?" Others suggested that Trinity's motto, Religio et Eruditio (religion and learning), be expanded to Eruditio, Religio et Tobacco; that since it was co-educational it might be called Duke's Mixture. But Buck Duke viewed it with satisfaction. His University and the Duke Endowment which he had just had drawn up meant the accomplishment of what he had planned for many a year.
The Endowment provided a trust fund of about $34,000,000, the income of which should be divided as follows: 20% to be added to capital until an additional $40-000,000 shall have accumulated; 32% of the remainder to Duke University; 32% to the Duke Hospital and other local hospital programs ($1 a day for every bed in every charity hospital in North and South Carolina); 5% to Davidson College (Presbyterian at Davidson, N. C.); 5% to Furman University (Baptist at Greenville, S. C.); 4%, to Johnson C. Smith University (Negro, at Charlotte, N. C.); 10% to North & South Carolina orphanages; 2% for pensions for Methodist ministers; 6%, for new Methodist churches; 4% for upkeep of those Methodist churches. When Buck Duke died, his will bequeathed nearly $40,000,000 more to the Endowment, about half of which went outright or in trust to the University. The 15 trustees of the Endowment are instructed to keep the capital in stock of the Southern Power System or in U. S. Government bonds.
"I reckon all this will last now," said Buck Duke. He had planned it carefully. The great power system, fruit of his later labors, would exist, he said, so long as the rivers continued to flow. The money from it would go towards training lawyers, doctors, preachers, teachers, chemists, historians, economists. Thus, when asked his greatest achievement, he said: "The Duke Endowment, because through it I do not merely bring men together, I make men."