This page covers two overlapping sets of books at OCPL: the Orange County works in the index that the library holds, and the Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection, the library’s wider local history room, from county deed and will abstracts to North Carolina histories. Some books belong to both. Start with the plan of the room, or go straight to either list.
About these counts
The index counts works, not copies or editions: the editions of one book are gathered under one entry, so the library’s own catalog lists more titles than the 357 here. The Wall Collection figure is the library’s inventory of that collection as of September 2026, counted by catalog title; the Orange County works shelved there are in both counts.
The Local History Room
Find your way around the local history room
Find the books, maps, research equipment, and displays of the Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection at the Main Library in Hillsborough. The lettered locations below match the plan; tap or hover one to see what stands there.
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Locked cabinet
Fragile items that mending would damage. Above it, a platter Rebecca Wall painted of the law office of Thomas Ruffin, an ancestor of hers, at 201 South Cameron Street, and a pastel portrait of her in her fifties.
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Gray file cabinet
Microfilm of the local newspaper and federal census returns from the 1800s; Orange County court records, vital statistics, tax lists and Confederate soldier records reaching back to the 1700s. On top, a photograph of Rebecca Wall in her twenties and a wooden model of the Burwell School.
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Research computer with microfilm reader and scanner
Read and scan the microfilm here, and search Ancestry and other research sites.
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Genealogy bookshelf, D-1
Historical records of many kinds, color-coded and labeled by county and record type, with books on how to do genealogical research.
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Genealogy bookshelf, D-2
Published family histories, biographies and genealogical journals; the colonial and higher-court records of North Carolina; lives of local figures from William Tryon to John Blackfeather.
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Genealogy bookshelf, D-3
More about Rebecca Wall.
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North Carolina history bookshelf, E-1
North Carolina histories of every kind, from the university and the State Fair to natural history and Durham’s Hayti.
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Reference bookshelf, E-2
Traditional general reference books, still valuable as comprehensive, authoritative sources.
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Framed print: the courthouse
Hope Summerell Chamberlain’s 1926 pen-and-ink rendering of the county courthouse; she was an author, artist and civic worker.
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Framed print: the 1892 county map
George W. Tate’s 1892 map of Orange County.
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Framed print: Hillsborough, County Down
Views of the Irish town the county seat is named for.
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Framed print: the Nash and Kollock School
Chamberlain’s 1926 interpretation of a late-1800s photograph of the school, which stood at 137 West Margaret Lane, the Main Library’s address today.
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Framed print: Hillsborough Military Academy
Uniform buttons from the academy, which ran from 1859 to 1861 off Barracks Road in West Hillsborough; outbuildings still stand.
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Framed print: the 1768 town plan
C. J. Sauthier’s 1768 map of the town of Hillsborough.
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Black file cabinet
Family and local histories researched, compiled and donated by patrons, with local history odds and ends. On top, a model of the county courthouse by Allen Alexander Lloyd (1914 to 2006), lifelong Hillsborough resident and keeper of the town clock, who with his wife Pauline wrote the histories of the town and of its churches that stand in this room.
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Assorted maps
Maps of the county and the town.
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Elizabeth Keckly display
Keckly was enslaved in Hillsborough by her half-brother Robert Burwell, minister of the Presbyterian church and founder of the Burwell School. A seamstress of rare skill, after her emancipation in 1855 she became dressmaker and confidante to Mary Lincoln.
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Elizabeth Keckly display, continued
The second panel of the Keckly display.
On the shelves
Orange County works at OCPL
These works connect to Orange County and are held at OCPL. Search by title, author, or description, or pick a section to browse it in call-number order. Open the catalog record for location and availability.
Art, architecture, music and crafts 700 to 789: 6 works as they shelve at OCPL, in call-number order. All 357, with filters by place, theme, and material, in the search →
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Hillsborough Artists Cooperative and Skylight Gallery, 1990-2020
Miller, Jennifer E. · 2021 · Histories
Jennifer E. Miller's account of the Hillsborough Artists Cooperative and its Skylight Gallery across their first thirty years, 1990 to 2020. Topics include art in Hillsborough for that period and the history of both the cooperative and the gallery. Published in 2021, it records a local institution in the town's art scene that would otherwise leave little written trace.
Call number 708.156 MILLERHillsboroughArts, Music & Performance View in OCPL catalog → -
Montrose
Goodwin, Nancy Sanders · 2005
Nancy Goodwin's month-by-month account of a year in the gardens at Montrose, the nineteenth-century estate in Hillsborough that she and her husband Craufurd moved to in 1977. Beginning in late January and running through the following January, the chapters record what is in bloom and in progress across the more than twenty acres of gardens she developed there, with a map of the grounds. Published by Duke University Press in 2005, 313 pages; this is the e-book edition.
Call number 712.609 GOOHillsborough View in OCPL catalog → -
A House in the South: Old-fashioned Graciousness for New-fashioned Times
Schultz, Frances · 2006 · Pictorial works
Frances Schultz writes about houses of the American South and the way they are furnished, published by Clarkson Potter in 2006, 160 pages with color illustrations. The Capel House in Chapel Hill is among the dwellings shown. Subjects include interior decoration, house furnishings and social life and customs in the southern states.
Call number 747.215 SCHChapel HillBuildings & PreservationEveryday Life & Traditions View in OCPL catalog → -
Looking Down 2017: Bike Lane Art 9 -- Through the Looking Glass, Gone Fishing
White, Peter · 2017 · Pictorial works
Peter White's 2017 photographs of the bike lanes of Chapel Hill and Carrboro, the ninth in his Looking Down series and subtitled Through the Looking Glass, Gone Fishing. A work of artistic photography depicting bicycle trails in both towns.
Call number 778.9 WHITECarrboroRoads, Rail & Transportation View in OCPL catalog → -
A Really Strange and Wonderful Time
Maxwell, Tom · 2024
Tom Maxwell's 2024 account of Chapel Hill's alternative rock scene in the 1990s, set against North Carolina's longer musical history. Maxwell writes as a musician who played in that scene, and the book follows the bands, clubs and labels that drew national attention to the town. Subjects include alternative rock music, Chapel Hill, 1991-2000, history and criticism. Published by Hachette, 310 pages with plates.
Call number 780.903 MAXWELLChapel HillArts, Music & PerformanceThe Cat’s Cradle and the “Chapel Hill sound” of the 1990s View in OCPL catalog → -
Step It Up and Go: The Story of North Carolina Popular Music
Menconi, David · 2020 · Histories
David Menconi's history of popular music in North Carolina, from the working-class roots of the state's traditions to the Chapel Hill and Carrboro rock scene of recent decades. Menconi, who covered music for the Raleigh News and Observer for nearly thirty years, builds the book on interviews and reporting, and Black musicians' contributions run through it. First issued in print by UNC Press in 2020; this is the online edition, 329 pages with illustrations.
Call number 781.64 MENCONINorth Carolina (statewide)Arts, Music & PerformanceLiterature & Publishing View in OCPL catalog →
The Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection
Browse the full Wall Collection
The wider local history collection, named for Rebecca Wall, the retired librarian whose 1986 bequest built it: genealogy, North Carolina history, and regional reference works, alongside the Orange County titles. Browse it shelf by shelf or search by title, author, subject, or description.
North Carolina history bookshelf, E-1: 815 titles as they stand on the shelf at OCPL, in call-number order. North Carolina histories of every kind, from the university and the State Fair to the state’s natural history and Durham’s Hayti.
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Selective Service in North Carolina in World War II
King, Spencer Bidwell · 1949
The wartime draft in North Carolina is the subject of Spencer Bidwell King's official history, which recounts how the state carried out the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940 and its amendments through World War II. Published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1949, 451 pages with illustrations, portraits, maps and a bibliography.
Call number NC 151.52 KIN View in OCPL catalog → -
Thirty Sermons by Thirty North Carolina Preachers
1893
Levi Branson, the Raleigh publisher, edited this third volume of his North Carolina Sermons series in 1893, gathering one sermon apiece from thirty contributors; 314 pages. Most were ministers of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, or of the state's local ministers' conference, but Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist Protestant, Christian Church and A.M.E. preachers appear as well, among them F. L. Reid of Greensboro Female College, Solomon Pool and Branson himself.
Call number NC 252 THI View in OCPL catalog → -
Religion and the American Revolution in North Carolina
Calhoon, Robert M. · 1976
Number 11 in the North Carolina Bicentennial Pamphlet Series, Robert M. Calhoon's study of religion in North Carolina during the American Revolution rests on period sources and ends with a bibliography. The state Division of Archives and History published it in Raleigh in 1976; 81 pages with illustrations.
Call number NC 261.7 CAL View in OCPL catalog → -
Collections of the Protestant Episcopal Historical Society for the Year 1851
Protestant Episcopal Historical Society · 1851
The first volume of the Protestant Episcopal Historical Society's collections, printed in New York in 1851, gathers documents on the Anglican church in early America. It opens with a reprint of George Keith's 1706 journal of missionary travels from New Hampshire to Caratuck (Currituck), with letters by Keith and his associate Talbot. Other papers include Henderson Walker's 1703 letter to the Bishop of London and an account of Blair's 1703 mission to North Carolina.
Call number NC 262 COL View in OCPL catalog → -
A History of Orange Presbytery, 1770-1970
Stone, Robert Hamlin · 1970
Orange Presbytery, the regional body of Presbyterian churches organized in 1770, is the subject of Robert Hamlin Stone's bicentennial history. The synod named it Orange because two of its first six ministers lived in Orange County, and at the start it took in every congregation in both Carolinas. The presbytery published the book at Greensboro in 1970, 430 pages with maps, facsimiles, portraits and a bibliography.
Call number NC 262.4 STO View in OCPL catalog → -
Fall Tour Of Historic Churches And Sites
North Carolina Presbyterian Historical Society · 1983
A tour booklet from the North Carolina Presbyterian Historical Society's fall tour of 1983, covering historic churches and sites in Hillsborough. Church buildings in Hillsborough are its subject, so church architecture and local history are its ground.
Call number NC 275.6 NORTH View in OCPL catalog → -
The Colonial Clergy of Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina
Weis, Frederick Lewis · 1976
Frederick Lewis Weis's reference work on the ministers who served in colonial Virginia and the two Carolinas, one of several regional volumes he compiled on the colonial clergy, with others on the Middle Colonies and on Maryland, Delaware and Georgia. It first appeared in 1955 as the seventh publication of a Boston society of descendants of the colonial clergy. Reprinted in Baltimore in 1976, 100 pages.
Call number NC 280.409 WEI View in OCPL catalog → -
Centennial Ceremonies Held in Christ Church Parish, Raleigh, North Carolina, A. D. 1921: Including Historical Addresses
Raleigh (N.C.) · 1922
Christ Church in Raleigh, the Episcopal parish organized in August 1821, marked its centennial with services and a reception from October 9 to 12, 1921, and the vestry had the proceedings printed the next year. The 55 pages include Bishop Joseph Blount Cheshire's address on the early rectors, a parish history by Marshall De Lancey Haywood, recollections by Samuel A. Ashe, three poems, and portraits of past rectors.
Call number NC 283.756 RAL View in OCPL catalog → -
Ambivalent Churchmen and Evangelical Churchwomen: The Religion of the Episcopal Elite in North Carolina, 1800-1860
Rankin, Richard · 1993
Religious life among North Carolina's Episcopal elite from 1800 to 1860, studied by Richard Rankin, who contrasts the men's ambivalence toward the church with the evangelical devotion of the women and follows the Diocese of North Carolina through the period. Published by the University of South Carolina Press in 1993; xv and 203 pages with illustrations, notes and an index.
Call number NC 283.756 RAN View in OCPL catalog → -
The Moravians in North Carolina: An Authentic History
Reichel, Levin Theodore · 1968
First published at Salem in 1857, Levin T. Reichel's history of the Moravian settlements of Wachovia runs from the land purchase and first settlement at Bethabara in 1753 through Bethania, Salem, Friedberg, Friedland and Hope, the Revolution, Salem Female Academy, the church's Indian mission of 1801, its mission to African Americans from 1822, and the congregations to 1856. Lists of ministers and first settlers close the book. Reprinted in 1968, 206 pages.
Call number NC 284 REI View in OCPL catalog → -
History of the German Settlements and of the Lutheran Church in North and South Carolina, From the Earliest Period of the Colonization of the Dutch, German, and Swiss Settlers to the Close of the First Half of the Present Century
Bernheim, G. D. · 1975
The German-speaking settlers of the Carolinas and their Lutheran churches, in a history by G. D. Bernheim, then pastor of St. Paul's Lutheran Church in Wilmington. The first half follows the Dutch, German and Swiss colonists through the Revolution; the rest traces the Lutheran Church in both states to 1850. First published in Philadelphia by the Lutheran Book Store in 1872; this is the Regional Publishing Company reprint of 1975, running to page 557.
Call number NC 284.1 BER View in OCPL catalog → -
History of the German Settlements and of the Lutheran Church in North and South Carolina, From the Earliest Period of the Colonization of the Dutch, German, and Swiss Settlers to the Close of the First Half of the Present Century
Bernheim, G. D. · 1872
Gotthardt Dellmann Bernheim, pastor of St. Paul's Lutheran Church in Wilmington, traces the Dutch, German and Swiss settlers of the Carolinas and their Lutheran churches to about 1850. Chapters cover the Palatines and Swiss at New Bern in 1710, the colonies at Purrysburg, Orangeburg and Saxe-Gotha in South Carolina, Pennsylvania Germans in central North Carolina from about 1750, and the Moravians at Salem. Philadelphia, 1872; 557 pages.
Call number NC 284.1 BER View in OCPL catalog →
Research help, online and in the room
