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.
Civil War and Reconstruction 973.7 to 973.8: 3 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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Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Keckly: The Remarkable Story of the Friendship Between a First Lady and a Former Slave
Fleischner, Jennifer · 2003 · Biography
Jennifer Fleischner's double biography of Mary Todd Lincoln and Elizabeth Keckley, the dressmaker who had been enslaved, including years in Hillsborough, before buying her freedom and becoming the First Lady's confidante. Published by Broadway Books in New York in 2003, 372 pages with illustrations and a map. Topics include enslaved women in Hillsborough and the United States, dressmakers and women's friendships in the nineteenth century.
Call number 973.7 FLEISCHNHillsboroughBlack Life & Civil RightsThe Burwell School and the Burwell household View in OCPL catalog → -
The Elizabeth Keckley Reader
McKoy, Sheila Smith · 2016 · Biography
A reader on Elizabeth Keckley edited by Sheila Smith McKoy, gathering criticism and interpretation of Behind the Scenes, Keckley's 1868 memoir of enslavement and of her years as Mary Todd Lincoln's dressmaker. Keckley's enslavement included years in Hillsborough, which is the book's Orange County link. Published in 2016, 274 pages.
Call number 973.709 ELIZABETHillsboroughBlack Life & Civil RightsThe Burwell School and the Burwell household View in OCPL catalog → -
Sparrows' Nest of Letters
2011
Letters of the Sparrow family, including Thomas Sparrow and George Attmore Sparrow, gathered and published in 2011. The correspondence includes material associated with the Hillsboro' Military Academy, which opened in Hillsborough in 1859, and combines family and military history.
Call number 973.782 SPARROWHillsboroughOrange County during the Civil War, 1861–1865Families, Land & Genealogy 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.
Civil War and Reconstruction 973.7 to 973.8: 31 titles as they stand on the shelf at OCPL, in call-number order. North Carolina history bookshelf, E-1: 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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North Carolina as A Civil War Battleground, 1861-1865
Barrett, John Gilchrist · 1960 Foundational
A short account of the Civil War campaigns fought in North Carolina from 1861 to 1865, written by John G. Barrett of the Virginia Military Institute and published by the State Department of Archives and History in 1960; 99 pages with illustrations and a map. It was reissued in 1980 and again in 2003.
Call number NC 973.7 BAR View in OCPL catalog → -
Confederate Military History: A Library of Confederate States History, in Thirteen Volumes
Evans, Clement Anselm · 1970
A history of the Confederacy written by prominent Southerners under the editorship of the Georgia general Clement A. Evans, first published at Atlanta in 1899 in twelve volumes. Essays on secession and Confederate government open the set; state histories follow, with D. H. Hill Jr. on North Carolina, and most volumes close with biographical sketches. This Blue & Grey Press reprint from the 1970s runs to thirteen volumes with maps and portraits.
Call number NC 973.7 EVA View in OCPL catalog → -
The Confederate Letters of Benjamin H. Freeman
Freeman, Benjamin H. · 1974
Stuart T. Wright compiled and edited these Civil War letters of Benjamin H. Freeman, a Confederate soldier born in 1842 who served in the 44th North Carolina Regiment; Richmond and Appomattox Court House are among the places they mention. The 109-page first edition was published in 1974 by Exposition Press of Hicksville, New York, as an Exposition University Book.
Call number NC 973.7 FRE View in OCPL catalog → -
Bethel to Sharpsburg
Hill, Daniel Harvey · 1926
Daniel Harvey Hill Jr., son of the Confederate general and a former head of North Carolina State, wrote this account of the war in the East from Big Bethel in 1861 through the Peninsula, the Seven Days and Second Manassas to Sharpsburg in 1862. He died in 1924, and J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton edited it, adding the first chapter and an introduction. Published in two volumes in 1926 for the North Carolina Historical Commission.
Call number NC 973.7 HIL View in OCPL catalog → -
North Carolina Civil War Documentary
1980
Primary sources on North Carolina's Civil War years, selected and edited by W. Buck Yearns and John G. Barrett and published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1980. The 365 pages carry plates, a bibliography and an index.
Call number NC 973.7 NOR View in OCPL catalog → -
The Photographic History of the Civil War
1912
Francis Trevelyan Miller edited these ten volumes of Civil War photographs with text by many contributors, published by the Review of Reviews Company in 1912 as a semi-centennial memorial. The first three follow the fighting from the opening battles to the decisive ones; the rest take up cavalry, forts and artillery, the navies, prisons and hospitals, soldier life and secret service, poetry and oratory, and armies and leaders, with the index in volume 10.
Call number NC 973.7 PHO View in OCPL catalog → -
Front Rank
Tucker, Glenn · 1962
Glenn Tucker's illustrated account of North Carolina's part in the Civil War, written for the state's Confederate Centennial Commission and published in Raleigh in 1962 with drawings by Bill Ballard.
Call number NC 973.7 TUC View in OCPL catalog → -
Placid: A Collection of Authentic Tales Centering Around Placid Plantation, Person and Cranville Counties, North Carolina, During the Period 1861 Through 1865
Windler, Penny Nichols · 1961
Civil War stories from Placid Plantation and the Chandler family in Person and Granville counties, 1861 to 1865, gathered by Penny Nichols Windler. Sponsored by the United Daughters of the Confederacy's Hampton Chapter, the 73-page book was published in 1961 by High-Iron Publishers of Warwick, Virginia.
Call number NC 973.7 WIN View in OCPL catalog → -
Behind the Scenes; Thirty Years A Slave and Four Years in the White House
Keckley, Elizabeth · 1968
Elizabeth Keckley's 1868 memoir of thirty years in slavery and four years as dressmaker and confidante to Mary Todd Lincoln. Born in Virginia, she spent part of her youth in Hillsborough, North Carolina, where her owner's son kept the Burwell School for girls, and later bought freedom for herself and her son in St. Louis. Its frank picture of the Lincolns drew public disapproval. Reprinted by Arno Press in 1968, 371 pages.
Call number NC 973.709 KEC View in OCPL catalog → -
Blood and War at My Doorstep: North Carolina Civilians in the War Between the States
McKean, Brenda Chambers · 2011
Brenda Chambers McKean's two-volume account of North Carolina civilians during the Civil War, drawing on period sources. Published through Xlibris in 2011, the set runs to about 1,280 pages with illustrations, bibliographical references and an index.
Call number NC 973.71 MCKEAN View in OCPL catalog → -
Civil War Courts-martial of North Carolina Troops
Perry, Aldo S. · 2012
Some 450 North Carolina Confederates, most of them deserters, are traced through their service records and military trials by Aldo S. Perry, a retired IBM project engineer in Raleigh; Confederate courts sentenced more North Carolina soldiers to death than those of any other state. Organized by army, corps, division and brigade, the book follows trials, executions and escapes, and argues that wider use of execution would have strengthened the Confederacy. McFarland, 2012.
Call number NC 973.71 PERRY View in OCPL catalog → -
Biographical Dictionary of the Confederacy
Wakelyn, Jon L. · 1977
Short biographies of prominent Confederates, compiled by Jon L. Wakelyn with Frank E. Vandiver as advisory editor and published by Greenwood Press in 1977. A long essay on the politics and economy of the South from 1850 to 1877 frames the entries, and the 601 pages end with a bibliography and an index.
Call number NC 973.713 WAK View in OCPL catalog →
Research help, online and in the room
