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.
County and state records: deeds, wills, censuses 929.3: 199 titles as they stand on the shelf at OCPL, in call-number order. Genealogy bookshelf, D-1: Historical records of many kinds, color-coded and labeled by county and by record type, with books on how to do genealogical research. Many neighbouring counties were formed from land that was once Orange County, so a family’s records may be housed in more than one county; items that need special care are more likely to be at the State Archives of North Carolina in Raleigh.
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Marriage and Death Notices in Raleigh Register and North Carolina State Gazette, 1826-1845
Broughton, Carrie L. · 1968
Carrie L. Broughton compiled these marriage and death notices from the Raleigh Register and North Carolina State Gazette, 1826 to 1845, as one part of a series for the North Carolina State Library that eventually covered Raleigh newspapers from 1799 to 1893. The State Library first issued this part as a bulletin in 1947; reprinted in 1968, 402 pages.
Call number NC 929.3 BRO View in OCPL catalog → -
North and South Carolina Marriage Records: From the Earliest Colonial Days to the Civil War
Clemens, William Montgomery · 1927
Marriages in the two Carolinas from early colonial times to the Civil War, compiled and edited by William Montgomery Clemens and published in New York by E. P. Dutton in 1927; x and 295 pages. Genealogical Publishing Company reprinted it in 1973 and 1981.
Call number NC 929.3 CLE View in OCPL catalog → -
Calendar of Sussex County, Delaware, Probate Records, 1680-1800
Delaware · 1993
Probate records of Sussex County, Delaware, from 1680 to 1800, calendared by Leon DeValinger Jr., the state archivist, for Delaware's Public Archives Commission. First issued in 1964 and reprinted by Heritage Books of Bowie, Maryland, in 1993; 310 and 87 pages, with an index.
Call number NC 929.3 DEL View in OCPL catalog → -
North Carolina Court of Claims Record of Patents Granted (Secretary of State's Papers): 1740-1775
Haun, Weynette Parks · 1996
The North Carolina Court of Claims record of land patents granted from 1740 to 1775, part of the Secretary of State's papers, in a first edition prepared by Weynette Parks Haun and published in Durham in 1996; xxi and 252 pages with an index.
Call number NC 929.3 HAU View in OCPL catalog → -
An Index of African Americans Identified in Selected Records of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands
Lawson, Jacqueline E. A. · 2008
Jacqueline A. Lawson's three indexes to freedpeople named in Freedmen's Bureau correspondence of 1865 to 1872: those named in individual letters, with date, place, a note on the contents and where to find the original; those on longer lists such as petitions, reports and affidavits; and nearly 1,200 people sent from Washington, D.C., to jobs under Bureau contracts, with age, wage and destination. First published in 1995; reprinted in 2008.
Call number NC 929.3 LAWSON View in OCPL catalog → -
Tyrrell Branches
2020
Armstrong family history from Tyrrell County, excerpted from a forthcoming book titled 'Coastal Shore Armstrongs' and issued in 2020 by the Tyrrell County Genealogical and Historical Society as volume 15 of its series.
Call number NC 929.3 TYRRELL View in OCPL catalog → -
An Alphabetical Index to Ulster Emigration to Philadelphia, 1803-1850
Adams, Raymond D. · 1992
Raymond D. Adams's alphabetical index of emigrants who left Ulster for Philadelphia between 1803 and 1850, gathered from a variety of Irish records. First published in 1992 and reissued by Clearfield of Baltimore; vii, 102 pages.
Call number NC 929.308 ADAMS View in OCPL catalog → -
In Full Force and Virtue: North Carolina Emancipation Records, 1713-1860
Byrd, William L. · 2007 Foundational
Emancipation records from North Carolina, 1713 to 1860: William L. Byrd III gathers the documents by which enslaved people were freed, a source for the genealogy of the state's free people of color. Facsimiles of original documents are included, with a bibliography and an index. Heritage Books first issued the collection in 1999; this printing dates from 2007, 358 pages.
Call number NC 929.308 BYRD View in OCPL catalog → -
The Original Scots Colonists of Early America, 1612-1783
Dobson, David · 1989
David Dobson's register of Scots who went to the American colonies and the Caribbean between 1612 and 1783, compiled entirely from sources in Britain: testaments and estate papers, burgh, sasine and court books, port and customs books, church and university registers, newspapers, gravestones and the Register of Emigrants of 1774 to 1775. Genealogical Publishing Company, 1989; 370 pages with a bibliography. Dobson later added a supplement for 1607 to 1707.
Call number NC 929.308 DOB View in OCPL catalog → -
Free African Americans of North Carolina, Virginia, and South Carolina From the Colonial Period to About 1820
Heinegg, Paul · 2001
Paul Heinegg's family-by-family histories of free African Americans in North Carolina, Virginia and South Carolina, traced from colonial times to about 1820 through county court minutes, tax lists, wills, deeds, marriage bonds, registers of free people of color and Revolutionary War pension files. This fourth edition of 2001 adds South Carolina to the 1997 third edition, which covered North Carolina and Virginia; two volumes, 1,042 pages, with a bibliography and index.
Call number NC 929.308 HEI View in OCPL catalog → -
North Carolina Freedman's Savings & Trust Company Records
1992 Wider context
North Carolina records of the Freedman's Savings and Trust Company, the bank Congress chartered in March 1865 for formerly enslaved people, which failed in 1874. Its depositor files make up one of the largest bodies of family information on African Americans of the Reconstruction years. Bill Reaves made the abstracts and Beverly Tetterton edited them for the North Carolina Genealogical Society, which published the book in Raleigh in 1992; 588 pages with a map.
Call number NC 929.308 NOR View in OCPL catalog → -
Marriages in Contentnea Quarterly Meeting of Friends, North Carolina Yearly Meeting, 1737-1891
Perkins, Theodore Edison · 1988
Quaker marriages from 1737 to 1891 in the meetings of Contentnea Quarter, the part of North Carolina Yearly Meeting whose monthly meetings lay in Wayne, Sampson and nearby eastern counties, researched and compiled by Theodore Edison Perkins. The Guilford County Genealogical Society published the compilation in Greensboro in 1988; 559 pages with illustrations and an index.
Call number NC 929.308 PER View in OCPL catalog →
Research help, online and in the room
