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.
Literature and language 800 to 899, 400 to 499: 5 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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The Black Bard of North Carolina
Horton, George Moses · 1997 · Fiction
Selected poems of George Moses Horton (1798?-about 1880), the enslaved North Carolina poet who sold his verses to students at the university in Chapel Hill, in an edition published in 1997 in the Chapel Hill Books series. The volume gathers uncollected poems with selections from his three books, 'The Hope of Liberty', 'The Poetical Works' and 'Naked Genius', and opens with an introduction and a bibliography of his writings. 192 pages.
Call number 811.4 HORChapel HillBlack Life & Civil RightsLiterature & Publishing View in OCPL catalog → -
Breath of the Song: New and Selected Poems
Green, Jaki Shelton · 2005 · Fiction
New and selected poems by Jaki Shelton Green, the African American poet from Efland who later became North Carolina's poet laureate; Efland gives the collection its Orange County tie. Published by Carolina Wren Press in 2005, 136 pages.
Call number 811.54 GREBlack Life & Civil RightsLiterature & Publishing View in OCPL catalog → -
A Place in the World
Mayes, Frances · 2022 · Biography
Frances Mayes, who lives in Hillsborough, on the meaning of home: a 2022 collection of essays that moves among the houses and places she has lived in and traveled to. Travel writing and personal memoir at once, it comes from a North Carolina author better known for her books about Tuscany.
Call number 813.54 MAYESLiterature & PublishingWomen's Lives & History View in OCPL catalog → -
Observations of an accidental farmer--and a mindful reader
Kavros, Harry · 2024 · Biography
Harry Kavros's 2024 collection of essays and anecdotes about taking up farm life near Hillsborough, from the landscape to keeping chickens and other animals, alongside reflections on the South and on the writers who shaped his reading: Thoreau, Emerson, Aldo Leopold, Annie Dillard and Frederick Law Olmsted. Sections run from an introduction through 'The landscape', 'Chickens and other beasts' and 'The South' to an epilogue and appendix. First Paul Dry Books edition, Philadelphia.
Call number 814.54 KAVROSHillsboroughEno & EnvironmentFarms & Rural Life View in OCPL catalog → -
Goat light
Rankin, Tom · 2021 · Pictorial works
Tom Rankin's book of photographs of goat farming and country life in Orange County, published in 2021 by Horse & Buggy Press in Durham with essays alongside the pictures. The colophon records 750 copies of the first edition, with covers hand printed on a letterpress, and twenty-six lettered deluxe copies signed by Rankin and by Jill. Ninety-six unnumbered pages.
Call number 814.54 RANKINOrange CountyFarms & Rural Life 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.
Schools and the university 370 to 379: 37 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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First in America: An Education Governor Challenges North Carolina
Hunt, James B. · 2001
James B. Hunt Jr., governor of North Carolina from 1977 to 1985 and again from 1993 to 2001, lays out his views on public schools, education reform and early childhood programs, Smart Start among them, and challenges the state to build the best schools in the nation. Issued by the First in America Foundation in Raleigh in 2001, 93 pages.
Call number NC 370.973 HUN View in OCPL catalog → -
So Proudly We Taught: Retired Tar Heel Teachers
1976
History of schooling in North Carolina told by the state's retired teachers, compiled by the North Carolina Retired School Personnel division of the North Carolina Association of Educators and edited by a committee of retired educators under Clarinda A. and James E. Britt. It appeared in 1976 as part of the National Retired Teachers Association's Bicentennial project, 'A Pride in America', in 246 pages with plates and an index.
Call number NC 370.975 SO View in OCPL catalog → -
The Impact of Slavery on the Education of Blacks in Orange County, North Carolina 1619-1970
Moore, Rosetta Austin · 2015 Foundational
Rosetta Austin Moore's survey of Black education in Orange County from the colonial era to 1970, in a revised edition published in 2015 through Lulu in Morrisville. After chapters on slavery nationally and on schooling for enslaved people in North Carolina, the book turns to the county: its formation, the growth of its schools, the arrival of free public schooling for all, and the schools and African American educators of the twentieth century. 265 pages with maps, portraits and facsimiles.
Call number 371.009 MOORE View in OCPL catalog → -
Hillsborough Negro School 1936-1968: The First State Supported Negro School in Orange County, North Carolina
Ruffin-Villines, Donna · 1998 Foundational
Donna Ruffin-Villines documents the school that served African American students in Hillsborough from 1936 until 1968, described as the first state supported school of its kind in Orange County. Published in 1998 concerning African American public schools and their history in the county. A starting point for anyone tracing segregated education in Hillsborough.
Call number NC 371.009 RUF View in OCPL catalog → -
A History of Orange County Schools, 1752-1983
Pender, Irene Oliver · 1983 Start here
Irene Oliver Pender's history of the public schools of Orange County from 1752 to 1983, covering more than two centuries of schooling in Hillsborough, Efland, Cedar Grove and the rural districts of the county. Published in 1983, 186 pages with illustrations.
Call number NC 371.097 PENDER View in OCPL catalog → -
A History of North Carolina Retired School Personnel: A Division of North Carolina Association of Educators, 1961-1978
Browning, Alma · 1978
The history of North Carolina Retired School Personnel from 1961 to 1978, told by Alma Browning. The group, a division of the North Carolina Association of Educators, brings together retired teachers and other school employees. Printed by Heritage Printers in 1978; 99 pages.
Call number NC 371.1 BRO View in OCPL catalog → -
PTA Impact: 50 Years in North Carolina, 1919-1969
Stem, Thad · 1969
Thad Stem Jr.'s history of the parent-teacher movement in North Carolina over its first fifty years, beginning with the 1919 meeting in Charlotte that formed a state branch of the national congress. The branch, renamed the North Carolina Congress of Parents and Teachers in 1924, published the book in 1969, 267 pages with photographs and portraits. That same year it merged with the North Carolina Congress of Colored Parents and Teachers.
Call number NC 371.103 STE View in OCPL catalog → -
Ordinary Women Extraordinary Service to Family, Community, and North Carolina
Hammett, Wilma · 2011 Foundational
Wilma Hammett, Jan Christensen and Joan Gosper wrote and compiled this illustrated book about North Carolina women whose service reached their families, communities and state. The North Carolina Family and Consumer Sciences Foundation published the 340 pages in 2011 with the foundation of the state's Extension and Community Association.
Call number NC 371.35 HAMMETT View in OCPL catalog → -
The Book of Burwell Students: Lives of Educated Women in the Antebellum South
Engstrom, Mary Claire · 1979 Foundational
Mary Claire Engstrom's biographical register of the young women who attended the Burwell School in Hillsborough, subtitled lives of educated women in the antebellum South. The school was kept by Margaret Anna Burwell and her husband, and the book bears on women's education in nineteenth-century North Carolina. Published by the Historic Hillsborough Commission, 1979, 256 pages with illustrations and portraits.
Call number NC 371.82 ENG View in OCPL catalog → -
Their Highest Potential: An African American School Community in the Segregated South
Siddle Walker, Vanessa · 1996
Vanessa Siddle Walker's case study of the Caswell County Training School, a school for Black students in segregated Caswell County, and of the community around it. Caswell was formed from Orange County in 1777, with Yanceyville as its seat. UNC Press, 1996; 259 pages with illustrations, a map, a bibliography and an index.
Call number NC 371.979 WAL View in OCPL catalog → -
Final Report of Orange Curriculum Study 1960-1961
1961
Final report of the Orange curriculum study of 1960 and 1961, issued by the Orange County Board of Education in Hillsborough in 1961. It covers school curricula and the county's schools, in 83 pages with plans.
Call number NC 373.19 ORA View in OCPL catalog → -
North Carolina Schools and Academies, 1790-1840: A Documentary History
Coon, Charles L. · 1915
Charles L. Coon's documentary history of North Carolina academies and schools from 1790 to 1840, published by the North Carolina Historical Commission in 1915. Its 846 pages reprint academy notices, legislative acts and items from the Raleigh Register and other papers, with a section on the colleges' beginnings. Hillsborough Academy trustees' notices are among them, and Coon's introduction notes how many academy principals came from the University in Chapel Hill.
Call number NC 373.756 COO View in OCPL catalog →
Research help, online and in the room
