Skip to content
Orange County Public Library (opens the library’s website in a new tab)

Orange County Indexed

Local history at OCPL

The Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection and the Orange County books at the Main Library in Hillsborough: a plan of the room, and both collections searchable shelf by shelf.

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.

357Orange County works at OCPL 1,287titles in the Wall Collection 5shelves in the local history room 1library card opens NC LIVE

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.

The collection at OCPL →
Plan of the Local History Room at the Main Library, after the library’s diagram Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection entrance E D I: Framed print: the Nash and Kollock School I H: Framed print: Hillsborough, County Down H G: Framed print: the 1892 county map G F: Framed print: the courthouse F J: Framed print: Hillsborough Military Academy J K: Framed print: the 1768 town plan K E-2: Reference bookshelf, E-2 E-2 E-1: North Carolina history bookshelf, E-1 E-1 D-2: Genealogy bookshelf, D-2 D-2 D-1: Genealogy bookshelf, D-1 D-1 D-3: Genealogy bookshelf, D-3 D-3 L: Black file cabinet L M: Assorted maps M N: Elizabeth Keckly display N O: Elizabeth Keckly display, continued O C: Research computer with microfilm reader and scanner C B: Gray file cabinet B A: Locked cabinet A
After the library’s own diagram of the space. Bookshelves in dark blue, cabinets in gray, framed prints in orange, the maps and the Keckly display in a lighter blue.
  1. 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.

  2. 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.

  3. Research computer with microfilm reader and scanner

    Read and scan the microfilm here, and search Ancestry and other research sites.

  4. 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.

    Browse this shelf →
  5. 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.

    Browse this shelf →
  6. Genealogy bookshelf, D-3

    More about Rebecca Wall.

    Browse this shelf →
  7. 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.

    Browse this shelf →
  8. Reference bookshelf, E-2

    Traditional general reference books, still valuable as comprehensive, authoritative sources.

    Browse this shelf →
  9. 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.

  10. Framed print: the 1892 county map

    George W. Tate’s 1892 map of Orange County.

  11. Framed print: Hillsborough, County Down

    Views of the Irish town the county seat is named for.

  12. 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.

  13. 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.

  14. Framed print: the 1768 town plan

    C. J. Sauthier’s 1768 map of the town of Hillsborough.

  15. 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.

  16. Assorted maps

    Maps of the county and the town.

  17. 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.

  18. 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.

Filter all 357 in the search →

Local History Collection NC: 226 works as they shelve at OCPL, in call-number order. Shelved in the Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection, browsed shelf by shelf below. All 357, with filters by place, theme, and material, in the search →

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.

Search it alongside the indexed works →

Every cataloged book and journal in the Wall Collection, A to Z or shelf by shelf in the library’s call-number order.

  • 100 Years, 100 Men, 1871-1971 Trawick, Gary Evans · 1971

    Edwards & Broughton, the Raleigh printing house founded in 1871 by C. B. Edwards and Needham B. Broughton, marked its centennial with this book, pairing a history of the firm with sketches of one hundred North Carolina men of the century since. Christopher Crittenden, William S. Powell and Robert H. Woody edited it; Gary Trawick and Paul Wyche wrote the biographies. Published in 1971, 448 pages with portraits and an endpaper map.

    Call number NC 920 ONE View in OCPL catalog →
  • 1820 Federal Census North Carolina: Supplemented With Tax Lists Potter, Dorothy Williams · 1993

    Dorothy Williams Potter's transcription of the 1820 federal census of North Carolina, supplemented with tax lists. The Orange County schedules are among those covered, naming heads of household in the county a generation after the Revolution. Potter first published it in 1972; the copy in the library's Wall Local History Collection is her second edition of 1993.

    Call number NC 929.375 FED View in OCPL catalog →
  • 1820 Federal Census of North Carolina United States · 1972

    Dorothy Williams Potter's transcription of the 1820 federal census returns for Orange County, published from Tullahoma, Tennessee in 1972, 164 pages with maps. The 1820 schedules list each head of household with counts of free and enslaved people by age and sex. Part of the library's Wall Local History Collection.

    Call number NC 929.375 UNITED View in OCPL catalog →
  • 27 Views of Chapel Hill: A Southern University Town in Prose & Poetry 2011 Foundational

    Twenty-seven writers contribute essays, short stories and poems about Chapel Hill to this 2011 anthology from Eno Publishers of Hillsborough, issued under Daniel Wallace's name. Among them are Wells Tower, Jock Lauterer, Mildred 'Mama Dip' Council on a life of cooking, Paul Cuadros on the cooks of Franklin Street, William Leuchtenburg on presidential visits, Karen L. Parker, Bland Simpson, Elizabeth Spencer, Daphne Athas and Lawrence Naumoff. 235 pages with illustrations.

    Call number 975.656 TWENTY View in OCPL catalog →
  • 27 Views of Hillsborough: A Southern Town in Prose & Poetry 2010 Foundational

    Hillsborough seen by twenty-seven writers in essays, fiction and poems collected by Eno Publishers in 2010. Allan Gurganus writes on renovating old houses, David Payne and Beverly A. Scarlett on the Eno, Brooks Graebner on the courthouse and the churches, Nancy Goodwin keeps a gardener's journal, and Lee Smith offers scenes from 'On Agate Hill'; Randall Kenan, Michael Malone, Hal Crowther, Jill McCorkle, Craig Nova and Jaki Shelton Green also appear. 210 pages.

    Call number 975.656 TWENTY View in OCPL catalog →
  • 27 Views of Raleigh: The City of Oaks in Prose & Poetry 2013

    An anthology of essays, poems and short fiction about Raleigh, introduced by Wilton Barnhardt and published in 2013 by Eno Publishers of Hillsborough. Its six sections run from pieces on home through street scenes, close-ups and views of the city's past to fiction, with contributions by Betty Adcock, Dorianne Laux, Scott Huler, Rob Christensen, Eleanora E. Tate, Lenard D. Moore, Margaret Maron and John Kessel among others. 218 pages.

    Call number NC 975.656 TWENTY View in OCPL catalog →
  • The 4th North Carolina Cavalry in the Civil War: A History and Roster Raiford, Neil Hunter · 2003

    Neil Hunter Raiford's history of the 4th North Carolina Cavalry, formed from seven partisan ranger companies raised in 1862 in fifteen counties. Using official records, letters and diaries, he follows the regiment from the Blackwater skirmishes and the Battle of Whitehall through Brandy Station, Gettysburg and the defense of Petersburg to Appomattox. A roster with biographical and service details on each soldier fills more than half the book. McFarland, 2003; 294 pages with maps.

    Call number NC 973.745 RAIFORD View in OCPL catalog →
  • 75 Years of Service: A History of the North Carolina League of Municipalities Aulis, Jack · 1983

    Seventy-five years of the North Carolina League of Municipalities, the association of the state's cities and towns, told by Jack Aulis and published by the League in Raleigh in 1983: 244 pages with portraits, notes and an index.

    Call number NC 352 AUL View in OCPL catalog →
  • A Backward Glance McManus, Jane Parker · 1986

    Genealogy of the Bass, Grove and Sellers families by Jane Parker McManus, published by Parker Enterprises of Pineville, Louisiana, in 1986: 562 pages with illustrations, a bibliography and an index. Her earlier 'Pioneers West of Appalachia' treats the Parker and Jackson families.

    Call number NC 929.209 MCM View in OCPL catalog →
  • A Brief History of the North Carolina Troops on the Continental Establishment: In the War of the Revolution : With A Register of Officers of the Same Davis, Charles Lukens · 1896

    Charles L. Davis, an army officer teaching military science at the Bingham School in Asheville, traces North Carolina's Continental regiments from the provincial congresses of 1774 and 1775 through the Revolution and adds a register of their officers. Bound in is Henry Hobart Bellas's sketch of the state's Society of the Cincinnati from its founding in 1783 to its reputed dissolution after 1790. Printed in Philadelphia in 1896, 106 pages with plates and portraits.

    Call number NC 973.3 DAV View in OCPL catalog →
  • A Cain Connection: Maryland to Mississippi and Beyond, 1686-1995 Cain, Winton Burell · 1995

    From colonial Maryland in 1686 to Mississippi and beyond, Winton Burell Cain follows one Cain family line down to 1995. He published the 301-page book himself at Warner Robins, Georgia, in 1995, with illustrations, a bibliography and an index.

    Call number NC 929.209 CAI View in OCPL catalog →
  • A Chronicle of North Carolina During the American Revolution, 1763-1789 Crow, Jeffrey J. · 1975 Foundational

    A dated chronology of North Carolina's Revolutionary era by Jeffrey J. Crow, running from Britain's new colonial policy of 1763 to the state's ratification of the federal Constitution in 1789, with each event explained in a short paragraph. The first of the North Carolina Bicentennial Pamphlets, published by the Division of Archives and History in 1975; 63 illustrated pages.

    Call number NC 975.603 CRO View in OCPL catalog →

Research help, online and in the room

More ways to continue your research

Through the library Use OCPL Resources Newspapers, maps, genealogy tools, and reference works that OCPL offers, many through NC LIVE, North Carolina’s statewide library service. Some are free to anyone; others need an OCPL card. Find library resources for local history → Help from a person Get research help Local History Help Hours at the Main Library, or the Local History Liaison for a difficult trail. Find Local History Help Hours → In the room, outside the catalog Microfilm, records and maps Local newspapers and census returns on microfilm, county court records, tax lists and soldier records back to the 1700s, family histories donated by patrons, and the research computer. The collection at OCPL →
Two mice reading back to back against a leaf, with the hand-lettered words Friends of the Orange County Public Library
Illustration by Caldecott Medalist Matthew Cordell, gifted to the Friends 2026