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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 →

Orange County 975.656: 10 works as they shelve at OCPL, in call-number order. 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 →

Art, architecture, music and crafts 700 to 789: 66 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.

  • Nine From North Carolina: An Exhibition of Women Artists 1989

    Catalog of a 1989 to 1990 traveling exhibition of nine North Carolina women artists, organized by the North Carolina State Committee of the National Museum of Women in the Arts and curated by Christie Taylor. The artists are Clara Couch, Carolyn DeMeritt, Paula Garrett, Maud Gatewood, Gina Gilmour, Bryant Holsenbeck, Jan Brooks Loyd, Elizabeth Matheson and Patricia Rieger, with essays by Doris Betts, Jane Kessler and Caroline Hickman. It runs 49 pages with color plates.

    Call number NC 704 NINE View in OCPL catalog →
  • The North Carolina Portrait Index, 1700-1860 National Society of the Colonial Dames of America in the State of North Carolina · 1963

    An illustrated index of portraits of North Carolina people painted between 1700 and 1860, compiled by Laura MacMillan for the North Carolina society of the Colonial Dames of America. The main section reproduces the portraits in photographs, and further sections cover the artists, unillustrated portraits, locations and patrons. Published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1963; 272 pages.

    Call number NC 704.94 NAT View in OCPL catalog →
  • Hillsborough Artists Cooperative and Skylight Gallery, 1990-2020 Miller, Jennifer E. · 2021 Foundational

    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 MILLER View in OCPL catalog →
  • North Carolina Museum of Art: Handbook of the Collections North Carolina Museum of Art · 1998

    A handbook to the North Carolina Museum of Art's collections in Raleigh, in its first edition of 1998, edited by Rebecca Martin Nagy with June Spence and introduced by Lawrence J. Wheeler, with contributions from Virginia Burden, John W. Coffey, Joseph P. Covington and others. It runs to ix and 277 pages, illustrated partly in color, with an index; a revised edition of 608 pages followed in 2010.

    Call number NC 708.156 NORTH View in OCPL catalog →
  • Art for Humanity's Sake: The Story of the Mary Duke Biddle Gallery for the Blind Stanford, Charles W. · 1976

    Charles W. Stanford Jr., who proposed it, tells how the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh opened its gallery for blind visitors in 1966, with a 1964 grant from the Mary Duke Biddle Foundation, and let them handle the works. Chapters trace its planning, visitors and influence on other museums, with a sketch of Mrs. Biddle and a list of the collection. Published in 1976; 88 pages.

    Call number NC 708.56 STA View in OCPL catalog →
  • New Deal Art in North Carolina: The Murals, Sculptures, Reliefs, Paintings, Oils and Frescoes and Their Creators Davis, Anita Price · 2009

    Public art paid for by New Deal programs in 42 North Carolina towns during the Depression, most of it in post offices and courthouses, recorded with the artists who made it by Anita Price Davis, a retired Converse College professor of education. Chapters run town by town from Ahoskie to Wilmington, among them Chapel Hill and Mebane, with 162 photographs and an appendix on federal art projects from 1933 to 1943. McFarland, 2009.

    Call number NC 709.73 DAVIS View in OCPL catalog →
  • Art in North Carolina: Episodes and Developments, 1585-1970 Foushee, Ola Maie · 1972 Foundational

    Ola Maie Foushee's history of the arts in North Carolina from 1585 to 1970, printed in Chapel Hill by Heritage Printers in 1972; 238 pages with illustrations.

    Call number NC 709.756 FOU View in OCPL catalog →
  • Signs and Wonders: Outsider Art Inside North Carolina Manley, Roger · 1989

    Roger Manley's catalog for an exhibition of twentieth-century outsider and folk art by North Carolina makers, shown at the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh from July to October 1989, then at the Hickory Museum of Art and at St. John's Museum of Art in Wilmington through March 1990. It has 135 pages, illustrated partly in color, with references.

    Call number NC 709.756 MAN View in OCPL catalog →
  • Gardens of Old Hillsborough 1971

    Twenty-seven pages with illustrations and a map, guiding a visitor among the gardens and historic buildings of old Hillsborough. A project of the Horticultural Committee of the Hillsborough Historical Society, published in the town in 1971. Topics include gardens and historic buildings at Hillsborough, and the pamphlet sits with the North Caroliniana that local societies produced for the town's tours.

    Call number NC 712 GAR View in OCPL catalog →
  • The Sarah P. Duke Gardens: A Wonderful Wonder Glymph, Minnie · 2006

    A large-format picture book on the Sarah P. Duke Gardens, some 55 acres of landscaped and wooded grounds at Duke University in Durham that serve as a memorial to Sarah Pearson Angier Duke, wife of Benjamin N. Duke. Minnie Glymph wrote the text; Chris Hildreth and Les Todd took the photographs, many in color. Published in 2006; 142 pages with a bibliography.

    Call number NC 712.5 GLYMPH View in OCPL catalog →
  • Montrose: Life in A Garden Goodwin, Nancy · 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 GOO View in OCPL catalog →
  • Hillsborough River Walk Feasibility Study Report 2000

    A feasibility study report from 2000 on a river walk for Hillsborough, a proposed trail along the Eno River through town. Subjects include trail design in Hillsborough. Of interest to anyone following the planning history of the town's Riverwalk and its greenways.

    Call number NC 719 HILLSBOR 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