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.
Browse this shelf → -
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.
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 →
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Chapel Hill in Plain Sight
Athas, Daphne · 2010 · Biography
Twelve essays by novelist Daphne Athas (1923-2020) on the Chapel Hill she knew across the twentieth century. Subjects include Carrboro as 'the Paris of the Piedmont', philosopher Horace Williams, Betty Smith writing in Chapel Hill, Junius Scales, Ab Abernethy and the Intimate Bookshop, Richard Wright's visit, and a set of Chapel Hill murders. Published 2010, 243 pages with illustrations.
Call number 975.656 ATHASCarrboroEveryday Life & TraditionsLiterature & Publishing View in OCPL catalog → -
Rogers Road
Pearce, Emily Eidenier · 2009 · Biography
Emily Eidenier Pearce's history of Rogers Road, the historically African American neighborhood on the edge of Chapel Hill and Carrboro, and of what happened to it after Orange County opened its landfill next door in 1972. Drawing on interviews with residents, the book records the neighborhood's origins, family life, churches and customs, and then the environmental and social burdens of decades beside the landfill. Privately issued in 2009, 298 pages with illustrations, maps and portraits.
Call number 975.656 EIDNorth Carolina (statewide)Black Life & Civil RightsEno & Environment View in OCPL catalog → -
Hidden Hillsborough
2017 · Pictorial works
An illustrated survey of the outbuildings and lesser-known structures of Hillsborough, produced for the Preservation Fund of Hillsborough and published by Eno Publishers in 2017. Stewart E. Dunaway and Barbara Hume open with the town's location and early importance; separate chapters by Callie Connor, Jean B. Anderson, Jim Parsley and Mary Ann Peter cover historic kitchens, the houses of enslaved people, smokehouses, springs, wells and their houses, and barns. 194 pages with color photographs and maps.
Call number 975.656 HIDDENHillsboroughBuildings & Preservation View in OCPL catalog → -
Carrboro
Ellington, Richard ; Otto, David A. · 2011 · Pictorial works
Pictorial history of Carrboro in Arcadia's Images of America series by David A. Otto and Richard Ellington, published in 2011. Its 127 pages of photographs, maps, facsimiles and portraits cover the town's history, social life and African American community, with a bibliography and index.
Call number 975.656 OTTOCarrboroBlack Life & Civil RightsFrom West End to Carrboro: railroad, mills, and a new town, 1882–1913 View in OCPL catalog → -
Orange County Trio: Hillsborough, Chapel Hill, and Carrboro, North Carolina, Histories and Tour Guides
Ryan, Elizabeth Shreve · 2004 · Guidebooks & tours
Elizabeth Shreve Ryan's combined histories and tour guides for Hillsborough, Chapel Hill and Carrboro, the three towns of Orange County, with the University of North Carolina treated alongside Chapel Hill. Each town gets a narrative history and a tour of its streets and buildings. Published by Chapel Hill Press in 2004, 369 pages with illustrations and maps.
Call number 975.656 RYANCarrboroFrom West End to Carrboro: railroad, mills, and a new town, 1882–1913UNC & Campus Life View in OCPL catalog → -
27 Views of Carolina Friends School
2015 · Pictorial works
Twenty-seven pieces of prose and poetry by people connected with Carolina Friends School, the Quaker school on the Orange and Durham county line, collected for the school's fiftieth anniversary in the fall of 2014. The colophon credits Dave Wofford of Horse & Buggy Press in Durham with the design and names Arno as the typeface. Student photographs appear alongside the writing. 179 pages with illustrations.
Call number 975.656 TWENTYNorth Carolina (statewide)Churches & FaithLiterature & Publishing View in OCPL catalog → -
27 Views of Chapel Hill: A Southern University Town in Prose & Poetry
Wallace, Daniel · 2011 · Fiction
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 TWENTYChapel HillLiterature & Publishing View in OCPL catalog → -
27 Views of Hillsborough
2010 · Fiction
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 TWENTYEno RiverEno & EnvironmentLiterature & Publishing View in OCPL catalog → -
Chapel Hill: An Illustrated History
Qualls, Dixon ; Scism, Thomas ; Vickers, James · 1985 · Histories
An illustrated history of Chapel Hill by James Vickers with Thomas Scism and Dixon Qualls, published in Chapel Hill by Barclay Publishers in 1985. It treats the town and the University of North Carolina together. First edition, 208 pages with illustrations, some in color, and a bibliography.
Call number 975.656 VICChapel HillUNC & Campus Life View in OCPL catalog → -
When the Roll Is Called up Yonder
Wood, Peter H. · 2005 · Histories
Peter H. Wood's short history of Black Hillsborough, self-published in the town in 2005, 40 pages with illustrations and a map. It covers African Americans in Hillsborough, their history and their social life and customs, and is a brief starting point for the subject.
Call number 975.656 WOOHillsboroughBlack Life & Civil RightsEveryday Life & Traditions 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.
Society, economy, politics and law 300 to 389: 126 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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By Her Own Bootstraps: A Saga of Women in North Carolina
Coates, Albert · 1975
Albert Coates, who founded the University of North Carolina's Institute of Government, traces how North Carolina women gained legal and civic standing, with attention to figures such as Chapel Hill's Cornelia Phillips Spencer, Sallie Southall Cotten, Ellen Winston and Susie Sharp. Privately printed at Chapel Hill in 1975; 231 illustrated pages.
Call number NC 301.4756 COA View in OCPL catalog → -
North Carolina's Demographic Transformation: The Impact of Race and Immigration
Andrews, Louis · 2004 Foundational
Louis Andrews and George McDaniel examine how immigration and race were changing North Carolina's population in this 66-page paper with maps, charts and references, the fourth of the occasional papers of Representative Government Press of Raleigh, 2004.
Call number NC 304.837 ANDREWS View in OCPL catalog → -
Wouldn't Take Nothin' for My Journey Now
Lauterer, Jock · 1980
A pictorial book on older North Carolinians by Jock Lauterer, published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1980; 167 illustrated pages.
Call number NC 305.26 LAU View in OCPL catalog → -
Don't Send Me Flowers When I'm Dead: Voices of Rural Elderly
Salber, Eva J. · 1983
Interviews with elderly country people in North Carolina, many of them farmers and some of them single, gathered by Eva J. Salber. Duke University Press published the collection in 1983: 145 pages of text with 30 pages of plates.
Call number NC 305.26 SAL View in OCPL catalog → -
Seniors 90-100+ and Their Families: What Keeps Them Going. Volume 1
Wilson, Doris M. · 2012
Interviews with men and women in their nineties and past one hundred, and with their families, about the attitudes, experience and wisdom that have carried them into late old age, gathered by Doris M. Wilson. Published in Chapel Hill in 2012 as the first volume; 317 pages, illustrated, with an index.
Call number NC 305.262 WILSON View in OCPL catalog → -
First Women of Orange County: Women's History Month Project, 1993-1994
1994 Start here
A Women's History Month project of 1993 and 1994 from the Orange County Women's History Month Committee, profiling women who were firsts in the county. Published in Chapel Hill in 1994, 13 pages plus unnumbered leaves with illustrations, facsimiles and portraits.
Call number NC 305.409 FIR View in OCPL catalog → -
Southern Women in Revolution, 1776-1800: Personal and Political Narratives
Kierner, Cynthia A. · 1998
Cynthia A. Kierner prints and interprets 98 petitions that women sent to the legislatures of North and South Carolina between 1776 and 1800. Soldiers' widows sought back pay, wives of banished loyalists asked that their husbands be let home, deserted wives wanted separate estates, and freed Black women sought recognition of their freedom. An essay opens each of five chapters, and closing lists sort each state's petitions by subject. University of South Carolina Press, 1998.
Call number NC 305.409 KIE View in OCPL catalog → -
Where My Feet Have Taken Me: A Collection of Short Stories by Women and Girls Living in Orange County, NC
2005 Foundational
A collection of short stories written by women and girls living in Orange County, N.C., published in 2005 for Women's History Month.
Call number NC 305.409 WHE View in OCPL catalog → -
North Carolina Planters and Their Children, 1800-1860
Censer, Jane Turner · 1984 Foundational
Family life among North Carolina's planters from 1800 to 1860, parents and children alike, in a social history by Jane Turner Censer. Louisiana State University Press published it in 1984: 191 pages with two maps, a bibliography of 25 pages and an index.
Call number NC 305.523 CEN View in OCPL catalog → -
Race and Politics in North Carolina, 1872-1901: The Black Second
Anderson, Eric · 1981 Foundational
Eric Anderson's political history of North Carolina's Second Congressional District, the Black Second, from 1872 to 1901. The district, where most counties had Black majorities, sent four Black Republicans to Congress: John A. Hyman, James E. O'Hara, Henry P. Cheatham and George H. White, who left in 1901 after the state's disfranchisement amendment of 1900. Louisiana State University Press published the study in 1981, with a bibliography and an index.
Call number NC 305.896 AND View in OCPL catalog → -
Upbuilding Black Durham: Gender, Class, and Black Community Development in the Jim Crow South
Brown, Leslie · 2008 Wider context
Leslie Brown's history of Black Durham, the community Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois both admired in the 1910s, from emancipation to the civil rights era. Drawing on interviews and family stories, Brown puts African American women at the center and argues that conflicts of gender and class among Black Durhamites fed their activism. UNC Press, 2008, in the John Hope Franklin series; 451 pages with maps.
Call number NC 305.896 BRO View in OCPL catalog → -
Like A Family: The Making of A Southern Cotton Mill World
1987 Wider context
Jacquelyn Dowd Hall of UNC Chapel Hill, a historian of Southern labor and a champion of oral history sources, wrote this history of the Southern cotton mill world, its factories, workers and mill communities, with five co-authors: Christopher Daly, Lu Ann Jones, Robert R. Korstad, James Leloudis and Mary Murphy. UNC Press published it in 1987; Norton reissued it in 1989 and UNC Press in 2000, with a foreword by Michael Frisch.
Call number NC 305.967 LIK View in OCPL catalog →
Research help, online and in the room
