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.
Reference and bibliography REF, 000 to 099: 4 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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History of the Churches of Hillsborough, N.C. Ca., 1766-1962
Lloyd, Pauline O. · 1962
Pauline O. Lloyd's history of the churches of Hillsborough from about 1766 to 1962, nearly two centuries of the town's congregations, with attention to the church buildings themselves. Published in Hillsborough in 1962, 151 pages with illustrations, maps and portraits, and a bibliography on the final page.
Call number REF 275.6 LLOHillsboroughBuildings & PreservationChurches & Faith View in OCPL catalog → -
Orange County, North Carolina: 2030 Comprehensive Plan
2008
The county's long range land use and growth policy document, adopted in 2008 to guide Orange County to the year 2030. Topics include county planning, regional planning and capital investment, with the Board of Commissioners as the adopting body. Planners, property owners and anyone researching how the county decided where growth should go will find the framework set out here.
Call number REF 351.756 ORANGENorth Carolina (statewide)Growth, Land & Planning View in OCPL catalog → -
Durham-Orange Light Rail Transit Project: Combined Final Environmental Impact Statement and Record of Decision
2016
Combined final environmental impact statement and record of decision for the Durham-Orange light rail transit project, the proposed line linking Chapel Hill and Durham. Dating from 2016, it is the federal environmental review document for the corridor, covering transit effects along the route. It concerns environmental impact statements and street railroads for both Chapel Hill and Durham.
Call number REF 388.411 DURHAMChapel HillEno & EnvironmentRoads, Rail & Transportation View in OCPL catalog → -
Durham-Orange Light Rail Transit Project: Draft Environmental Impact Statement and Draft Section 4(f) Evaluation
2015
The draft environmental impact statement and draft Section 4(f) evaluation for the Durham-Orange light rail corridor, dated August 2015, the stage of review that precedes a final decision. One volume of various pagings with illustrations and maps, accompanied by a DVD carrying appendices A through N and the federal notice of availability. Topics include local transit and street railroads in Chapel Hill and Durham.
Call number REF 388.411 DURHAMChapel HillEno & EnvironmentRoads, Rail & Transportation 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