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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Research computer with microfilm reader and scanner
Read and scan the microfilm here, and search Ancestry and other research sites.
-
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.
Browse this shelf → -
Genealogy bookshelf, D-3
More about Rebecca Wall.
Browse this shelf → -
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 → -
Reference bookshelf, E-2
Traditional general reference books, still valuable as comprehensive, authoritative sources.
Browse this shelf → -
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.
-
Framed print: the 1892 county map
George W. Tate’s 1892 map of Orange County.
-
Framed print: Hillsborough, County Down
Views of the Irish town the county seat is named for.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Framed print: the 1768 town plan
C. J. Sauthier’s 1768 map of the town of Hillsborough.
-
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.
-
Assorted maps
Maps of the county and the town.
-
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.
-
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.
Society, economy, politics and law 300 to 389: 4 works as they shelve at OCPL, in call-number order. All 357, with filters by place, theme, and material, in the search →
-
Our Noise: The Story of Merge Records, the Indie Label That Got Big and Stayed Small
Cook, John · 2009 · Histories
John Cook's history of Merge Records, the independent label that Mac McCaughan and Laura Ballance of Superchunk built in Chapel Hill. Chapters follow the label year by year from 1987 to 2009 and pause for profiles of Butterglory, Neutral Milk Hotel, the Magnetic Fields, Spoon, Lambchop and the Arcade Fire, ending on how it managed to stay small. Advance reading copy of the first edition, published in Chapel Hill in 2009, 289 pages with twelve pages of plates.
Call number 338.761 COOKChapel HillArts, Music & PerformanceThe Cat’s Cradle and the “Chapel Hill sound” of the 1990s View in OCPL catalog → -
Going to Carolina Del Norte
2006
Stories of Mexican migrants told through a collaboration of the anthropologist Hannah Gill, the artist Todd Drake and migrant communities in Carrboro and Celaya, Guanajuato, subtitled narrating Mexican migrant experiences. It deals with migrant labor and Mexican workers in Carrboro and emigration from Celaya. Published by the University Center for International Studies at UNC-Chapel Hill in 2006, 78 pages with color illustrations.
Call number 362.85 GILLCarrboroWork, Labor & IndustryNewcomers & Changing Communities View in OCPL catalog → -
Time of Death
Gaskin, Nora · 2013 · Histories
Nora Gaskin's short true account of a murder investigation in 1960s Chapel Hill and the judicial error that followed, centered on Frank Rinaldi (1929 to 2009). Published in 2013 by Lystra Books, 52 pages with references.
Call number 364.152 GASKINChapel HillLaw, Courts & JusticeLiterature & Publishing View in OCPL catalog → -
Orange County, North Carolina
2012 · Maps
A group of materials combining a county planning document with a highway map of Orange County, dated 2012. The planning piece, issued in Raleigh by a state commission, lays out a planning and management process for the county with recommendations on land development. The map, based on the statewide highway planning survey, shows roads, bridges, utilities, public property, businesses and industries across Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Hillsborough; one copy carries red-pencil notes naming the county's voting precincts.
Call number 368.122 ORANGECarrboroBusiness, Shops & CommerceGrowth, Land & Planning 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.
Genealogy bookshelf, D-2: 212 titles as they stand on the shelf at OCPL, in call-number order. Published family histories, biographies and genealogical journals; the colonial and higher-court records of North Carolina; lives of prominent local figures, from William Tryon to John Blackfeather.
-
Anti-slavery Leaders of North Carolina
Bassett, John Spencer · 1971
John Spencer Bassett's study of North Carolinians who opposed slavery, first issued in 1898 in the Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science. An opening chapter on the western counties and the Quakers of Guilford and Randolph is followed by sketches of Hinton Rowan Helper, Daniel Reaves Goodloe, Eli Washington Caruthers, Lunsford Lane, and Benjamin Sherwood Hedrick, the Chapel Hill chemistry professor dismissed in 1856 for supporting Frémont. Reprinted in 1971, 74 pages.
Call number NC 920 BAS View in OCPL catalog → -
Ante-bellum Builders of North Carolina
Connor, R. D. W. · 1971
Four men who shaped North Carolina before the Civil War are the subjects of these lectures by R. D. W. Connor: Archibald Murphey and his plans for schools and internal improvements, David Swain and the constitutional reform of 1835, Calvin Wiley and the common schools, and John Morehead and the railroads. Delivered and published in 1914 at the State Normal and Industrial College; reprinted in 1971 from the 1930 edition, 123 pages.
Call number NC 920 CON View in OCPL catalog → -
Revolutionary Leaders of North Carolina
Connor, R. D. W. · 1971
Lectures on North Carolina's Revolutionary generation that R. D. W. Connor gave at the State Normal and Industrial College in the spring of 1913. A survey of the colony and state from 1765 to 1790 is followed by studies of four leaders: John Harvey, Cornelius Harnett, Richard Caswell and Samuel Johnston. Published in 1916 as the college's Historical Publications no. 2; reprinted in 1971, 125 pages.
Call number NC 920 CON View in OCPL catalog → -
Presidents North Carolina Gave the Nation: [Addresses and Papers in Connection With the Unveiling of A Monument to the Three Presidents North Carolina Gave the Nation
Daniels, Josephus · 1949
Speeches and papers from the dedication on October 19, 1948, of the monument on the State Capitol grounds in Raleigh to Andrew Jackson, James K. Polk and Andrew Johnson, the three presidents North Carolina claims as native sons. President Harry S. Truman gave the main address, and Charles Keck sculpted the figures. Contributors include Josephus Daniels and Willis Smith. Printed in Raleigh in 1949 for the state memorial commission, 61 pages with portraits.
Call number NC 920 DAN View in OCPL catalog → -
Some Pioneer Women Teachers of North Carolina
Delta Kappa Gamma Society · 1955
Sketches of women who taught in North Carolina, compiled by the Committee on Pioneer Women in Education of the state organization of Delta Kappa Gamma, the honor society for women educators, with Cordelia Camp among the compilers. Drafts submitted for it covered teachers such as Viola Boddie and Dr. Anna M. Gove, a physician on the early faculty of the State Normal and Industrial School. Published by the society in 1955, 213 pages with frontispieces.
Call number NC 920 DEL View in OCPL catalog → -
Sketches of Prominent Living North Carolinians
Dowd, Jerome · 1888
Jerome Dowd's sketches of North Carolinians prominent in 1888, beginning with a political section that opens on Senator Matt W. Ransom. His preface says he set out to give the main facts of each life plainly, and admits that a few sketches, among them those of A. M. Waddell and T. J. Jarvis, came from other writers he left unnamed. Printed in Raleigh by Edwards and Broughton, 320 pages with illustrations and an index.
Call number NC 920 DOW View in OCPL catalog → -
Tar Heel Writers I Know
Hoyle, Bernadette · 1956
Journalist and photographer Bernadette Hoyle profiles thirty-five North Carolina authors of the day, among them Paul Green, Jonathan Daniels, Wilma Dykeman, Bernice Kelly Harris, Frances Gray Patton, Manly Wade Wellman and Tom Wicker. The profiles draw on autobiographical sketches the writers sent her, some touching on how they work. Illustrated with her own informal photographs; published in Winston-Salem by John F. Blair in 1956, 215 pages.
Call number NC 920 HOY View in OCPL catalog → -
The First Ladies of North Carolina
Moore, Jeanelle Coulter · 1981
Short biographies of North Carolina's first ladies by Jeanelle Coulter Moore, herself first lady from 1965 to 1969, and Grace Rutledge Hamrick. It treats the governors' wives from 1776 to 1889 and then each first lady who lived in the present Executive Mansion through 1981. Published in 1981 by the Executive Mansion Fine Arts Committee, which Moore created, with the Mary Duke Biddle Foundation and the Bicentennial Foundation; 86 pages with portraits.
Call number NC 920 MOO View in OCPL catalog → -
My Folks Don't Want Me to Talk About Slavery: Twenty-one Oral Histories of Former North Carolina Slaves
1984
Twenty-one narratives by formerly enslaved North Carolinians, chosen by Belinda Hurmence for their quality and published by John F. Blair of Winston-Salem in 1984; 103 pages with a bibliography. Hurmence later combined them with South Carolina accounts in 'Before Freedom: 48 Oral Histories of Former North and South Carolina Slaves' (1990).
Call number NC 920 MY View in OCPL catalog → -
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 → -
Lives of Distinguished North Carolinians: With Illustrations and Speeches
Peele, W. J. · 1898
Fifteen biographical sketches of North Carolina leaders from the Revolution to the Civil War, by various writers, collected by W. J. Peele with portraits and speeches. Subjects include William R. Davie, Nathaniel Macon, William Gaston, Thomas Ruffin, Hillsborough's William A. Graham, and David L. Swain, whose sketch is by Zebulon B. Vance, along with the Confederate generals Pettigrew, Pender, Ramseur, Grimes and D. H. Hill. Raleigh, 1898; 605 pages.
Call number NC 920 PEE View in OCPL catalog → -
Tar Heel Women
Rogers, Lou · 1949
Biographical sketches of North Carolina women by Lou Rogers, published in Raleigh by the Warren Publishing Company in 1949; xiv and 284 pages with portraits.
Call number NC 920 ROG View in OCPL catalog →
Research help, online and in the room
