Skip to content

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.

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 →

Children’s and young adult J, YA: 12 works as they shelve at OCPL, in call-number order. All 357, with filters by place, theme, and material, in the search →

  • Goodnight Carolina Fox, Missy Julian · 2012 · Fiction

    A picture book for young children set in Chapel Hill and on the University of North Carolina campus, written by Missy Julian Fox and published in Carrboro by McDonald & Associates in 2012. Thirty pages with color illustrations in a wide 23 by 27 cm format.

    Call number E FOXChapel HillUNC & Campus Life View in OCPL catalog →
  • Planting Hope Wilde, Susie; Gignoux, Peg · 2016

    Planting Hope, a 2016 work by Susie Wilde and Peg Gignoux, associated with Carrboro.

    Call number E PLANTING View in OCPL catalog →
  • Bean Woman Wynters, Criss · 2024 · Juvenile literature

    Criss Wynters's children's book retelling an Occaneechi folk story, published in 2024. Its Orange County connection is the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation, based in the northern part of the county.

    Call number J 398.208 WYNTERSEveryday Life & TraditionsIndigenous Peoples & Archaeology View in OCPL catalog →
  • University of North Carolina Anderson, Josh · 2024 · Juvenile literature

    Children's introduction to Tar Heel basketball by Josh Anderson, published by the Child's World in 2024. In 32 pages with color illustrations it covers the origins of the men's program and the women's program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the mascot, rivalries, well-known players and memorable games. 25 cm.

    Call number J 796.323 ANDERSONCarolina SportsUNC & Campus Life View in OCPL catalog →
  • Saving the Eno River Thomson, Julie J. · 2023 · Juvenile literature

    A short history for young readers of how the Eno River was kept free of a dam. The Eno rises in Orange County and runs through Hillsborough into Durham County. When Durham proposed a dam in the 1960s, Margaret Nygard (1925-1995) and her neighbors formed the Association for the Preservation of the Eno River Valley; Julie J. Thomson tells how they won Eno River State Park instead. Eno River Association, Durham, 2023; 25 illustrated pages.

    Call number J 975.656 THOMSONEno RiverEno & EnvironmentLiterature & Publishing View in OCPL catalog →
  • Poet: The Remarkable Story of George Moses Horton Tate, Don · 2015 · Juvenile literature

    Don Tate's picture-book biography of George Moses Horton (1798?-about 1880), the enslaved North Carolina poet who learned to read on his own, then to write, and saw his poems published while still held in bondage. For years Horton sold love poems to students at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, and his freedom came only with the Civil War. First edition, 2015, 36 unnumbered pages with color illustrations by the author, for young readers.

    Call number JB HORTON TATChapel HillBlack Life & Civil RightsLiterature & Publishing View in OCPL catalog →
  • Freedom's Howl Heyes, Eileen · 2025 · Fiction

    A picture book set in the Eno River valley of Orange County in 1776. Four red wolf pups are born in a woodland den and spend their first summer and fall learning to hunt and howl with their family, while nearby a young widow, Sally Few, keeps her household going as the Revolution unsettles the countryside. Eileen Heyes wrote the story, published in 2025 by the North Carolina Office of Archives and History with color illustrations and maps, 42 pages.

    Call number JF HEYESEno RiverColonial Orange CountyEno & Environment View in OCPL catalog →
  • The Issue 2018 · Periodicals

    Collection of collaborative writing and art from 2018, linking contributors in Hillsborough, North Carolina with others in Austin, Chicago and Portland. Subjects include artistic collaboration, literary and artistic creation, and cultural pluralism.

    Call number YA 818 ISSUEHillsboroughLiterature & Publishing View in OCPL catalog →
  • Oathbound Deonn, Tracy · 2025 · Fiction

    Third novel in Tracy Deonn's Legendborn series, young adult fantasy that began with a Black first-year student at UNC-Chapel Hill discovering a secret society descended from King Arthur's knights. In this 2025 installment Bree, cut off from the Order and from her ancestral magic, makes a pact with the Shadow King to sharpen her powers and shield her friends while the divided Round Table fights demons. Deonn is a North Carolina author. 650 pages; for readers 14 and up.

    Call number YA F DEONNBlack Life & Civil RightsLiterature & Publishing View in OCPL catalog →
  • Someone Like You Dessen, Sarah · 1998 · Fiction

    Sarah Dessen's second young adult novel, published by Viking in 1998, 281 pages. Dessen writes from Chapel Hill, and the story follows a girl through a junior year marked by a close friendship, a fatal accident, a teenage pregnancy and a first real romance.

    Call number YA F DESSENLiterature & PublishingSchools & Education View in OCPL catalog →
  • That Summer Dessen, Sarah · 1996 · Fiction

    Sarah Dessen's first novel, published by Orchard Books in 1996, 198 pages, a young adult story about a fifteen-year-old girl in the summer her father remarries and her sister marries. Dessen is a Chapel Hill writer, and the book was later a Battle of the Books selection for 2013 to 2014.

    Call number YA F DESSENLiterature & Publishing View in OCPL catalog →
  • This Lullaby Dessen, Sarah · 2002 · Fiction

    Sarah Dessen's fifth young adult novel, published by Viking in 2002, 345 pages. Remy, eighteen and the daughter of a much-married mother, has no faith in lasting romance until a musician in a rock band gets in the way. Dessen writes from Chapel Hill.

    Call number YA F DESSENArts, Music & PerformanceFamilies, Land & Genealogy 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.

Search it alongside the indexed works →

Science, medicine, agriculture and technology 500 to 639, 650 to 699: 43 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.

  • Exploring North Carolina's Natural Areas: Parks, Nature Preserves, and Hiking Trails 2000

    Driving tours of the state's natural areas, 38 in all, written by naturalists from across the state and edited by Dirk Frankenberg, a marine sciences professor at UNC Chapel Hill. Grouped by the coast, the coastal plain, the Piedmont and the mountains, each tour follows a route of thirty to seventy miles linking parks, preserves, hiking and nature trails and scenic overlooks. UNC Press, 2000, 412 pages with 42 maps.

    Call number 508.756 EXP View in OCPL catalog →
  • Exploring the Geology of the Carolinas: A Field Guide to Favorite Places From Chimney Rock to Charleston Stewart, Kevin G. · 2007

    A field guide to geological sites across North and South Carolina, from Chimney Rock in the mountains to Charleston on the coast, by Kevin G. Stewart and Mary-Russell Roberson. Stops include DuPont State Forest, Whiteside Mountain and Grandfather Mountain, and the text takes up rocks, minerals, gold, fossils and plate tectonics. The University of North Carolina Press published it in 2007 with color plates, maps and an index.

    Call number 557.56 STE View in OCPL catalog →
  • A North Carolina Naturalist: H.H. Brimley: Selections From His Writings Brimley, Herbert Hutchinson · 1971

    Selected writings of Herbert Hutchinson Brimley, the English-born, self-taught naturalist who studied North Carolina's wildlife for more than sixty years, in the field and as longtime head of the state's natural history museum in Raleigh. Eugene P. Odum edited the collection, which the University of North Carolina Press first published in 1949, three years after Brimley's death; Books for Libraries Press reprinted it in 1971, 205 pages with photographs and portraits.

    Call number fNC 574.975 BRI View in OCPL catalog →
  • Putting Down Roots: Foundations of Botany at Carolina : With A Concluding Chapter on the History of the Department of Botany Burk, William R. · 2023

    William R. Burk's history of botany at the University of North Carolina, from its early natural scientists such as Denison Olmsted and Elisha Mitchell through later figures including George Francis Atkinson, Joseph Austin Holmes and Henry Van Peters Wilson, closing with a chapter on the Department of Botany itself. Published in Fort Worth in 2023.

    Call number NC 580.9 BURK View in OCPL catalog →
  • Essays on William Chambers Coker, Passionate Botanist Joslin, Mary Coker · 2003

    Mary Coker Joslin's essays on her uncle, William Chambers Coker (1872 to 1953), the University of North Carolina botanist who began the Coker Arboretum in Chapel Hill in 1903 and chaired the botany department for 36 years. She presents him as scientist, teacher, landscape designer and editor. Published in Chapel Hill by the Botanical Garden Foundation in 2003, the arboretum's centennial year, with drawings by Sandra Brooks-Mathers and eight pages of plates.

    Call number NC 580.92 JOS View in OCPL catalog →
  • Chapel Hill and Elisha Mitchell, the Botanist McVaugh, Rogers · 1996

    Elisha Mitchell, the University of North Carolina professor for whom Mount Mitchell is named, as botanist and as observer of early Chapel Hill, in a study by Rogers McVaugh, Michael R. McVaugh and Mary Ayers. It covers Mitchell's botanical knowledge, the plants of Chapel Hill and the town's historical geography. Published by the Botanical Garden Foundation in Chapel Hill in 1996, 122 pages with illustrations and maps.

    Call number NC 580.92 MCV View in OCPL catalog →
  • Botany: Containing A Catalogue of the Plants of the State, With Descriptions and History of the Trees, Shrubs, and Woody Vines Curtis, M. A. · 1860

    Moses Ashley Curtis's botanical report for the state, issued in 1860 as Part III of North Carolina's Geological and Natural History Survey. It catalogues the plants of North Carolina and describes its trees, shrubs and woody vines; 123 pages with an index. Curtis, an Episcopal priest and botanist, was rector at Hillsborough and died there in 1872. A longer edition followed in 1867, and the state reprinted the shrub and vine accounts in 1945.

    Call number NC 581.078 CUR View in OCPL catalog →
  • Stock-poisoning Plants of North Carolina Hardin, James W. · 1966

    Issued in 1966 as Bulletin 414 of the Agricultural Experiment Station at North Carolina State University, James W. Hardin's guide covers the plants of the state that poison livestock. It runs to 126 pages with illustrations, maps, references and an index.

    Call number NC 581.6 HAR View in OCPL catalog →
  • Herbs and Herb Lore of Colonial America Colonial Dames of America · 1995

    The Connecticut society of the Colonial Dames of America describes more than fifty herbs and plants that colonial New Englanders used as medicines, dyes, disinfectants and seasonings, from bee balm and feverfew to tansy and yarrow. Each plant has a drawing from an early herbal, its common and botanical names, and an account of its household uses and lore. First published at Wethersfield in 1970 as 'Simples, Superstitions & Solace'; reprinted by Dover in 1995.

    Call number NC 581.63 COLONIAL View in OCPL catalog →
  • Lindy's Identification Keys for Native Plants Growing in the North Carolina Triangle Lindholm, Roy C. · 2002

    Illustrated keys for identifying the native plants of the Triangle region around Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill, compiled by Roy C. Lindholm and published by him in Chapel Hill in 2002, with a short bibliography and indexes.

    Call number NC 581.975 LINDHOLM View in OCPL catalog →
  • Atlas of the Vascular Flora of the Carolinas Radford, Albert E. · 1965

    Maps showing where the vascular plants of North and South Carolina grow, compiled by Albert E. Radford of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with Harry E. Ahles and C. Ritchie Bell, three years before their Manual of the Vascular Flora of the Carolinas (1968). Issued in Raleigh in 1965 as Technical Bulletin 165 of the North Carolina Agricultural Experiment Station, 208 pages, chiefly maps, with an index.

    Call number NC 581.975 RAD View in OCPL catalog →
  • Manual of the Vascular Flora of the Carolinas Radford, Albert E. · 1968

    The standard manual for identifying the vascular plants of North and South Carolina, from ferns to conifers and flowering plants, by Albert E. Radford of the University of North Carolina with Harry E. Ahles and C. Ritchie Bell. The University of North Carolina Press published it in 1968: 1,183 pages with illustrations and a bibliography.

    Call number NC 581.975 RAD View in OCPL catalog →
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