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.
The twelve most recently published of the 357 Orange County works at OCPL, each with its description and call number. All 357, with filters by place, theme, and material, in the search →
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Cross & Sampson
Patterson, James · 2026 · Fiction
An Alex Cross thriller by James Patterson with Chapel Hill among its settings alongside Washington, D.C. Bombings, a kidnapping, a missing-persons investigation, terrorism and fathers and sons are its subjects; the Sampson of the title is Cross's longtime partner John Sampson. Published by Little, Brown in 2026.
Call number F PATTERSOChapel HillBlack Life & Civil RightsLaw, Courts & Justice View in OCPL catalog → -
Forged in the Spirit
Haines, Nancy Learned · 2026 · Histories
Nancy Learned Haines tells the story of the Quaker families who left Pennsylvania around 1750 for the Eno River valley near Hillsborough, where they farmed, traded and built a school, and asks how a community committed to peace fared through the unrest of the colonial years. Published by Pleasant Green Books in 2026, 122 pages with bibliography and index. Subjects include Quakers in North Carolina and the history of Hillsborough, Orange County and the Eno River valley.
Call number NC 289.6 HAINESEno RiverChurches & FaithEno & Environment View in OCPL catalog → -
Dark Tales of the Eno River
Cook, David · 2025 · Histories
David Cook collects the grim side of the Eno River's past in Orange and Durham counties: ghost stories, crimes, train wrecks and accidents, including the hanging of rebels near the river in 1771, a sawmill accident said to have started a run of hauntings, and a dance one Valentine's Day that ended badly. Published by The History Press in 2025, 141 pages with illustrations.
Call number 133.109 COOKDurham County (neighboring)Eno & EnvironmentEveryday Life & Traditions 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 → -
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 → -
Tar Heel Bred
Whisnant, Scott · 2025 · Humor
Scott Whisnant's memoir of a life measured out in North Carolina basketball seasons. A former sportswriter, Whisnant writes for readers raised in ACC country who learned the fight song early and treated the conference tournament in Greensboro as the high point of the year, recalling family, friends and the personal milestones that fell alongside Tar Heel games. Subjects include humor and anecdotes as well as the team's history. Published by Bearface Publishing in 2025, 318 pages with photographs.
Call number BIO WHISNANT WHIChapel HillCarolina SportsFamilies, Land & Genealogy View in OCPL catalog → -
Vignettes
Shetley, Frances Lloyd · 2025 · Biography
Frances Lloyd Shetley's self-published collection of short recollections, issued in 2025, drawn from the author's own life in Calvander and Carrboro. Calvander is the crossroads community northwest of Carrboro.
Call number BIO SHETLEY SHECalvander 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 → -
Bright and tender dark: a novel
Pearson, Joanna · 2024 · Fiction
Joanna Pearson's novel of a cold case at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Karlie Richards was a nineteen-year-old student when she was murdered; decades later her onetime roommate, divorced and in middle age, finds herself drawn back to the crime as online conspiracy theories about it multiply. A psychological thriller with a Chapel Hill setting, published by Bloomsbury in 2024, 275 pages.
Chapel HillLaw, Courts & JusticeSchools & Education View in OCPL catalog → -
Clover Garden
Simpson, Bland · 2024 · Biography
Bland Simpson's memoir of country life in the Clover Garden community of Orange County, in the North Carolina Piedmont, published by UNC Press in 2024. Short chapters take in cabin life, neighbors like the Binghams and Mr. Stacy, hounds, owls and turkeys, an auction, Merritt's and Lewis Allen's store, the sculptor of White Cross School, Maple View, Saxapahaw, the Devil's Tramping Ground, storms and snows, and a carol for Cane Creek. 182 pages with illustrations.
Call number BIO SIMPSON SIMNorth Carolina (statewide)Eno & EnvironmentEveryday Life & Traditions View in OCPL catalog → -
Observations of an accidental farmer--and a mindful reader
Kavros, Harry · 2024 · Biography
Harry Kavros's 2024 collection of essays and anecdotes about taking up farm life near Hillsborough, from the landscape to keeping chickens and other animals, alongside reflections on the South and on the writers who shaped his reading: Thoreau, Emerson, Aldo Leopold, Annie Dillard and Frederick Law Olmsted. Sections run from an introduction through 'The landscape', 'Chickens and other beasts' and 'The South' to an epilogue and appendix. First Paul Dry Books edition, Philadelphia.
Call number 814.54 KAVROSHillsboroughEno & EnvironmentFarms & Rural Life View in OCPL catalog → -
A Really Strange and Wonderful Time
Maxwell, Tom · 2024
Tom Maxwell's 2024 account of Chapel Hill's alternative rock scene in the 1990s, set against North Carolina's longer musical history. Maxwell writes as a musician who played in that scene, and the book follows the bands, clubs and labels that drew national attention to the town. Subjects include alternative rock music, Chapel Hill, 1991-2000, history and criticism. Published by Hachette, 310 pages with plates.
Call number 780.903 MAXWELLChapel HillArts, Music & PerformanceThe Cat’s Cradle and the “Chapel Hill sound” of the 1990s 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.
Biography 920 and BIO: 68 titles as they stand on the shelf at OCPL, in call-number order. Genealogy bookshelf, D-2: 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.
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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
