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.
Native peoples 970.004, 975.6004: 12 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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To Die Game: The Story of the Lowry Band, Indian Guerrillas of Reconstruction
Evans, William McKee · 1971
Henry Berry Lowry and his band of Lumbee guerrillas raided plantations and eluded posses in Robeson County through Reconstruction, after the execution of Lowry's father and brother in 1865; their fight ended in 1872, when Lowry vanished after a raid on Lumberton. W. McKee Evans tells their story in this history, published by Louisiana State University Press in 1971; 282 pages with maps and portraits.
Call number NC 970.004 EVA View in OCPL catalog → -
Tracing Ancestors Among the Five Civilized Tribes: Southeastern Indians Prior to Removal
Lennon, Rachel Mills · 2002
A research guide by Rachal Mills Lennon, a certified genealogist, for tracing Cherokee, Creek, Chickasaw, Choctaw and Seminole ancestors in the Southeast before the removals of the 1830s. It describes the federal records by topic and by tribe and adds a long bibliography. Genealogical Publishing Company, 2002, 156 pages with an index.
Call number NC 970.004 LEN View in OCPL catalog → -
The Role of Native Americans in Military Engagements: From the 17th Century to the 19th Century
2018
Seven essays, edited by Karen L. T. Ackermann, on Native peoples at war from the 1600s to the 1800s: the Lenape against Dutch and Swedish colonists, Mohawk fighting with New France, Governor Willem Kieft's war on the Wiechquaeskeck, the 1694 destruction of Oyster River plantation, the battle at Captina Creek, Andrew Jackson's campaigns and removal, and the St. Albert Mounted Rifles. First published in 2003; reprinted in 2018, 240 pages with maps.
Call number NC 970.004 ROLE View in OCPL catalog → -
American Indians in North Carolina: Geographical Interpretations
1999 Foundational
Thomas E. Ross's geographic study of American Indians in North Carolina. It examines Native peoples' history, cultural assimilation, and social and economic conditions across the state, with statistics. Published by Karo Hollow Press in 1999, eleven preliminary pages and 242 pages with illustrations and maps.
Call number NC 970.004 ROS View in OCPL catalog → -
Index to the Final Rolls of Citizens and Freedmen of the Five Civilized Tribes in Indian Territory
United States · 2003
The name index to the Dawes Commission's final rolls of the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek and Seminole nations, approved in March 1907. Roll by roll, beginning with the Choctaws by blood, names run alphabetically with the roll number and page that lead to each entry, and lists of errata and corrections come first. First printed in 1907; reprinted in 2003, 634 pages.
Call number NC 970.004 UNITED View in OCPL catalog → -
The Final Rolls of Citizens and Freedmen of the Five Civilized Tribes in Indian Territory
United States · 2003
The Dawes Rolls: the final enrollment of the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek and Seminole nations of Indian Territory, made by the Dawes Commission so that tribal land could be allotted, and approved by the Secretary of the Interior by March 4, 1907. Citizens by blood and freedmen, African Americans once enslaved in the nations and their descendants, are listed nation by nation with roll numbers. First printed in 1907; reprinted in 2003, 633 pages.
Call number NC 970.004 UNITED View in OCPL catalog → -
First on the Land: The North Carolina Indians
Wetmore, Ruth Y. · 1975
Ruth Y. Wetmore's account of North Carolina's Indian peoples from about 10,000 B.C. to 1975, written for secondary school students. It covers the Algonquians of the coast, the Iroquoian Tuscarora and Cherokee, and the Piedmont Siouans, with their daily life, beliefs and ceremonies, and the Cherokee, Lumbee, Tuscarora, Haliwa, Coharie and Waccamaw Siouan communities as they stood in the 1970s. John F. Blair published it in 1975, with maps and a bibliography.
Call number NC 970.004 WET View in OCPL catalog → -
The Saura and Keyauwee in the Land That Became Guilford, Randolph, and Rockingham
Arnett, Ethel Stephens · 1975
Before Guilford, Randolph and Rockingham counties were formed, their land was home to the Saura and the Keyauwee, two Native peoples whose history Ethel Stephens Arnett traces. The explorer John Lawson found the Keyauwee on Caraway Creek, in present Randolph County, in 1701. Published in Greensboro in 1975; 92 pages with illustrations, a bibliography and an index.
Call number NC 970.1 ARN View in OCPL catalog → -
The Cherokee Removal, 1838: An Entire Indian Nation Is Forced Out of Its Homeland
Fleischmann, Glen · 1971
Written for young readers, Glen Fleischmann's account of the Cherokee Nation's forced removal from its Southeastern homeland in 1838, the march remembered as the Trail of Tears. He describes Cherokee life and culture, the events leading up to removal, the arguments over whether it had to happen, and what it cost the people. Franklin Watts published it in 1971 as a Focus book; 88 pages with maps, facsimiles and portraits.
Call number NC 970.3 FLE View in OCPL catalog → -
Occaneechi-Saponi Descendants in the North Carolina Piedmont: the Texas Community
Hazel, Forest · 1991 Start here
Forest Hazel's 1991 study of the Occaneechi-Saponi descendants living in the Texas community of Orange County, near Mebane, tracing the families of that settlement. It concerns Occaneechi genealogy and Indians of North America in North Carolina. A starting point for anyone researching the county's Indigenous families.
Call number NC 970.4 HAZEL View in OCPL catalog → -
Red Carolinians
Milling, Chapman James · 1969
Chapman J. Milling's history of the Indian peoples of the Carolinas in the colonial period, with South Carolina at its center, first published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1940. This second edition, with a foreword by A. S. Salley, came from the University of South Carolina Press in 1969; 438 pages with illustrations, facsimiles, portraits and a bibliography of some seventeen pages.
Call number NC 970.4 MIL View in OCPL catalog → -
The American Indian in North Carolina
Rights, Douglas L. · 1947 Influential in its time
Douglas L. Rights's account of the Native peoples of North Carolina, first published by Duke University Press in 1947; 296 illustrated pages with references. His preface sets out to show how the state's Indians lived, to identify the tribes, and to trace where they moved. John F. Blair issued later editions, and a 1988 Winston-Salem printing appeared as a Wachovia Historical Society publication.
Call number NC 970.4 RIG View in OCPL catalog →
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