Chronology

Hillsborough Academy reopens for boys and girls under Andrew Flinn

The academy's trustees announced that it had reopened on a larger plan for youth of both sexes under the Rev. Andrew Flinn, teaching Latin, Greek, English, mathematics and bookkeeping.

People: William Kirkland · Duncan Cameron

Archibald D. Murphey marries Jane Armistead Scott and settles at the Hermitage

After leaving the University to read law in Hillsborough under William Duffy, Murphey married Jane Armistead Scott on November 5, 1801, and made his home at the Hermitage, her father's farm on Great Alamance Creek about eighteen miles west of Hillsborough, in the part of Orange County that is now Alamance. He built his law practice around the Hillsborough courthouse.

Cameron becomes a trustee of the University of North Carolina

Cameron joined the board of trustees of the University of North Carolina in 1802, while he was practicing law at Hillsborough.

Cameron builds Fairntosh east of the Stagville house

A year after his 1803 marriage to Rebecca Bennehan, Cameron built the Fairntosh house about a mile east of Stagville, with dependencies that included his law office, a chapel and a family burying ground. He went on to hold more than a thousand people in slavery.

Frederick Nash is elected a trustee of the University of North Carolina

Nash was elected a trustee of the University of North Carolina in 1807 and remained an active supporter of the university. It awarded him an LL.D. in 1853.

Frederick Nash moves from New Bern to Hillsborough

Nash and his wife left New Bern for Hillsborough in 1807 seeking a healthier climate. There he bought a small one-story house, an office and cabins for slave quarters from Duncan Cameron.

People: Duncan Cameron

Thomas Ruffin qualifies to practice law and settles at Hillsborough

Ruffin finished his legal studies under Archibald D. Murphey in Rockingham County, qualified to practice law in 1808 and moved to Hillsborough, where he built his practice. William A. Graham later read law with him there.

Grammar school under William Paisley opens west of Hillsborough

A grammar school under the Rev. William Paisley was announced to open in January 1809 about ten miles west of Hillsborough, teaching Latin, Greek, geography and philosophy for sixteen dollars a year.

Dr. James Webb serves as Hillsborough agent of the Bank of Cape Fear

In 1810 Dr. James Webb was appointed Hillsborough agent, or cashier, of the branch of the Bank of the Cape Fear, a post he held until 1846. The branch rented a small building on West King Street, and many of its stockholder lists, dividend records and at least one ledger survive.

Polly Burke buys her house on East Queen Street

Mary Williams Burke, the only child of Governor Thomas Burke, bought a modest house on East Queen Street in Hillsborough for four hundred dollars on June 5, 1810, when she was twenty-eight. She added the east bay to the house, which was later enlarged and named Heartsease.

William R. Davie receives the university's first honorary degree

The University of North Carolina awarded William R. Davie an honorary LL.D. in 1811, the first honorary degree it conferred. Davie had sat on the board of trustees from 1789 to 1807.

Archibald D. Murphey serves Orange County in the state senate

Archibald D. Murphey was elected to the legislature from Orange County in 1812 and sat in the state senate until 1818. There he proposed a publicly financed system of schools in a report he finished on November 29, 1817, and in 1819 he followed it with his memoir on internal improvements.

Rev. William Bingham takes charge of Hillsborough Academy

The trustees announced that the Rev. William Bingham had taken charge of Hillsborough Academy, with exercises to begin on February 3 and Elizabeth Russell in charge of a female department.

Thomas Ruffin represents Hillsborough in the House of Commons

Ruffin sat for the town of Hillsborough in the North Carolina House of Commons in 1813, 1815 and 1816, until he was elected a Superior Court judge at the age of twenty-nine.

Thomas Ruffin serves on the University of North Carolina Board of Trustees

Ruffin served on the university's Board of Trustees from 1813 to 1831 and again from 1842 to 1868. The residence hall completed in 1922 was named for him and for his son Thomas Ruffin Jr.

Frederick Nash represents Orange County in the House of Commons

Nash sat for Orange County in the House of Commons in 1814, 1816 and 1817. He was speaker of the house in 1814.

Hillsborough Academy is rechartered

Hillsborough Academy received a new charter from the General Assembly in 1814.

William Bingham runs his school at Mount Repose northwest of Hillsborough

After leaving Hillsborough Academy, the Rev. William Bingham kept his own academy at Mount Repose, in a house on Back Creek about ten miles northwest of Hillsborough. His son William James Bingham closed it in 1826 when he took over Hillsborough Academy.

Witherspoon takes charge of the Hillsborough Academy

Returning to Hillsborough at twenty-five, Witherspoon took a double charge: the pastorate of the newly built Presbyterian church and the principalship of the closely allied Hillsborough Academy. He gave up the academy sometime after 1819.

Hillsborough physician James S. Smith serves in Congress

James Strudwick Smith, an Orange County-born physician who had studied medicine with Dr. James Webb of Hillsborough, represented the Hillsborough district in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Congresses from March 4, 1817, to March 3, 1821. He was defeated when he sought a third term.

Dr. James Webb deeds land for Polly Burke's log schoolhouse

On November 6, 1817, Dr. James Webb deeded to his neighbor Mary W. Burke a strip of his lot on East Queen Street, where a log schoolhouse was built for her to teach the Webb children. Known as Miss Polly Burke's School, it took neighborhood children from about 1818 to 1834 and is cited as a forerunner of the Burwell School.

William Woods Holden is born near Hillsborough

William Woods Holden, later editor of the North Carolina Standard and governor, was born near Hillsborough to Thomas Holden and Priscilla Woods. His grandfather had moved to Orange County to farm, and from age six he was raised by his stepmother, Sally Nichols Holden.

Chapel Hill Academy prepares boys for the university under James A. Craig

James A. Craig announced that the Chapel Hill Academy would begin its session on June 20, 1820, with a course arranged as preparation for the University of North Carolina and sessions matching the university's.

Josiah Turner Jr. is born in Hillsborough

Josiah Turner Jr. was born in Hillsborough, the eldest son of Josiah and Eliza Evans Turner. His father was a longtime sheriff and large landowner in Orange County.

Named enslaved workers build the third story of Old East

Bills from William Nichols's 1822 to 1824 enlargement of Old East list enslaved carpenters, bricklayers and laborers including Bob, Henry, Nelson, Allman, Tony, Luke, Isaac and Ned Peek, with their pay due to their owners. One bill from John C. White came to about $395.

The Franklin Library Society is organized in Hillsborough and chartered by the General Assembly

The Franklin Library Society was established in Hillsborough on February 7, 1822, for the promotion of learning and cultivation of virtue. The General Assembly incorporated it that December, giving it the power to hold property, sue and be sued, and make its own bylaws.

Dr. James Webb offers free smallpox vaccination in Hillsborough

The Hillsborough Recorder announced in February 1822 that Dr. James Webb had fresh vaccine matter and would vaccinate anyone who applied, free of charge, at his shop every Wednesday from noon to two o'clock. The notice cited smallpox recently brought into the Tarborough area.

James S. Smith's building commission starts Hillsborough's brick Masonic Hall

In July 1823 commissioners James S. Smith, Thomas Clancy and J. P. Sneed advertised in the Hillsborough Recorder for proposals to build a brick Masonic Hall in the town. The cornerstone was laid on November 23, 1823, for the Greek Revival hall designed by William Nichols and built by local brickmasons John Berry and Samuel Hancock.

Hillsborough Female Seminary opens under Lavinia Brainerd

A female seminary opened in Hillsborough on August 1, 1825, taught by Lavinia Brainerd under the supervision of the Rev. William M. Green. DNCR says the Hillsborough Female Academy had been incorporated apart from the male academy in 1824.

People: William Mercer Green

The House of Commons postpones the Franklin Library Society's request for a book lottery

Hillsborough's Franklin Library Society asked the General Assembly for leave to raise up to three thousand dollars by lottery to buy useful books for its library. The petition, signed December 14, 1825 by the society's officers including librarian Thomas C. Palmer, was read in the House of Commons on December 23 and indefinitely postponed.

The Phillips family, with infant Cornelia, moves to Chapel Hill

James Phillips moved his family from New York to Chapel Hill in 1826 when he became professor of mathematics at the University of North Carolina, where he taught until his death in 1867. His daughter Cornelia, born in Harlem in March 1825, grew up in the village.

People: James Phillips

St. Matthew's Church in Hillsborough is consecrated under its first rector, William Mercer Green

William Mercer Green became first rector of the reorganized St. Matthew's parish in 1825, the year work began on its brick church; state architect William Nichols and brickmaker John Berry were among the builders. Bishop John Stark Ravenscroft consecrated the church on May 21, 1826, during the diocesan convention it hosted.

William James Bingham becomes principal of Hillsborough Academy

After John Rogers resigned, the trustees engaged William James Bingham as principal of Hillsborough Academy, where he taught until he moved his school to the country in 1844.

Fire destroys Witherspoon's farmhouse and the Orange Presbytery records

The fire burned the Witherspoons' rural home a mile and a half south of Hillsborough and its contents, including all but one volume of the old records of Orange Presbytery, which Witherspoon held as stated clerk. Losses were put at about 3,000 dollars and the house was rebuilt.

Archibald D. Murphey gives the first commencement-eve oration in Person Hall

On June 27, 1827, the day before commencement, Murphey delivered an oration in Person Hall at Chapel Hill under the appointment of the Dialectic Society. Addressing the Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies, he argued that a college course only prepared the mind for later learning; the speech was printed and reissued in 1843.

Frederick Nash represents the town of Hillsborough in the House of Commons

Having earlier sat for Orange County, Nash represented the town of Hillsborough itself in the House of Commons in 1828 and 1829.

William W. Holden serves as an apprentice printer at the Hillsborough Recorder

At about age ten Holden was apprenticed as a printer's devil to Dennis Heartt, editor of the Hillsborough Recorder, who was responsible for his early education and political views. He struck out on his own at about sixteen, working first for the Milton Chronicle.

William A. Graham establishes a law practice in Hillsborough

Graham read law with Thomas Ruffin of Orange County and, having taken his county and superior court licences, had established a practice among the Hillsborough bar by March 1828. He kept a law practice until his death and in time owned three plantations worked by enslaved people.

People: Thomas Ruffin

University Presbyterian Church is organized

Chapel Hill's Presbyterians organized a congregation in 1829, meeting in homes and university buildings, with university faculty serving as ministers. Their first sanctuary on Franklin Street was dedicated September 23, 1849, and the congregation, long called Chapel Hill Presbyterian Church, took the name University Presbyterian Church in the 1960s.

James, an enslaved college servant, escapes from Chapel Hill

Samuel M. Stewart advertised a $20 reward in the Hillsborough Recorder for James, who had worked four years as a college servant at the university. Stewart thought he was headed for Norfolk or Richmond to reach the free states or Africa through the Colonization Society.

Professor James Phillips hires David Barham from his owner as a college servant

In 1830 Professor James Phillips hired David Barham from William Barham to work as a college servant. A university account book page from the same year shows students paying a two-dollar fee to compensate the slaveholders whose people were hired as servants.

People: James Phillips

The census lists the Texas community families as free Negro heads of household

The 1830 federal census for the North District of Orange County listed the Whitmores, Jeffrieses, Corns, Burnettes, Haithcocks and Joneses among free Negro heads of household. Through the nineteenth century county and federal records almost always classed these families as free colored or mulatto, and almost never as Indian.

William Mercer Green delivers the literary societies' oration before commencement

On June 22, 1831, the day before commencement, William Mercer Green delivered an oration at Chapel Hill on the influence of Christianity upon the welfare of nations, under the annual appointment of the Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies. Dennis Heartt printed it in Hillsborough the same year.

Cadwallader Jones graduates from the University of North Carolina

Jones, the son of Cadwallader and Rebecca Edwards Long Jones of West Hill near Hillsborough, took his degree at Chapel Hill in 1832.

Archibald D. Murphey dies in Hillsborough

Archibald D. Murphey died in Hillsborough, then his home, on February 1, 1832, after years of rheumatism and debt, and was buried in the town graveyard a few feet from the door of the Presbyterian church. No monument marked his grave when the memoir in his published papers was written.

James Phillips is licensed to preach and later serves New Hope Presbyterian Church

Mathematics professor James Phillips joined the Presbyterian church in 1832 and was licensed to preach by Orange Presbytery in 1833. He was later ordained and installed as minister of New Hope Presbyterian Church, about seven miles outside Chapel Hill, and shared the university chapel work with Elisha Mitchell.

William A. Graham represents Hillsborough and then Orange County in the House of Commons

Graham was borough representative from Hillsborough in the legislatures of 1833, 1834 and 1835. After the constitutional reforms of 1835 he represented Orange County in the House of Commons in the 1836, 1838 and 1840 sessions, and he was speaker in the last two.

Witherspoon ends seventeen years as pastor at Hillsborough

Witherspoon severed his connection with the Hillsborough Presbyterian Church and moved to Camden, South Carolina. His advocacy of religious education, Sunday schools and preaching for enslaved people had strained relations with his congregation.

Polly Burke leaves Hillsborough for Alabama

In August 1834 Mary W. Burke sold most of her household goods and moved to Greensboro, Alabama, with her niece's family, part of a wider migration of Hillsborough people to Alabama. After her nephew-in-law died there she settled in Marion, where she taught again for many years.

Dr. James Webb builds the Presbyterian Sessions House in the Old Town Cemetery

In 1835 Dr. James Webb took a ninety-nine-year lease on the southeast corner of Hillsborough's Old Town Cemetery lot and built a frame Sessions House with a bell tower there. It served as the Presbyterian Sunday school room and later as a public library until 1934.

Elizabeth Hobbs is brought to Hillsborough in the household of Robert and Anna Burwell

When the Reverend Robert Burwell became minister of the Presbyterian church in Hillsborough, he moved his household from Virginia, bringing the enslaved Elizabeth Hobbs, later Keckly. By her own account she was nearly eighteen.

St. Matthew's adds a gallery for Black worshippers under William Mercer Green

In 1835, during William Mercer Green's rectorship, a gallery was added to St. Matthew's Church in Hillsborough to seat Black worshippers. Green also held monthly services at Duncan Cameron's Salem Chapel, where he gave instruction to enslaved people.

People: Duncan Cameron

James S. Smith of Orange moves to abolish borough seats at the 1835 convention

At the state constitutional convention in Raleigh, James S. Smith, one of Orange County's two delegates with William Montgomery, moved on June 11, 1835, to abolish borough representation entirely; the motion failed 61 to 67. The convention's committee later recommended taking the House seat from Hillsborough, Halifax and Salisbury while keeping it for four other towns.

Jones begins practicing law at Hillsborough

Jones began his legal career in Hillsborough in 1836 and practiced there until he moved his family to a cotton plantation near Rock Hill, South Carolina, in 1857. He sat in the House of Commons for the 1840, 1842, 1848 and 1850 sessions and became solicitor of the Fourth Judicial District in April 1843.

Schoolmaster William J. Bingham repeatedly beats Elizabeth Hobbs at Anna Burwell's urging

Anna Burwell had William J. Bingham, the Hillsborough schoolmaster, flog Elizabeth Hobbs over a period of weeks in an attempt to break her spirit. Her memoir says Robert Burwell also beat her, and that she was eighteen at the time.

William Kirkland dies, leaving Ayr Mount to his widow

William Kirkland died in 1836 and left his estate to his wife, Margaret Scott Kirkland; their son John Umstead Kirkland later acquired Ayr Mount from her estate. The inventory taken after his death lists twenty enslaved people, some of whom worked at his store, tannery and other businesses in Hillsborough.

David L. Swain moves to Chapel Hill as university president

Chosen to succeed the late Joseph Caldwell, former governor David L. Swain moved to Chapel Hill in January 1836 to become president and professor of national and constitutional law. He stayed at the university for the rest of his life, the longest term of any of its presidents.

Alexander McKenzie Kirkland subjects Elizabeth Hobbs to about four years of sexual coercion

Alexander McKenzie Kirkland, a white man from a prominent Hillsborough merchant-planter family, repeatedly sexually assaulted Elizabeth Hobbs over about four years. In her memoir she did not name him and wrote that a white man pursued her for four years.

Enslaved plasterers, masons and laborers work on South Building's new roof

Thomas Waitt's bill for 1837 work on South Building, including its tin roof, lists wages for enslaved plasterers and masons Stewart, Chester, Peter, Calvin and Evans and laborers including Lewis, Tom, Redin, Abraham and Jordan.

Polly Burke's Queen Street house passes to Dennis Heartt's family

On May 4, 1837, Mary W. Burke, then living in Alabama, gave Dr. James Webb power of attorney to dispose of her remaining Hillsborough property. Her East Queen Street house was sold that year to the family of Recorder editor Dennis Heartt, who named it Heartsease and added a Greek Revival wing about 1840.

William Mercer Green leaves St. Matthew's to become university chaplain and professor

William Mercer Green accepted a post at the University of North Carolina as chaplain and professor of belles lettres and resigned from St. Matthew's in Hillsborough the following year. The Hillsborough congregation had grown from seventeen communicants in his first year to sixty-seven when he left.

Anna Burwell opens a school for girls in Hillsborough

Anna Burwell advertised that she would open a female school in Hillsborough on July 17, 1837, teaching the usual English branches, with music available. She and her husband, the Rev. Robert Burwell, ran it in their home until 1857.

Mount Pleasant Academy, later Junto Academy, operates under Daniel W. Kerr

Daniel W. Kerr ran an academy in northern Orange County, advertised as Mount Pleasant Academy in 1837 and by 1838 as Junto Academy, twelve miles northwest of Hillsborough and six miles south of Mason Hall.

Frances Armistead Burwell is born to Robert and Anna Burwell of Hillsborough

Frances Armistead Burwell, called Fanny, was the fourth of the twelve children of Robert and Margaret Anna Burwell.

Jones serves as a trustee of the University of North Carolina

Jones was a trustee of his own university from 1840 until 1857, the years he was practicing law at Hillsborough.

The Hogan-Rogers House was built on the Hogan plantation on Purefoy Road

The house on Purefoy Road, on land now owned by St. Paul AME Church, dates to the 1840s and stood on the Hogan plantation, where enslaved people lived in its basement. INDY Week reported in 2012 that many Rogers-Eubanks residents descend from people held on the plantation.

Elizabeth Hobbs gives birth to her son George in Hillsborough

Elizabeth Hobbs gave birth to her only child, George, whose father was Alexander Kirkland. George later took the surname Kirkland.

People: George Kirkland

Elizabeth Hobbs and her son are sent from Hillsborough back to Virginia

The Burwells sent Elizabeth Hobbs and her son George back to Dinwiddie County, Virginia, where she rejoined her mother in the household of Ann Burwell Garland and Hugh Garland. The Garlands later took the family to St. Louis, where she bought her freedom and George's in 1855.

People: George Kirkland

Hillsborough Literary Association forms with Dennis Heartt as secretary

A Literary Association was formed at Hillsborough in early 1842 with Frederick Nash as president; James S. Smith, Cadwallader Jones and Robert Burwell as vice presidents; Dennis Heartt as secretary; and Walter A. Norwood as treasurer. Heartt, a charter member, had helped organize it.

People: Frederick Nash · Cadwallader Jones

William Mercer Green organizes an Episcopal parish in Chapel Hill

In May 1842 William Mercer Green presided over the organization of the Church of the Atonement, an Episcopal parish in Chapel Hill with fifteen communicants, which met in members' homes for five years while its church was built. A record of subscribers for building the church, dated 1843, survives in Green's papers.

Dr. James Webb is declared bankrupt and his goods are auctioned

Dr. James Webb was declared bankrupt on November 1, 1842, and his possessions were sold at public auction on December 11. His friends and neighbors bought back nearly everything offered for him and his family.

Brothers Albert and Osborne, enslaved by Dabney Cosby, plaster the lengthened Old East

The 1844 to 1845 extension of Old East, designed by Alexander J. Davis and costing $9,454, used the labor of Albert and Osborne, brothers enslaved by Dabney Cosby. Albert's plastering was praised as first-rate work.

People: Albert · Osborne · Dabney Cosby

Dabney Cosby takes the masonry subcontract for the lengthening of Old East and Old West

Chapel Hill contractors Isaac J. Collier and Kendall B. Waitt subcontracted the masonry of the university additions to Cosby, who put enslaved workmen including the brothers Osborne and Albert on the job. Cosby and the architect Alexander Jackson Davis quarrelled over the drawings, and president David L. Swain asked the Hillsborough builder John Berry to look at the brickwork, which Berry reported was defective.

William James Bingham opens his school at the Oaks

William James Bingham left Hillsborough Academy and opened a select classical and mathematical school at the Oaks in rural Orange County. It became known as the Bingham School and stayed there until 1865.

David L. Swain organizes the Historical Society of the University of North Carolina

In January 1844 President David L. Swain announced the Historical Society of the University of North Carolina, with himself as president and the whole faculty as its executive committee. It set out to copy colonial records in British repositories and to collect North Carolina books, newspapers and papers at the university.

Charles Phillips returns to Chapel Hill as a tutor of mathematics

Phillips accepted a call from President David L. Swain in July 1844 to return to the University of North Carolina as his father's assistant. He held the post of tutor of mathematics until 1853.

Dennis Heartt prints The Poetical Works of George M. Horton

Dennis Heartt printed The Poetical Works of George M. Horton, the Colored Bard of North-Carolina at Hillsborough in 1845, with Horton's autobiography prefixed to the poems. It was the second book by Horton, who was still enslaved when it appeared.

Hillsborough citizens pay to refit the academy building for the Caldwell Institute

Townspeople paid for the repair and enlargement of the Hillsborough Academy building so that the Caldwell Institute could move in from Greensboro. The older school was absorbed into the institute under Alexander Wilson.

Josiah Turner Jr. is admitted to the bar after studying law in Hillsborough

After schooling at the Caldwell Institute in Greensboro and a year at the University of North Carolina, Josiah Turner Jr. studied law for two years in Hillsborough and was admitted to the bar in about 1845. He soon built a large practice.

The Old Orange County Courthouse is moved up Churton Street to Queen Street

After the county built a new courthouse, the old wooden courthouse was sold to the Baptist missionary Elias Dodson, who had it moved up Churton Street from the court square to the corner of Churton and Queen streets for use as a church. The building later became the freedmen's school and then the home of Dickerson Chapel AME Church.

Trustees bar students from bringing their own enslaved servants to the university

After 1845 the trustees prohibited students from bringing enslaved people of their own to Chapel Hill. The university went on hiring enslaved college servants by the year from local slaveholders.

Osborne begins the masonry on the additions to Old East and Old West

Dabney Cosby, who held the masonry subcontract for the university additions, sent Osborne to Chapel Hill carrying a letter to the main contractors saying that Osborne would have his mortar made up. Cosby ordered meal and bacon for him and wrote that what Osborne said could be relied on.

Caldwell Institute reopens in Hillsborough after leaving Greensboro

The Orange Presbytery's Caldwell Institute, founded at Greensboro, moved to Hillsborough and began its first session there on July 9, 1845, with Alexander Wilson as president. It used the Hillsborough Academy building and absorbed that school.

People: Alexander Wilson

James S. Smith offers his estate for sale to pay his debts

In a notice dated August 19, 1845, in the Hillsborough Recorder, James S. Smith offered property he valued at not less than $35,000 to cover debts of $15,000 or $16,000, saying he would act as his own trustee and salesman. NCpedia says he went bankrupt that year and probably then moved from Hillsborough to a house on Smith Level Road outside Chapel Hill.

Witherspoon's farm Tusculum is sold at the courthouse door

Dr. Edmund Strudwick, who had long held the mortgages, bought the farm at public sale. Susan Witherspoon was allowed to stay on at Tusculum by Strudwick's provision.

Albert joins his brother Osborne to plaster the halls at the university

Cosby sent Albert from Smithfield in Virginia to Chapel Hill, where Osborne was already at work on the additions to Old East and Old West. Albert carried a letter to university president David L. Swain saying he came to help his brother plaster the halls and would judge the sand to be used together with Osborne.

Dabney Cosby builds the Presbyterian church on Franklin Street

After the university work Cosby built a small Tuscan style church designed by Alexander Jackson Davis for the Chapel Hill Presbyterian congregation, whose members included university president David L. Swain. In March 1848 the congregation member Charles Phillips wrote to Davis that the mason could not match the lilac gray color specified for the outside. The building no longer stands.

Caldwell Institute enrollment peaks at 100 in Hillsborough

Under Alexander Wilson the school reached a peak enrollment of 100 students in 1848. Attendance fell back to 68 the next year, and in 1850 the trustees voted to discontinue it.

Solomon Pool studies at the university in Chapel Hill

Solomon Pool entered the University of North Carolina in 1849 at the age of seventeen and graduated in 1853 as the second honor student in a class of fifty-nine. He was a member of the Philanthropic Society while in Chapel Hill.

Caldwell Institute closes in Hillsborough

The Caldwell Institute ended in 1850 after five years in Hillsborough.

Frederick Strudwick graduates and begins practising law in Hillsborough

Frederick Nash Strudwick, born in Hillsborough on 27 June 1833 and schooled there, graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1851 and then began a law practice in Hillsborough.

Hillsborough Academy is revived under Benjamin Huske and Ralph Graves

After the Caldwell Institute closed, Benjamin R. Huske and Ralph Henry Graves revived the Hillsborough Academy, which ran until 1858.

Zebulon Vance studies law at Chapel Hill

Vance entered the University of North Carolina early in 1851 and spent the rest of the year at Chapel Hill studying law under Judge William H. Battle and Samuel F. Phillips. He obtained his law licence in December 1851 and set up an office at Asheville early in 1852.

James Strudwick Smith dies

James Strudwick Smith died on December 7, 1852. His family lived out their lives at the Smith Level Road house outside Chapel Hill, and his daughter Mary Ruffin Smith later gave land to the University of North Carolina.

Witherspoon dies at Tusculum and is buried in the Old Town Cemetery

He died penniless at the Tusculum farmhouse on the thirty-seventh anniversary of the organization of the Hillsborough Presbyterian Church. His funeral was held in that church and he was buried nearby in the Nash-Strudwick plot of the Old Town Cemetery, where the congregation and townspeople paid for the obelisk over his grave.

First Baptist Church of Hillsborough is organized in the old courthouse

The First Baptist Church was organized in Hillsborough and met in the former 1790 courthouse building, now Dickerson Chapel, until 1862, while it raised its own church building on a lot acquired between 1854 and 1860.

Solomon Pool becomes tutor of mathematics at the university

Pool was appointed tutor of mathematics at the University of North Carolina in December 1853, months after his own graduation. He received an honorary alumni master of arts degree in 1856.

James Phillips keeps weather records at Chapel Hill

From 1854 to 1862 Professor James Phillips kept weather records at Chapel Hill. They survive in the Southern Historical Collection alongside Chapel Hill records kept from December 1879 to 1882 by Professors W. B. Phillips and Francis Preston Venable.

Peter Brown Ruffin buys the land that became Margaret Lane Cemetery

According to the Alliance for Historic Hillsborough, Peter Brown Ruffin, owner of Occoneechee Farm, bought the land now called Margaret Lane Cemetery as a burial ground for people enslaved by him and his neighbor Cadwalader Jones. Plaques placed in 1987 date burials there from before 1852, and it remained a burial ground for Black residents of Hillsborough until 1931.

Abner Burnette is twice prosecuted for carrying a gun and once recorded as Indian

Abner Burnette of the Texas community was indicted in Alamance County in 1855 for carrying a gun, which was unlawful for free persons of color. He pled guilty and was fined thirty one dollars. Indicted again in 1860 he pled not guilty, was convicted and was fined five cents. The 1860 census for Orange County recorded him as Indian, and the 1870 Alamance County census as mulatto.

Dr. James Webb dies in Hillsborough

Dr. James Webb died in Hillsborough on Saturday morning, February 17, 1855, aged 81, after an illness of several years. The Recorder praised his integrity and charity, and he was buried with his wife in the Webb-Long plot of the Old Town Cemetery.

The university dismisses Benjamin S. Hedrick over his Free Soil views

In 1856 faculty member Benjamin S. Hedrick admitted and defended in the newspapers his preference for the Free Soil party. President David L. Swain disapproved of his speaking out, and the trustees' executive committee dismissed Hedrick; Swain objected only that the committee had taken authority belonging to the full board.

Fanny Burwell dies aboard the steamer Jamestown as her parents bring her home to Hillsborough

Fanny Burwell had gone to New York to complete her music education, but fell ill with erysipelas in early March. Her mother went north to nurse her, and she died at dawn on the steamer Jamestown between New York and Norfolk with both parents beside her, in her eighteenth year; her body was brought home to Hillsborough for burial.

Burwell School closes as the Burwells move to Charlotte

The Burwells closed their Hillsborough school in 1857, the same year they took charge of a girls' school in Charlotte.

Charles Phillips serves as stated supply for the Chapel Hill Presbyterian Church

Phillips was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of Orange in December 1857 and served as stated supply for the Chapel Hill Presbyterian Church from 1857 to 1868. He taught and superintended the church Sunday school and with his wife started a Sunday school for Black residents.

Robert Bingham becomes a partner in his father's school at the Oaks

After graduating from the University of North Carolina in 1857, Robert Bingham was admitted in July as junior partner in his father's school at the Oaks, which took the firm name W. J. Bingham and Sons. His brother William was also a partner.

Frederick Nash dies in Hillsborough and is buried in the Old Town Cemetery

Nash fell ill returning from a synod meeting at New Bern and died in December 1858 at his Hillsborough home, while serving as chief justice of the state supreme court. He was buried in the Hillsborough Old Town Cemetery.

Nash and Kollock School for young ladies opens in Hillsborough

After Chief Justice Frederick Nash died in 1858, his daughters Sarah and Maria Nash and their cousin Sarah Kollock opened a select boarding and day school for girls in the Nash home.

Washington Duke turns from cotton to tobacco on his Orange County farm

After a failed cotton crop, Washington Duke began growing tobacco in 1859 on his farm, then in Orange County, following favorable publicity among Orange County farmers. The farm used the labor of an enslaved girl, Caroline, bought in 1855, and later a leased enslaved man, Jim, who worked in tobacco.

Census counts more than 5,000 enslaved people in Orange County

The 1860 census recorded more than 5,000 enslaved people in Orange County, whose labor sustained the county's farms. At emancipation they made up roughly a third of the county's population.

William H. S. Burgwyn enters the University of North Carolina

Burgwyn entered the University of North Carolina as a freshman in 1860, after schooling near Baltimore and at Horner's School in Oxford. He left in 1861 because of illness.

George Attmore Sparrow is a cadet at the Hillsborough Military Academy

Sparrow, the teenage son of the Washington lawyer Thomas Sparrow, was enrolled as a cadet at the Hillsborough Military Academy in 1861 and 1862. He wrote home to his father from the academy through that period.

Solomon Pool is promoted to adjunct professor of mathematics

Pool was promoted to adjunct professor of mathematics in 1861 and held the position for six years. In 1866 he took leave to become a United States deputy appraiser in North Carolina on the understanding that the university need not reemploy him until it had need of him.

William H. S. Burgwyn enrolls as a cadet at the Hillsborough Military Academy

Later in 1861 Burgwyn entered the Hillsborough Military Academy as a cadet. By the autumn he had been appointed drill master of the camp of instruction near Raleigh, and he was then elected a lieutenant in the Thirty-fifth North Carolina Regiment.

Orange County elects William A. Graham to the secession convention

Graham had led Union men in defeating a February 1861 referendum to call a convention on disunion. After Fort Sumter he was elected by a large margin to represent Orange County in the Constitutional Convention of May 1861, where he stood unsuccessfully for the presidency of the convention before voting for secession.

George Attmore Sparrow leaves the Hillsborough academy to join the Confederate army

Writing from the academy on 21 July 1862, Sparrow told his father he had approval for his discharge and would leave with other cadets when the session ended on 31 July. He was in camp with the Army of the Pamlico by 1863.

Robert Bingham goes to war with an Orange County militia company

Robert Bingham, a member of an Orange County militia company, enlisted in state service with his fellow members on March 8, 1862, and on March 25 was elected captain of Company G, Forty-fourth North Carolina Infantry. He was captured in June 1863 and held in Union prisons until he was exchanged in 1864.

Jim, an enslaved tobacco worker leased to Washington Duke, flees toward Union lines

Jim, an enslaved man whose labor Washington Duke leased to grow and cure tobacco, ran away with three others in June 1863 trying to reach Union lines. After the war he took the surname Cox and became a tobacco sharecropper in the Durham area.

Black and Native American worshippers in Chapel Hill gather under a grape arbor and form the congregation that became St. Paul AME

A group that included William Thompson, Charles Craig, Jerry Hargraves, Kenny Brooks, Green Merritt and Green Cordal began meeting under a grape vine arbor, with Rev. Green Cordal preaching the first service. The congregation was received into the African Methodist Episcopal connection in 1870.

People: Green Cordal

Bingham School moves from the Oaks to near Mebane

William Bingham and Robert Bingham, sons of William James Bingham, moved the school to a site east of Mebane's Station on the North Carolina Railroad after the legislature incorporated it as a military and classical academy.

People: Robert Bingham

Emancipation frees about 6,000 people in Orange County, many of whom become tenants and sharecroppers

About 6,000 enslaved people in Orange County were freed at the end of the Civil War. Many Black families left for Durham and other towns, while some stayed on the land as tenant farmers or sharecroppers.

Thomas Ruffin buys the Hillsborough house he called Little Hawfields

The house on East Orange Street, built about 1821 and enlarged in the 1830s, was sold to Thomas Ruffin in 1865. He named it Little Hawfields. The Town of Hillsborough acquired the property in 1972 and made it the Town Hall.

Wilson Caldwell walks out with President Swain under a white flag to meet approaching Union troops

When Union troops approached Chapel Hill in 1865, Wilson Caldwell walked out under a white flag with President David L. Swain, Judge W. H. Battle and others to meet the incoming cavalry and seek protection for the town and the university.

Wheeler's Confederate cavalry fought Union pursuers at New Hope Creek east of Chapel Hill

Retreating cavalry under Joseph Wheeler destroyed the bridge over the rain-swollen New Hope and the other bridges on the road toward Chapel Hill, then attacked Union cavalry trying to cross on fallen trees and driftwood at the Atkins plantation, about eight miles from the village. Cornelia Phillips Spencer, writing from Chapel Hill, called it the last skirmish and perhaps the last blood of the war and recorded that several men were killed on both sides.

Part of Orange County during the Civil War, 1861–1865 · 10 events

People: Cornelia Phillips Spencer · Smith D. Atkins

Johnston accepts Sherman's basis of agreement at the Bennitt farm

At their second meeting at James and Nancy Bennitt's farm on the Hillsborough Road, then in Orange County, Joseph E. Johnston accepted the "basis of agreement" William T. Sherman submitted, which offered an armistice, disbanding of the armies, recognition of state governments and a general amnesty. Jefferson Davis approved the terms, but Washington rejected them.

Johnston surrendered to Sherman at the Bennett farm, then in Orange County

After meetings on April 17 and 18 whose terms Washington rejected, Joseph E. Johnston and William T. Sherman met again at the farm of James and Nancy Bennitt and signed a military surrender covering forces in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. North Carolina Historic Sites describes the Bennitt farm as a 325 acre place in Orange County, on the Hillsborough road west of Durham Station.

Part of Orange County during the Civil War, 1861–1865 · 10 events

People: Joseph E. Johnston

Charles P. Mallett wrote that federal troops had held Chapel Hill for fourteen days

Writing from Chapel Hill, the merchant Charles P. Mallett reported that Union troops had held the village for fourteen days, that they had behaved tolerably where safeguards were posted but had stripped the surrounding countryside of horses and mules, and that General Judson Kilpatrick had held a review in the village the previous day.

Part of Orange County during the Civil War, 1861–1865 · 10 events

People: Smith D. Atkins

Hillsborough Military Academy sends its cadets home at the end of the Civil War

The academy, reopened in 1862 under Maj. William Gordon after Tew left for the war, dismissed its students in May 1865 after the surrender at Bennett Place. Raleigh Edward Colston reopened the campus in 1866 as the North Carolina Polytechnic and Military Institute.

General Smith D. Atkins married Eleanor Swain, daughter of the university president

The courtship began during the occupation, when Atkins called on President David Lowry Swain, met his daughter Eleanor, had his regimental band serenade her and gave Swain two horses. Atkins was mustered out in June and the two married in Chapel Hill on August 23, 1865; many invited guests stayed away, students tolled the college bell for three hours and hanged Swain and Atkins in effigy.

Part of Orange County during the Civil War, 1861–1865 · 10 events

People: David L. Swain · Smith D. Atkins

Bricks at the Coachman's Quarters carry the date Dec 5, '65

Two bricks in a small outbuilding near the Burnside stable in Hillsborough carry the hand-cut inscription 'Dec 5, '65', found during the building's restoration after 2003. The owners and descendants connect it to Jesse Ruffin, a coachman once enslaved by Thomas Ruffin. According to family tradition he cut the date to mark the day after the General Assembly ratified the Thirteenth Amendment, which formally ended slavery.