Chronology

Commissioners create Cheeks and Eno townships

Acting on a 1903 act, the county board carved Cheeks Township out of western Hillsboro Township and formed Eno River Township out of pieces of Hillsboro and Little River.

Frank Nash publishes Hillsboro, Colonial and Revolutionary

Nash collected his articles on the town from the Charlotte Observer and the North Carolina Booklet into a book, printed in Raleigh by Edwards & Broughton. It was reprinted in 1953.

Mount Bright Baptist Church's first building burns

Fire destroyed Mount Bright Baptist Church's original building, on the lot Susan Graham had given the congregation. The 2014 Hillsborough Historic District documentation places that first church on South Churton Street near the Eno, before the congregation moved to West Union Street early in the twentieth century.

Subject: Mount Bright Baptist Church

The Bingham house is moved down East Union Street to clear the corner for Shepperd Strudwick's house

The 1831 William J. Bingham House is moved half a block east on East Union Street so that Shepperd Strudwick can build on its lot at the corner of Churton and Union. Much of the old house's outside dates from the move.

People: William James Bingham

Hillsborough Methodist Church buys town lot 94 and its house for a new parsonage

The church bought lot 94, with a one-story five-room house, from James Webb, son of Dr. James Webb, and used it as the parsonage. The lot later held the 1958 parsonage.

Subject: Hillsborough Methodist Church

Eno Mill adds cloth weaving

New looms extended operations beyond spinning yarn.

Subject: Eno Mill

Shepperd Strudwick builds a Churton Street house designed by Ralph Adams Cram

Shepperd Strudwick built a Neoclassical Revival house on Churton Street to a design Ralph Adams Cram drew about 1904; Cram's wife Elizabeth was the sister of Strudwick's wife Susan. The site had been cleared in 1903 by moving the antebellum W. J. Bingham House down East Union Street, and the house was finished about 1908. It was later named Tamarind.

Shepperd Strudwick heads the new Bellevue Manufacturing Company in west Hillsborough

The Bellevue Manufacturing Company, Hillsborough's cotton mill in the west of the town, was incorporated in 1904 with Shepperd Strudwick as its first president, and he remained president until 1929. By 1911 the mill ran 5,000 spindles and 200 looms making ginghams.

Subject: Bellevue Mill

The superior court orders the old Ruffin place sold to Nannie Russell Roulhac

Under a superior court judgment, Allen J. Ruffin was named commissioner to convey the ten-acre Ruffin place to Mrs. Nannie Russell Roulhac of Rockingham County for $100 in cash and a mortgage note of $1,455.

People: Allen Jones Ruffin

Subject: Ruffin-Roulhac House (Little Hawfields)

The Bank of Orange opens in Hillsborough

Started in May 1904 with $5,000 in capital, it was Hillsborough's first bank since the Civil War. Dr. J. S. Spurgeon was president and Paul C. Collins cashier for its whole life.

P. C. Collins buys the southern part of the future Bellevue mill site from J. W. Hooker

Before the Bellevue company was incorporated, P. C. Collins bought the south half of the mill site near the West Hillsborough depot from J. W. Hooker; a later hand added that he acted as the mill's agent. Collins, a shareholder, passed the land to the company in 1905.

Subject: Bellevue Mill

A West King Street house becomes the Cole Hotel

The house at 132 West King Street, a one-story residence on the 1905 Sanborn map, is labeled the Cole Hotel by 1911. It was raised to two full stories with a wraparound porch by 1924 and was a private house again before 1943.

Mill engineer Richard C. Biberstein lays out the machinery for the Bellevue mill

The new company hired Richard C. Biberstein, a Charlotte mill designer trained in Massachusetts, to plan the arrangement of its machinery; his drawings run from 1905 to 1907. Fifteen years later he designed the mill's weaving room.

Subject: Bellevue Mill

Shepperd Strudwick buys Allen Ruffin's land north of the future Bellevue mill

Four years before the Bellevue mill was built, Strudwick acquired the tract north of the site from Ruffin, one of the Eno Cotton Mill's founders, probably to build company housing there.

People: Allen Jones Ruffin

Subject: Bellevue Mill

H. S. Bradshaw returns to the Hillsborough Presbyterian pulpit for a 33-year second pastorate

Bradshaw, pastor from 1894 to 1900, came back in 1905 and stayed until 1938, giving him thirty-nine years in all, the longest service in the church's history. He is buried in the churchyard.

Subject: Hillsborough Presbyterian Church

Hillsboro grants John D. Morris a franchise to build a telephone exchange

The town commissioners gave John D. Morris of Roxboro the exclusive right for twenty years to build and run a telephone system and central office in Hillsboro, if he began work within six months of July 1, 1905. By late 1906 the Morris Telephone Exchange was advertising service in town.

A Southern Railway freight train wrecks at the Eno railroad bridge in Hillsboro

Eastbound freight No. 72 left the track just west of the Eno bridge; one car went over the side into the river and eleven more piled up, twisting the bridge's iron supports. No one was hurt, and mail trains crossed again the next morning.

Subject: North Carolina Railroad

Mount Bright Baptist Church is rebuilt

Three years after the fire, Mount Bright's members raised a new church; the Rev. Alvis Whitted was then the pastor. The congregation's present church on West Union Street dates from 1979.

Subject: Mount Bright Baptist Church

The Graham family gives up the Nash-Hooper House

The family of former governor William A. Graham, who bought the West Tryon Street house about 1870, owned it until 1906. After that it passed through a number of families.

Subject: Nash-Hooper House

Charles E. Maddry marries Emma Parker at Hillsborough Baptist Church

The former pastor Charles E. Maddry married Emma Parker, daughter of church members T. B. and Penelope Parker, in the Hillsborough Baptist church. Hight C. Moore and the pastor A. C. Hamby performed the ceremony.

A Colonial Revival house is built on West King Street for merchant B. B. Forrest

A large two-and-a-half-story Colonial Revival house was built around 1907 at 176 West King Street for B. B. Forrest, who ran a general store. It first appears on the 1911 Sanborn map.

Attorney Frank Nash inherits the old Strudwick office and makes it his office and home

Frank Nash inherited the former Strudwick medical and law office at 139 West King Street and used it as both his law office and his home. It has been a private house since 1924.

Maplewood Cemetery is started as a burial ground for Black Hillsborough

The cemetery on Corbin Street, west of the Town Cemetery, seems to have begun as a burial ground for Black residents about 1900 and may sit on an older Faucette family burying ground. The state cemetery census counts 207 graves, many marked only with fieldstones or not at all.

Occoneechee Lodge No. 299 of the Odd Fellows is chartered

The Independent Order of Odd Fellows chartered Occoneechee Lodge No. 299, which lasted until 1921.

Sarah Kollock dies and the Nash law office stops serving as a music studio

The former Nash law office remained a music studio until the death of Sarah Kollock, the last of the teachers of the Nash and Kollock School.

People: Sarah Kollock

Subject: Nash and Kollock School · Nash Law Office

The school board divides the Hillsboro district and orders a two-teacher school at West Hill

The board split the Hillsboro district and ordered a school with two teachers built at West Hill, the mill section west of town.

Frank Nash serves as mayor of Hillsborough

During Nash's four years as mayor the town laid its first concrete sidewalks, and plans for a public library began to take shape.

The Durham Recorder hails "Progressive Hillsboro" and the mill town at its depot

A Recorder article pointed to Hillsborough's new buildings, macadam roads and growing textile trade, and to a large mill that had raised a settlement around the depot called West Hillsboro. The authors think the mill meant was the Eno Cotton Mill, since Bellevue was not yet running.

A Queen Anne house is built on West King Street for Samuel Mallett Gattis

The two-story house at 158 West King Street was built for lawyer Samuel Mallett Gattis, former clerk of superior court and Speaker of the state House in 1903. The Gattis family also rebuilt the lot's old wellhouse that year.

People: Samuel Mallett Gattis

Allen J. and Annie Gray Ruffin buy the James A. Cheek House

The Cheek family, owners since about 1875, sells the Italianate house at 219 North Churton Street to Allen J. and Annie Gray Ruffin in 1908. Annie Gray Ruffin, by then a widow, sold it to Houston J. Walker in 1919.

People: Allen Jones Ruffin

C. M. and W. H. Andrews take over the West End Drug Company in West Hillsboro

Two Chapel Hill natives, C. M. and W. H. Andrews, bought the West End Drug Company, a drug store with a soda fountain serving the mill families of West Hillsboro. C. M. Andrews ran it until he left town in 1926.

Eno Methodist Church is founded in West Hillsborough

Eno Methodist Church began with services upstairs in the Eno Cotton Mill's company store; in 1908 Allen Ruffin gave land in West Hillsborough and the frame church went up. It had 147 members in 1953.

People: Allen Jones Ruffin

Subject: Eno Mill · Eno Methodist Church

Nannie Roulhac remodels the Ruffin house

Mrs. Nannie Russell Roulhac remodeled the house after buying it, though the main block kept its 1830 form.

Subject: Ruffin-Roulhac House (Little Hawfields)

The Eno Methodist congregation builds its church on land given by Allen Ruffin

The congregation formed for Eno Cotton Mill workers first met in an upper room of a mill building. In 1908 it moved into a simple front-gabled frame church with pointed-arch windows and a small belfry, on land Ruffin donated facing the mill across the railroad tracks.

People: Allen Jones Ruffin

Subject: Eno Mill · Eno Methodist Church

The detached kitchen at the Nash-Hooper House is torn down

The nineteenth-century frame kitchen that had stood a few steps east of the Nash-Hooper House since 1819 was demolished.

Subject: Nash-Hooper House

Thomas A. Corbin reopens the old Occoneechee Hotel as the Corbinton Inn

After D. C. Parks sold the Occoneechee Hotel early in 1908, Thomas A. Corbin reopened it on West King Street as the Corbinton Inn. The inn kept that name until 1946, when it became the Colonial Inn.

Subject: Colonial Inn

D. C. Parks sells the Occoneechee Hotel and it closes

David C. Parks sold the Occoneechee Hotel in Hillsborough to Thomas A. Corbin of Winston-Salem, and the hotel was closed to the public while the new owner was ill.

People: David C. Parks

Subject: Colonial Inn

Eno Cotton Mill is enlarged and adds gingham

In 1909 the Hillsborough mill was expanded again and began weaving gingham alongside chambray and plaids. Some yarn was still sold unwoven until the First World War.

Subject: Eno Mill

Hillsborough Township issues $40,000 in bonds for macadam roads

Under a 1901 state act, Hillsborough was the only Orange township to vote road bonds, floating $40,000 to build a few miles of macadam road. When the county sold its own road bonds in 1913, the township was repaid half.

Nannie Roulhac dies and her son William Sterling Roulhac inherits the Ruffin house

At the death of Nannie Russell Roulhac the house and block passed to her son, William Sterling Roulhac.

Subject: Ruffin-Roulhac House (Little Hawfields)

Shepperd Strudwick builds the Bellevue cotton mill on South Nash Street

The Bellevue Manufacturing Company's mill went up in 1909 west of South Nash Street, a short way beyond the town line of the day, backed by local investors and staffed by people leaving farm work. By 1912 it ran 5,000 spindles and 200 narrow looms.

Subject: Bellevue Mill

Shepperd Strudwick is president of the Hillsboro Clay Manufacturing Company

Besides the Bellevue mill and the Bank of Orange, Shepperd Strudwick headed the Hillsboro Clay Manufacturing Company, according to the Orange County Observer.

Banker Paul Collins builds a Queen Anne house on North Churton Street

Banker Paul Collins builds the house at 312 North Churton Street about 1910 as a family home and a summer residence for his aunt from Edenton. It was later the longtime home of Edwin Lynch, clerk of superior court.

Frank Nash serves as attorney for Orange County

Nash was the county attorney for four years, while also an elder of the Hillsborough Presbyterian Church and chairman of the county Democratic executive committee.

Hillsboro Public Library is counted among North Carolina's early free public libraries

A 1954 history of North Carolina public libraries names the Hillsboro Public Library among the free public libraries established in North Carolina by 1910, fifteen in all. A later survey dates Hillsboro's library to 1910 in its list of the twenty-eight public, society and Y.M.C.A. libraries in the state's first library report.

John Kenion's center-gable farmhouse is built north of Hillsborough

The Kenion House, a two-story farmhouse with a shingled front gable, pointed window heads and a bracketed porch, was built in 1910 for John Kenion, a farmer and Hillsborough banker. It stands in the Cedar Grove area.

St. Matthew's Episcopal Church builds its present rectory across St. Mary's Road

St. Matthew's built a one-and-a-half-story frame rectory on the triangular lot across St. Mary's Road from the church around 1910. The parish had owned the lot since 1869, and rectors have lived there since then.

Subject: St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church

The Bellevue Commercial Block is built as West Hillsborough's shopping street

Five one-story brick buildings with seven storefronts on South Nash Street near the old depot became the West End business district for the mill village and West Hillsborough. Over the years they held a drug store, the Cates brothers' general store with a branch post office, a barber, a dry cleaner, a cafe and a movie theater.

Subject: Bellevue Mill

The Bellevue mill superintendent's house is built on South Nash Street

The two-story house built for the mill superintendent, with corbelled brick chimneys, a canted bay and a wraparound porch, is the most decorative early house in the surveyed area and stands out beside the plain mill houses next to it.

Subject: Bellevue Mill

The First Pentecostal Holiness Church of West Hillsborough is organized

A. G. Cannady, Charles Martin, R. S. Andrews and others organized a Pentecostal Holiness church in West Hillsborough, with Cannady as first pastor. Its 1953 building dated from 1948.

The Freeland farmhouse and outbuildings are built on St. Mary's Road

A one-and-a-half-story Triple-A farmhouse with a wraparound porch, garages and a tractor shed went up together on a small hill above St. Mary's Road between about 1910 and 1920.

The county counts 25 rural primary schools for Black children, eight of them log

The school board recorded 25 rural primary schools for Black children in 1910, all but one run by a single teacher; eight were log buildings and the rest frame. White children had high schools in Hillsboro and Chapel Hill and 42 rural primary schools.

Hillsboro citizens meet to organize a library association

Townspeople met at the Club House to plan a Library Association, with Maj. John W. Graham in the chair and E. Marvin Lockhart as secretary. A committee was named to raise funds and a second meeting was called for February 2.

People: John W. Graham

A general store goes up at 113 North Churton Street, later a Chevrolet dealership

The two-story brick building at 113 North Churton Street, shown on the 1911 Sanborn map, is built as a general store, later houses a Chevrolet dealership and is now a bank. Its Colonial Revival storefront was likely added in the 1930s.

An eighteenth-century house on West Margaret Lane is moved back from the street

A two-story frame house at 203 West Margaret Lane, possibly one of the town's earliest, stood flush with the lane on Sanborn maps from 1894 and was likely moved back to its present spot around 1911, when its wraparound porch was built.

Hillsborough's post office occupies a brick building at 118 West King Street

The 1911 Sanborn map shows the post office in the two-story brick building at 118 West King Street, with a barber on the second floor. The building was later cut down to one story and given a new front.

The Luther Craig farmhouse is built on Old Hillsborough Road

About 1911 an I-house was built in front of an older rear wing on the farm long known as Luther Craig's. In the 1930s a log house was brought over from a nearby farm to join its early barns.

The Turner-Strudwick block is cut into house lots as the J. A. Hogan subdivision

The five-acre lot around the Turner-Strudwick House, bounded by Churton, Orange and Union streets, was divided into smaller lots as the J. A. Hogan subdivision, and houses later filled the land around it.

Subject: Turner-Strudwick House

The Noxall Bottling Works buys a lot near the Hillsborough depot for its plant

The Noxall Bottling Works, newly chartered under state law with its headquarters at Hillsborough, bought a lot near the Southern Railway station and planned to run its plant there.

Hillsborough merchant "Dr." Durham has a Craftsman bungalow built on West Tryon Street

About 1912 a downtown general merchant named Durham, known in town as "Dr. Durham" though he was not a physician, had a large one-and-a-half-story bungalow built for himself at 110 West Tryon Street. Its wraparound porch has ogee-arched spans between the columns.

Ira Rogers builds a hip-roofed farmhouse northwest of Hillsborough

Tobacco farmer Ira Rogers built himself a plain, square, hip-roofed farmhouse northwest of Hillsborough in 1912, with tapered porch posts and grouped windows.

The Bellevue mill runs 5,000 spindles and 200 looms making dress ginghams

Three years after it opened, the Bellevue mill had 5,000 spindles and 200 narrow looms weaving dress ginghams 27 and 32 inches wide, sold through agents in New York and New Jersey.

Subject: Bellevue Mill

The Villines log house is built north of Hillsborough

A one-room V-notched log house with a center door and a small loft window was built in 1912 on what is now SR 1546, north of Hillsborough in the Caldwell section of the county; the year is carved into its rock chimney. It shows log building for tenants and laborers lasting into the twentieth century.

The two-story brick building later the Smith Furniture Store is built at 126 West King Street

A two-story brick commercial building with mousetooth corbelling at the parapet was built at 126 West King Street around 1912. The document calls it the Smith Furniture Store.

The Orange Trust Company is organized at Hillsborough

A Hillsborough real estate and insurance firm, the Hillsboro Real Estate and Improvement Company, took the new name Orange Trust Company, with H. W. Webb as president. It planned to buy and sell land, lend money and sell insurance, with $11,000 in paid-in stock.

Abe and Annie B. Mebane sell a lot in west Hillsborough to the trustees of Mebane Chapel

For $25 the Mebanes sold a 30-by-40-foot lot at the corner of Union Street, opposite the later Central High School, to trustees Elisha Williams and Arthur Hood. The chapel was named in their memory.

Mebane Chapel is organized in Hillsborough

Mebane Chapel, a United Holy Church congregation in Hillsborough, was organized in 1913 and built a 250-seat church the next year.

Moorefields is advertised for public sale and leaves the Moore family

After more than a century with Alfred Moore's descendants, Moorefields was advertised for public sale, and its later owners were not Moore relatives until 1949.

Subject: Moorefields

R. B. Mason's land west of the Bellevue mill is platted as the West Hill Property

To meet the need for workers' housing near the two mills, Mason's holdings were laid out in 1913 as a grid of roughly equal lots, bounded by the Bellevue mill village, Eno Street and the railroad, West Hill Street, and Mount Willing Road (later King Street). Most houses there went up from the 1920s to the 1940s, and the section beyond West Hill Avenue was platted in the 1930s.

Subject: Bellevue Mill

Three students are convicted in Hillsborough in Isaac William Rand's death

At the Orange County Courthouse one of the four defendants was freed after the first testimony, and a jury of Orange County farmers found the other three guilty within a few hours. The judge gave the minimum four months with the option of hiring them out, and their families paid the fees and took them home the same day.

People: John W. Graham

Subject: Orange County Courthouse, Hillsborough

The Hillsboro Building and Loan Association is organized in the back of the West End Drug Store

Six incorporators put up $5,500 to start the Hillsboro Building and Loan Association, with Charles H. Robertson as president and druggist C. M. Andrews as secretary-treasurer. Andrews took members' payments at his drug counter until 1926.

Subject: Hillsboro Building and Loan (Savings and Loan)

John Laws dies after more than sixty years as register of deeds

Laws served as register of deeds and clerk to the county board from at least October 1849, apart from 1853 to 1855, until his death at 92.

A two-story brick movie theater is built at 122 West King Street

A brick movie theater with a cable-hung marquee across its front and an upstairs projection booth was built at 122 West King Street around 1914. It is on the 1924 Sanborn map.

About 250 county citizens meet at the Hillsboro courthouse for Community Service Week

As part of the university's Community Service Week, some 250 citizens gathered at the Orange County courthouse in Hillsboro to take up the county's needs and hear President Graham speak on community service.

People: Edward Kidder Graham

Subject: Orange County Courthouse, Hillsborough

Mebane Chapel builds its church in Hillsborough under its first pastor, B. F. Alston

A year after the United Holy Church congregation organized, it put up its chapel, seating about 200, with thirty-five members and Rev. B. F. Alston as first pastor.

The Ruffin-Hill tract on St. Mary's Road is sold to A. S. Mitchell, who divides it

In 1914 the 47 1/2-acre Ruffin-Hill tract, long the home of Mary Ruffin Hill and her husband Thomas Hill, was conveyed to A. S. Mitchell, who subdivided the land.

Subject: Ruffin-Hill House

Eno Cotton Mill rents its village houses to workers for 25 cents a week

The Eno Cotton Mill, founded in 1896 by Allen J. Ruffin and James H. Webb Jr., built a company village for its fast-growing workforce, and by 1915 the company was renting the houses to employees for a quarter a week. The 1924 Sanborn map shows about 100 mill houses west and south of the mill.

People: Allen Jones Ruffin

Subject: Eno Mill

Southern Power Company builds a steam plant on the Eno near University Station

Duke's Southern Power Company built a coal-fired steam generating plant beside the Eno near University Station, a backup for its hydroelectric stations, with Fiske-Carter Construction Company holding the contract in 1915. By July 1916 the Eno steam plant was sending current as far as Charlotte while flooding shut down the company's river stations. Its power went to Durham's factories, not to Orange County.

Subject: University Station

The school board names Lula Cassidy rural supervisor and county canning agent

A week after electing Mary O. Graham supervisor, the board chose Lula Cassidy as rural supervisor and canning agent. In 1916 it put her in charge of a county-wide school commencement in Hillsboro.

Eno Cotton Mill reports 150 women among its 500 workers

Reports from the years before the wartime changes count about 500 workers at Hillsborough's Eno Cotton Mill, 150 of them women and 50 children under 16, on a 60-hour week. The top average daily wage for women was $1.75 against $4.00 for men; at the smaller Bellevue mill nearby women's top average was $2.50.

Subject: Eno Mill · Bellevue Mill

The Bellevue mill is also turning out cheviot cloth

By 1916 the Bellevue mill was weaving cheviot, a rough-finished cloth, alongside its ginghams.

Subject: Bellevue Mill

Hillsborough children aged six to sixteen learn to knit for soldiers in a Red Cross class

Henrietta P. Collins and Mrs. J. Cheshire Webb taught girls and boys from six to sixteen to knit wash cloths for soldiers, using knitting cotton that Daniel Miller and Co. of Baltimore donated through Lillie Bivins. The room was full at every meeting, and the better knitters moved on to wool; by October about fifty children were knitting for the chapter.

People: Henrietta P. Collins

Orange County mobilizes for World War I

Orange County organized a Council of Defense, Red Cross chapters in Chapel Hill (May 28, 1917) and Hillsborough (June 1, 1917), Liberty Loan and War Savings drives, and food conservation committees. On October 1, 1918, 650 UNC students were inducted into the Student Army Training Corps, and volunteers nursed the sick during the influenza epidemic.

William D. Benton serves sixteen years as rector of St. Matthew's

William D. Benton was rector for sixteen years, the longest single tenure the book records after Moses Ashley Curtis. His wife directed the choir at the 1924 centennial.

Subject: St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church

West Hill Baptist Church is organized in West Hillsborough

J. F. McDuffie and S. W. Oldham led the organization of West Hill Baptist Church, and Oldham became its first pastor. The book dates its building to May 1, 1920.

The Daughters of the Confederacy in Hillsborough move to start a Red Cross chapter

At its May 1917 meeting the Gen. George B. Anderson Chapter, United Daughters of the Confederacy, discussed the war, and presiding officer Rebecca Cameron named a committee to form a Red Cross chapter in Hillsborough. The committee wrote many letters for information, which led to the organizing meeting of June 1.

People: Henrietta P. Collins

The Spurgeon Building Company is chartered at Hillsborough to put up buildings

The Secretary of State chartered the Spurgeon Building Company of Hillsborough to buy and sell real estate and construct buildings, with $10,000 subscribed. Its incorporators were Dr. J. S. Spurgeon, J. H. Webb and a third man named Collins.

Hillsborough residents meet at the Session House library to organize a Red Cross chapter

About thirty people met in the library at the old Session House on June 1, 1917, heard Sarah Cheshire of Raleigh explain Red Cross work with sample bandages, and joined the Red Cross. They chose J. C. Webb temporary chairman, Henrietta P. Collins secretary and Rev. T. M. Grant treasurer, and set a mass meeting for June 4.

People: John W. Graham · Henrietta P. Collins · J. Cheshire Webb

A Red Cross mass meeting at the Hillsborough court house enrolls new members

On the eve of draft registration, J. C. Webb presided over a mass meeting at the court house where Edward Bond of Edenton, a soldier back from the Mexican border, and Rev. Alfred S. Lawrence spoke, and Frank Nash introduced Mrs. Palmer Jerman of Raleigh on the purpose of the Red Cross. Six young women then enrolled members.

People: Alfred Stratton Lawrence · Frank Nash · J. Cheshire Webb

A Sunday rally at the Hillsborough court house gives $400 to the Red Cross War Fund

After a week of canvassing by C. H. Robertson's membership committee, a Sunday afternoon service at the court house led by the town's ministers raised $400 for the national Hundred Million Dollar Red Cross War Fund and brought the chapter to 200 members. By July 1 the chapter reported 400 members to Atlanta.

Subject: Orange County Courthouse, Hillsborough

J. Cheshire Webb is appointed chairman of the Orange County Council of Defense

J. Cheshire Webb of Hillsborough was appointed chairman of the Orange County Council of Defense, with M. C. S. Noble, C. H. Robertson, Shepperd Strudwick, S. W. Andrews, John P. Hughes and P. C. Collins as members. He led the council through the war and the 1919 homecoming.

People: M. C. S. Noble · Shepperd Strudwick (1868-1961)

The Orange County Red Cross chapter organizes permanently under John W. Graham

At a court house meeting on July 5, 1917, the chapter read its national authority to organize with jurisdiction over all of Orange County except Chapel Hill and elected Maj. John W. Graham chairman, with Henrietta P. Collins as secretary and Margaret Forrest as treasurer. The Red Cross Central Committee's recognition letter followed on July 17.

People: John W. Graham · Henrietta P. Collins

Subject: Orange County Courthouse, Hillsborough

Nurse Mrs. R. B. Hayes starts a surgical dressings class in the Hillsborough Red Cross room

Mrs. R. B. Hayes, a registered nurse, began a class in surgical dressings that met Tuesday and Friday mornings in the Red Cross room, John Norwood's old law office east of the court house, which J. Cheshire Webb lent for as long as the Red Cross needed it. Notice of the classes went to Cedar Grove.

People: J. Cheshire Webb

Orange County women organize the Woman's Committee of the Council of National Defense

About fifty women representing every women's organization in the county met at the Hillsborough court house on August 1, 1917, and elected Mrs. J. Cheshire Webb chairman, Lula Cassidy secretary and Mrs. Isaac Manning treasurer. On Labor Day they replaced township units with one central committee of eleven departments.

Subject: Orange County Courthouse, Hillsborough

The Orange County Red Cross takes on a quota of 200 knitted sets for soldiers

Headquarters allotted the Hillsborough-based chapter 200 sets of a sweater, muffler, socks and wristlets, and on August 20, 1917 the executive committee named committees to find knitters and raise money for wool, asking the Cedar Grove branch for ten to twenty-five sets. By September 1 Mrs. C. H. Robertson had sixty experienced knitters waiting for yarn.

Black residents of Hillsborough organize a Red Cross auxiliary

The Orange County Red Cross heard at its August 1, 1917 meeting that Hillsborough's Black residents had organized an auxiliary, which was ready for instruction in surgical dressings and already knitting in cotton. J. Cheshire Webb lent separate Red Cross rooms for white and Black workers.

People: J. Cheshire Webb

Hillsborough gives a Labor Day dinner for Orange County's first drafted men

On Labor Day, September 3, 1917, the county honored its drafted men with a dinner for white men at the warehouse and a separate dinner for Black men at the Black school house. Lily Hamilton's Comfort Bag Committee gave bags to the first seven men called from the county.

J. Cheshire Webb is named Orange County's food administrator

On September 20, 1917, State Food Administrator Henry A. Page appointed J. Cheshire Webb of Hillsborough food administrator for Orange County, with R. A. Eubanks as administrator for Chapel Hill. The record says no mill in the county broke a Food Administration rule.

People: J. Cheshire Webb · Eugene Cunningham Branson

The Orange County Red Cross reports 455 members at its first annual meeting

At a public meeting in the Hillsborough court house, chairman John W. Graham reported 455 members since June 4, branches at Cedar Grove and New Hope, an auxiliary for Black residents, a case of 1,453 surgical dressings shipped to Atlanta, about 150 knitters, and $1,535.43 given. The officers were re-elected, and Capt. Stuart Allen of Canada's Princess Patricia regiment spoke on the fighting in France.

People: John W. Graham · Henrietta P. Collins

Subject: Orange County Courthouse, Hillsborough

Eugene C. Branson urges county teachers to back the food conservation drive

At a court house meeting of teachers and school committeemen called by J. C. Webb, Branson explained why food conservation mattered, and Mrs. Isaac Manning described her work in the south end of the county. Forty-two teachers attended, and the meeting laid the plan to register every woman at her school house on October 27.

People: J. Cheshire Webb

Subject: Orange County Courthouse, Hillsborough

Hillsborough men enlist in a Home Guard detachment of the state militia

Answering Gov. Bickett's call, the Council of Defense chose 25 men on October 20, 1917, and they enlisted for the duration at the Hillsborough court house on October 22 and 24, electing Shepperd Strudwick first lieutenant. The county bought their uniforms, and they drilled twice a week until the influenza ban on meetings.

People: Shepperd Strudwick (1868-1961) · J. Cheshire Webb · Thomas W. Bickett

Subject: Orange County Courthouse, Hillsborough

A Liberty Bonfire on the court house square rallies Hillsborough for the Second Liberty Loan

On the night of Tuesday, October 23, young Billy Hayes lit a Liberty Bonfire at the corner of the court house square, and seven speakers gave three-minute talks. The county's four banks sold $132,550 in second-loan bonds, and a women's committee under Mrs. James H. Webb raised $79,800.

People: Frank Nash · John W. Graham · Samuel Mallett Gattis

Subject: Orange County Courthouse, Hillsborough

Orange County raises about $2,000 in a Y.M.C.A. war fund drive

A Y.M.C.A. drive ran November 11-19, 1917, led by N. W. Brown, G. K. Collins and T. M. Grant. At a packed court house rally on November 18, with Maj. John W. Graham presiding, pledges reached $1,400, and the rest of the $2,000 was raised afterward.

People: John W. Graham · Samuel Mallett Gattis

Subject: Orange County Courthouse, Hillsborough

The Orange County Red Cross fills its quota of 133 Christmas packets for soldiers

Asked to furnish 133 Christmas packets for soldiers, the chapter put Mary Spurgeon in charge on November 12, 1917, raised money in the community for the packets not yet paid for, and had the whole quota shipped by December 1. In January she read the executive committee letters from soldiers who received them.

A Christmas membership drive signs the Orange County Red Cross's quota of 400 members

J. Cheshire Webb led a membership drive in the week before Christmas 1917, run from an office in the Orange Trust Company room, and reported on January 5, 1918 that the chapter had reached its quota of 400 members. Half the drive's receipts stayed with the chapter and let it pay its bills.

People: J. Cheshire Webb

A Black county committee raises $525 for the United War Work drive

In the United War Work drive, a county committee of Black residents led by Prof. R. W. Malcom, with Rev. A. E. W. Wilson for Hillsborough and Rev. J. M. Hackney as secretary in Chapel Hill, raised $525 of the county's $7,485.

Baptist pastor S. W. Oldham and his wife nurse the sick in the flu epidemic

During the influenza epidemic the Baptist pastor S. W. Oldham and his wife cared for the sick of Hillsborough, a neighbor recalled in the Baptist paper Charity and Children.

Ida Lloyd becomes the first clerk in the county superintendent's office

Ida Lloyd was hired as office assistant to the county superintendent in 1918, the first to hold the post, and worked under R. H. Claytor, Glenn Proffit and G. P. Carr for about forty-two years.

Orange County women's committees sell $59,600 in Third Liberty Loan bonds

With Harriet M. Berry of Chapel Hill as county chairman, women organized in every township made $59,600 of the county's $99,150 in Third Liberty Loan sales, more than two-thirds of the allotment. Mrs. T. J. Wilson's Chapel Hill committee took 85 subscriptions for $18,500 and the Hillsborough committee raised $36,000.

People: Harriet Morehead Berry

The Bivins Liner Company begins making tobacco hogshead liners in Hillsborough

Founded in 1918 as the Bivins Liner Company and later called the Hines Liner Company, the firm made the hoops that hold tobacco hogshead heads in place. It also ran a lumber and planing mill nearby.

The Ernest P. Cox House is built on Bellevue Street

The one-story hip-roofed house with projecting gabled wings and a wraparound porch at 112 Bellevue Street is the best preserved of West Hillsborough's one-story houses of the period.

A winter cyclone wrecks the dairy barn at Occoneechee Farm

A storm on a Friday night damaged every building on Julian Carr's Occoneechee Farm and demolished the dairy barn, killing a number of blooded cows. Carr began rebuilding at once.

People: Julian S. Carr

Subject: Occoneechee Farm

Orange County raises its Third Liberty Loan honor flag at the court house

The county subscribed $99,150 to the Third Liberty Loan against a $75,000 allotment, and on May 9, 1918, raised its Honor Flag at the court house, with Judge Bond of Edenton speaking. Hillsborough had raised its own town Honor Flag at the cross streets on May 2.

Subject: Orange County Courthouse, Hillsborough

Mrs. J. Cheshire Webb is named the Orange County Red Cross's director of woman's work

At the request of Mrs. John W. Grant, the executive committee named Mrs. J. Cheshire Webb director of woman's work on May 11, 1918, and set supervisors over the work: Sue B. Hayes for surgical dressings, Mrs. S. Strudwick for hospital garments, Mrs. W. H. Webb for supplies and shipping, and Henrietta P. Collins as chief clerk.

People: Henrietta P. Collins

Orange County Red Cross knitters report more than 1,100 garments in seven months

Mrs. C. H. Robertson, chairman of knitting, reported in May 1918 that from September 10, 1917 to April 10, 1918 the chapter bought 381 pounds of yarn for $877.03 and its knitters made 234 sweaters, 211 mufflers, 214 wristlets, 521 socks and 6 helmets. The count included work taken over from the Navy League when its knitting merged into the Red Cross.

Hillsborough dedicates a tablet crediting Daniel Boone with an expedition from the Old State House

During a day of patriotic meetings and a war bond drive, Hillsborough dedicated a steel tablet at the site of the Old State House stating that frontiersmen under Richard Henderson, led by Daniel Boone, set out from there for Kentucky on March 17, 1776. A Trading Path tablet was added to the monument on July 4, 1931. The inscription is disputed: the American Revolution tour AmRevNC says Boone was not with the party that left the courthouse that day.

People: Richard Henderson · Frank Nash

Subject: Orange County Courthouse, Hillsborough

The Orange County Red Cross's June box of 8,000 compresses goes straight to France

The chapter's June 1918 box to headquarters held 8,000 compresses, which were sent on to France without repacking, as the executive committee heard on July 19.

The Orange County Red Cross sends $120 for canteen work among troops passing through Raleigh

Answering James H. Pou's appeal, the executive committee voted on John W. Graham's motion on July 19, 1918 to send $120 from chapter funds to Mrs. William Grimes of the Raleigh chapter for troops passing through Raleigh. The same meeting reported War Fund receipts of $4,294.38.

People: James H. Pou · John W. Graham

A four-church committee raises $504 for Jewish war relief

About the middle of August 1918 a campaign for the Jewish Relief Fund, run by men from the Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian and Episcopal churches, raised $504.

People: Shepperd Strudwick (1868-1961)

Palmer Grove Methodist Church is organized

A revival that began on August 4, 1918 in the new Palmer's Grove schoolhouse, about three and a half miles northwest of Hillsboro, closed with the organizing of a Methodist church with seventeen members; the people meant to build a church soon. Lefler and Wager name E. T. Blakely, R. T. Murdock and T. H. Yates among its leaders.

The Hillsborough Community Chorus formally organizes

Already singing at patriotic gatherings, the chorus organized at the Hillsborough Library on September 2, 1918, with Mrs. W. D. Benton as director, and gave the Red Cross $73 from an August concert. It later planned four concerts a year to help the Daughters of the Confederacy build a public library as a memorial to the county's Confederate soldiers.

People: Shepperd Strudwick (1868-1961)

The Orange County Red Cross forms a canteen committee to give packages to men leaving for camp

On September 2, 1918 the chapter appointed a canteen committee of five women, each to add another, with authority to buy supplies for packages worth up to a dollar for men leaving Hillsborough for camp. In October the Chapel Hill chapter offered to share the cost, since the men came from all parts of the county.

People: Henrietta P. Collins · George Howe

A War Savings rally in Hillsborough welcomes home wounded volunteer Jim Cheshire

On the night of Registration Day, September 12, 1918, a crowd packed the court house for a War Savings rally to hear two of Pershing's soldiers. One was Jim Cheshire, the first man to volunteer from the town and the first to come home, sent back wounded to train troops. That day 1,727 county men registered for the draft.

People: J. Cheshire Webb · Samuel Mallett Gattis

Subject: Orange County Courthouse, Hillsborough

Orange County organizes for the United War Work drive

A court house meeting on September 19, 1918, elected N. W. Brown county chairman for the United War Work drive. The county raised $7,485; Carrboro gave $1,240 on a $500 quota, and Hillsborough Township, under Elizabeth Cornelius, gave $2,300.

Subject: Orange County Courthouse, Hillsborough

The Orange County Red Cross organizes volunteer nursing for the epidemic

Meeting on October 26, 1918, with the county influenza relief committee, the chapter named T. N. Webb and Nellie Russell to take requests for nurses in the West Hill and Hillsborough school districts and canvassed the town for volunteers. Chester Turner and Ross Turner, a Black man, served as volunteer nurses wherever needed.

People: John W. Graham

A Black committee of the women's Liberty Loan organization raises $1,350 in Hillsborough Township

In the Fourth Liberty Loan the Hillsborough Township women's committee included a committee of Black residents, among them Annie Renshaw, Fannie Benton and Christianna Ferribow, who raised $1,350 from 27 Black subscribers.

Eno Mill opens an influenza diet kitchen at West Hill school

When influenza reached the Eno Mill district, the mill opened and paid for a diet kitchen at the West Hill school for about seven weeks, run by home demonstration agent Elizabeth Cornelius. It fed as many as 150 people a day, and the mill hired nurses for the sick.

Subject: Eno Mill · Home demonstration clubs

Orange County subscribes $331,700 to the Fourth Liberty Loan despite the influenza ban

The county meeting planned for Liberty Day, October 12, 1918, was called off when the epidemic closed public gatherings, but Orange subscribed $331,700 against a $300,000 allotment. Hillsborough Township gave about $175,000 on a $55,000 allotment, and the women's committees raised $227,300.

People: Harriet Morehead Berry

The Orange County Red Cross ships 2,682 pounds of clothing for Belgian relief

In October 1918 the chapter shipped eleven boxes holding 2,682 pounds of clothing for Belgian relief and sent 706 linen articles, valued at $234.90, for soldiers in French hospitals. The Oaks branch, unable to send clothing, gave $40 for Belgian relief.

Chandler J. Cates of Hillsborough dies of wounds after the armistice

Chandler J. Cates of Company F, 120th Infantry, 30th Division, was severely wounded on October 17, 1918, after distinguished service, and taken to hospitals in France and England. He died of his wounds on November 20, 1918.

The Orange County Red Cross mails 111 Christmas boxes to men overseas

In November 1918 a chapter committee inspected, packed and mailed 111 Christmas boxes for men in the American Expeditionary Forces. A hundred comfort kits that Mrs. C. H. Robertson's workers had made for a Capt. Davies, which could not be shipped to him, went instead to fill a headquarters order for Italian comfort kits.

A second influenza wave strikes Cedar Grove, Efland and Hillsborough

After Christmas 1918 a second epidemic spread through the county and was very bad at Cedar Grove, Efland and Hillsborough. This time schools and churches stayed open, and the outbreak slowly died down.

Alexander H. Graham becomes chair of the Orange County Democratic Party

After his discharge from the Army as a captain in 1919, Alexander H. "Sandy" Graham of Hillsborough was elected chair of the Orange County Democratic Party.

Houston J. Walker buys the James A. Cheek House from Annie Gray Ruffin

Annie Gray Ruffin, widowed since she and Allen J. Ruffin bought the Cheek house in 1908, sold it to Houston J. Walker. Three years later Walker and his son Allen H. Walker Sr. opened Walker's Funeral Home in Hillsborough.

People: Allen Jones Ruffin

James Webb Jr.'s house Mid-Lawn is sold to David and Elizabeth Patterson

In 1919 Mid-Lawn, the Italianate house James Webb Jr. built in 1881 at East Queen and North Cameron streets, was sold to David and Elizabeth Patterson. It has since been known as the Webb-Patterson House.

The Bacon farm on St. Mary's Road takes up dairying

After the First World War the owners of the Bacon Farm switched to dairying, building a large gambrel-roofed dairy barn and two frame milking parlors behind the house, which was remodeled as a bungalow in the same years.

The Bellevue mill changes over from steam to electric power

The mill was built to run belt-driven machinery from a steam engine. By 1919 it ran partly on electricity, and by the mid-1920s it had changed over completely, with individual motors on the machines and the belt-way removed.

Subject: Bellevue Mill

The clerk of superior court becomes judge of Orange County's juvenile court

A 1919 state law required a juvenile court in every county. In Orange, as in most counties, the clerk of superior court was made its judge.

The county war record lists 23 Orange County servicemen who died in the war

Annie Sutton Cameron's record for the Council of Defense lists 23 Orange County soldiers killed in action or dead of wounds or disease, four of them Black. The list includes men from Chapel Hill, Carrboro, Hillsborough, Blackwood and Rougemont.

Orange County raises $2,075.84 for Armenian relief

An Armenian Relief campaign led by Dr. E. C. Branson ran from February 21 to March 6, 1919, and raised $2,075.84. Much of it came through the county's white and Black schools; Nellie Russell led Hillsborough Township.

People: J. Cheshire Webb · Eugene Cunningham Branson

The county board commits $20,000 to a new Hillsboro school as a memorial to the county's war dead

The board first offered Hillsboro $5,000 for a new school plant if the town raised $2,500, then settled on $20,000, and asked that the building honor the men of the county killed in the First World War. It offered Carrboro $2,500 on condition that voters there pass a $20,000 bond issue.

Subject: Hillsborough High School

Orange County towns and townships win honor flags in the Victory Loan

For meeting their Victory Loan quotas, Cedar Grove, Chapel Hill, Cheeks, Eno and Hillsborough townships and the towns of Chapel Hill and Hillsborough were awarded honor flags, the Chapel Hill News reported on May 29, 1919, crediting Mayor W. S. Roberson as Victory Loan chairman. The paper said county residents had put more than a million dollars into government securities since the first Liberty Loan.

People: W. S. Roberson

A thunderstorm halts Esther Wake at Cameron Park during the homecoming

University Summer School students staged Adolph Vermont's play Esther Wake, on the early history of Hillsborough and Orange County, at Cameron Park for more than 5,000 people. A heavy thunderstorm stopped it in the second act.

People: Adolph Vermont · Albert Coates · N. W. Walker

Subject: University Summer School

Black women of Hillsborough serve the homecoming dinner for Black soldiers and sailors

For the July 16, 1919 homecoming, a committee of Black residents planned a separate welcome, with Minnie Berry Martin chairing the dinner and Annie Berry the serving. Black soldiers and sailors marched in the parade with Black Red Cross workers and were served dinner at the Black school house.

Hillsborough holds the county homecoming celebration for returned soldiers

On July 16, 1919, about 15,000 people came to Hillsborough to welcome home Orange County's soldiers and sailors, with a parade, Gov. Bickett's address at the court house and a dinner for about a thousand guests in Cameron Park. J. Cheshire Webb chaired the celebration, and the county Red Cross voted $300 toward its cost, money the celebration fund turned out not to need.

People: Frank Nash · Julian S. Carr · John W. Graham · J. Cheshire Webb · Samuel Mallett Gattis · Thomas W. Bickett

Subject: Orange County Courthouse, Hillsborough

Billy Strayhorn stays with his grandparents in Hillsborough and starts school

From about age five Strayhorn came from Ohio with his mother and siblings to his grandparents' house at the corner of Margaret Lane and Hillsborough Avenue, attended his first year of school in the town, and took to the piano his grandparents kept. He returned for breaks and summers into his early teens.

Black families west of Hillsborough build the Gravely Hill Rosenwald School

Black families west of Hillsborough helped pay for and build Gravely Hill School, a two-teacher Rosenwald school, in the Rosenwald Fund's 1920-21 budget year. It cost $3,200: $700 from Black residents, $2,000 in public money and $500 from the Fund.

Eno Methodist Church adds rear classrooms used for West Hillsborough school classes

A side-gabled addition built about 1920 gave the church its T plan and held classrooms where early West Hillsborough school classes met, before the West End School was built on Bellevue Avenue.

Subject: Eno Methodist Church

Mars Hill Baptist Church builds a Gothic Revival frame church

Mars Hill Baptist Church on NC 57 north of Hillsborough builds a frame Gothic Revival church in the 1920s, next to its cemetery.

Subject: Mars Hill Baptist Church

Merchant Dwight Ray builds a bungalow on Hillsborough Road

Ray, co-owner of Lloyd-Ray Hardware and later an Orange County commissioner, had the one-and-a-half-story house built at 218 Hillsborough Road. Bungalows lined the road through the 1920s and early 1930s, among them one next door built for businessman Miles Andrews.

Palmer's Grove Methodist Church builds a frame church

Two years after it was organized in the Palmer's Grove schoolhouse, the Methodist congregation northwest of Hillsborough had its modest front-gabled frame church, which the 1993 county survey dates to 1920.

The Bellevue company builds its mill village north of the mill

In the early 1920s, as it doubled the mill, the company set closely spaced houses along a narrow loop road reached from West King and South Nash streets, in three plain types; the one-and-a-half-story houses had two front doors so workers on different shifts could come and go separately. All the houses appear on the 1924 Sanborn map.

Subject: Bellevue Mill

The Bellevue mill is enlarged in 1920 and again in

Expansions in 1920 and 1923 were part of a decade of growth in which the mill more than doubled its spindles and looms, and they coincided with the building of much of its company housing.

Subject: Bellevue Mill

The Bivins brothers' tobacco basket factory is running in Hillsboro

A Hillsboro report called the Bivins brothers' basket factory a new industry doing a thriving business. It wove the large baskets used in tobacco warehouses by machine, one of few such plants in the country.

The Hillsborough Methodist parsonage is remodeled and raised to two stories

Under pastor J. E. Blalock the one-story parsonage on lot 94 was remodeled with a second story added. It served until 1956.

Subject: Hillsborough Methodist Church

The Walker farm on St. Mary's Road switches from grain to dairy cattle

Around 1920 the Walker family gave up grain for dairying and built a large gambrel-roofed dairy barn, milking parlors and feed barns on the St. Mary's Road farm.

Subject: George Washington Walker Farm

Three matching brick buildings for car sales and repair go up on South Churton Street

In the early 1920s three two-story brick buildings with matching arched Craftsman transoms replace earlier buildings at 100, 106 and 108 South Churton Street. The 1924 Sanborn map marks 108 as auto repair and 106 as built from plans, and the 1943 map shows 106 as auto sales.

The Farmers' State Alliance auctions off its old academy headquarters

The Farmers' State Alliance had found the old Barracks property a burden since about 1901. On June 21, 1920 it was cut into lots and sold at auction, and John W. Hill got the parcel with the commandant's house.

Subject: Hillsborough Military Academy

Frank Porter Graham takes the higher-education campaign to Hillsboro alumni

A day after Greensboro alumni founded the Association for the Promotion of Higher Education, Graham spoke to an alumni meeting in Hillsboro, one of nearly two dozen club gatherings across the state that October.

A neighborhood grocery is built at 425-427 West King Street

A one-story frame grocery was built around 1921 at 425-427 West King Street; the 1924 Sanborn map shows it as commercial, and by 1943 it had been made into a duplex. A small store facing South Nash Street was added at its rear after 1943.

Alexander H. Graham acquires the Hasell-Nash House on West Queen Street

After more than ninety years with the Nash family, the house passed in 1921 to lawyer Alexander H. Graham, later lieutenant governor and a grandson of Governor William A. Graham. The Grahams sold it on August 20, 1935, to Dr. H. W. Moore, who had it restored with architect Archie Royal Davis.

People: Archie Royal Davis

Subject: Hasell-Nash House

J. Cheshire Webb becomes president of the Eno Cotton Mills

Webb, a director of the Eno Cotton Mills since early manhood, was made president of the Hillsborough mill in 1921. He ran it until his death in 1932 and was also a director of the Rocky Mount Mills and the Bank of Orange.

Subject: Eno Mill

Louis Round Wilson's survey finds thin library collections in Orange County's white schools

A questionnaire of Orange County's 48 white schools for 1921–22, including the Chapel Hill and Hillsboro graded schools, found seven with no library and 3,692 volumes for 1,586 pupils, slightly more than two books per pupil. Ten of the 25 teachers who answered said the books were used "not very much"; Wilson published the results in January 1923.

People: Louis Round Wilson

Masons lay the cornerstone of Grimes Dormitory

Masons from Hillsborough's Eagle Lodge and Chapel Hill's University Lodge laid the cornerstone of Grimes Dormitory. Past Grand Master Samuel M. Gattis of Eagle Lodge ran the ceremony and gave the address.

People: Samuel Mallett Gattis

Subject: Eagle Lodge · University Lodge

Story-and-a-half houses, probably mill housing for the Newport Manufacturing Company, go up on South Occoneechee Street

Three matching one-and-a-half-story houses at 212, 216 and 218 South Occoneechee Street, built around 1920-1921, may have been mill houses for the Newport Manufacturing Company, which the 1924 Sanborn map shows on nearby Calvin Street.

The Paul Riley House is built on Riley Avenue in West Hillsborough

The Paul Riley House, a one-story frame bungalow with a shed dormer and tapered porch posts, was built at Riley Avenue and Eno Street. The Rileys were among the leading West Hillsborough families, and the Paul Riley Store went up nearby on Eno Street about 1942.

The legislature passes the Highway Act championed by Harriet Morehead Berry of Hillsborough

The 1921 act paid for a state highway network tying together the main cities and county seats. Its trunk route, the Central Highway (later U.S. 70), ran straight through Hillsborough.

Fire destroys two store buildings in Hillsborough's business district

A fire that began behind O. J. and B. B. Forest's general store destroyed that brick store, the frame Spurgeon building next door with Tolar's grocery and Dr. J. S. Spurgeon's dental office, and a storehouse. The brick post office building stopped the fire, which did about $30,000 in damage with little insurance.

A freight wreck at the Occoneechee Farm siding sets a gasoline tank car burning

Three cars of a Southern freight train, one a gasoline tank car, left the track at the Occoneechee Farm siding east of Hillsboro. The tank car caught fire and burned through the night, a flour car and a lumber car burned, and passengers were transferred around the torn-up track until repairs the next afternoon.

Subject: Occoneechee Farm · North Carolina Railroad

A two-story addition turns the Hill Farm house to face a new way

In 1922 a big two-story frame wing was added to the Hill Farm house east of Hillsborough on St. Mary's Road, changing the direction the house faced. The older part, a rear ell from the late eighteenth century, became a back wing.

Subject: Hill Farm (Roland Hill House)

The O. E. Bivins House, a Craftsman bungalow, is built on North Hassell Street

The 2014 National Register documentation for the Hillsborough Historic District names the hip-roofed Craftsman bungalow at 112 North Hassell Street the O. E. Bivins House and dates it about 1922. O. E. Bivins was a Hillsboro manufacturer who ran the town's tobacco basket factory with his brothers.

The State Highway Commission builds a concrete bridge over the Eno at Hillsboro

The commission let State Project 453, a bridge over the Eno at Hillsboro, to contractor George W. Kane for $30,651.20 on February 8, 1922, and work was well along by July. The reinforced concrete bridge, now on Exchange Park Lane, was the main way into town from the south until 1964.

Subject: Eno River road bridge, Hillsborough

Hillsboro finishes its new $100,000 school building

The town's new brick school on West Tryon Street was reported ready within a week in September 1922, though a shortage of desks held up the opening. By early 1923 it housed grades one through eleven for the consolidated Hillsboro schools under principal J. A. Abernethy.

Subject: Hillsborough High School

Houston J. Walker and Allen H. Walker Sr. open Walker's Funeral Home in Hillsborough

Houston J. Walker and his son Allen H. Walker Sr. opened Walker's Funeral Home in Hillsborough, buying a Model T Ford and a Reo hearse. The family added branches in Chapel Hill in 1937 and Mebane in 1945.

Subject: Walker’s Funeral Home

Orange County begins merging its one- and two-teacher schools into larger ones

Claytor started the county's first round of consolidation in 1923, folding small schools into larger ones and seeking local tax elections, with a budget request of $92,100. Efland, Aycock and Hillsborough were to carry grades one through eleven and the rest grades one through seven.

Parts of the old academy land are subdivided as Oak Ridge and the Murray property

Portions of the Alliance tract were laid out as the Oak Ridge Development in 1923 and as the Murray property in 1924. Together they make up the west end of West Hillsborough.

Subject: Hillsborough Military Academy

Students place the first marker at Governor Thomas Burke's grave

A committee of university summer-school students working with the Boone Trail Highway Association cleared the unmarked grave of Governor Thomas Burke near Hillsborough and set a stone with an iron tablet at its head.

Subject: Thomas Burke’s grave (Tyaquin)

The county school board builds a teachers' home at Murphey School from the unfinished Mount Hope School

Instead of finishing a new Mount Hope School that was to be merged into Murphey, the county board had the partly built schoolhouse taken apart and its materials carried to the Murphey site for a seven-room teachers' home. W. H. Woods built it for $800 in labor, paid with money from the sale of the old University School; the frame bungalow is the only teacherage left standing in Orange County.

Subject: Murphey School

Hillsboro's first public schoolhouse is gone and its lot is set aside for an athletic field

Once the new consolidated school opened, the grounds where the old Hillsboro schoolhouse had stood were to become the new school's athletic field, according to a February 1923 report.

Subject: Hillsborough High School

Julian Carr's Occoneechee Farm is sold at auction in small farms

Occoneechee Farm, divided into small farms along the Durham-Greensboro highway a mile from Hillsboro, was sold at auction with its personal property. Carr had already sold his Holstein herd to Chapel Hill dairyman C. H. Weaver.

Subject: Occoneechee Farm

A gas station and garage is built at 136-138 North Churton Street

A low gas station and garage, with a front-gabled canopy that sheltered the pumps, is built at 136-138 North Churton Street in 1924. A concrete-block wing was added on the south side after 1943.

First Baptist Church of Hillsborough replaces its steeple

In 1924 the steeple of the First Baptist Church at West King and South Wake streets was replaced; the bell tower now carries a tall four-sided copper steeple.

St. Matthew's Church celebrates the hundredth anniversary of its organization

The parish marked a century since its 1824 founding with an evening service. Speakers included Samuel S. Nash of Tarboro, and two great-great-granddaughters of Thomas Ruffin, who gave the site, attended.

Subject: St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church

The 1924 Sanborn map shows a school for Black children on West Orange Street

The 1924 Sanborn map records a 'colored school' on the West Orange Street lot where a Prince Hall Masonic lodge was later built.

The building at 111 North Churton Street is in use as a drug store, later James Pharmacy

The yellow-brick building at 111 North Churton Street appears as a drug store on the 1924 Sanborn map. It keeps a 1940s carrara glass sign reading James Pharmacy and much of its original drug store fittings inside.

William Courtney's Yellow House serves as Hillsborough's telephone exchange

The 1924 Sanborn map shows the old Courtney house at 141 East King Street in use as a telephone exchange.

An Order of the Eastern Star chapter is established in Hillsborough

A chapter of the Order of the Eastern Star, the Masonic order open to women, was established in Hillsborough. Chapel Hill's chapter followed in 1947.

Hillsborough women organize the Hillsborough Garden Club

Twelve Hillsborough women met in an old school building in 1925 to form a garden club, and began by cleaning lots in the business district and planting crepe myrtles along the downtown streets. The club later sponsored the founding of the Orange County Historical Museum.

Subject: Orange County Historical Museum

The four Bivins brothers start a woodworking plant in Hillsborough

The Bivins brothers opened a plant in Hillsborough in 1925 that first made tobacco baskets and later, as Orange Furniture Craftsmen, upholstered furniture. It became the White Furniture Company's Hillsborough branch.

J. Cheshire Webb takes options on the Hillsborough quarry farm that supplied stone for Duke

Webb showed geologist Jasper L. Stuckey the old quarry near Hillsborough that had supplied flagstones, and at the request of Duke's business manager Frank Brown he took purchase options on the quarry farm, signed January 31, 1925. The land was bought under the option for Duke University on March 31.

Brodie S. Carr opens a grocery in a small filling-station building north of Hillsboro

Out of work after losing his timekeeper job at Eno Cotton Mills, Brodie S. Carr opened a grocery in a small frame service-station building on the northern edge of Hillsboro. It grew into Carr's Super Market.

Subject: Carr’s Super Market

The Mayo family's quarry land near Hillsborough is sold to Duke's land agent for $500

A deed at the Orange County courthouse records that Duke land agent Murray Jones paid the Mayo family $500 in March 1925 for land with a working stone quarry, the source of the stone for Duke's new campus. According to family accounts, George Mayo refused to sell until he was jailed and signed so his family would not go hungry.

Subject: Duke land purchases in Orange County · Orange County Courthouse, Hillsborough

Lawyer J. Clyde Ray finishes a two-story office building with a restaurant on Churton Street

J. Clyde Ray built a two-story brick building, about $10,000 with its lot, with his law offices on one side of the ground floor and a restaurant run by Arthur Crabtree on the other. It also held six offices, a lodge room and a rest room for women shopping in town.

Patrick L. Clayton sells his farm northwest of Hillsboro to James B. Duke's agents for $4,000

The Chapel Hill Weekly reported that Patrick L. Clayton, who had paid $200 for a 70-acre farm about a mile northwest of Hillsboro twenty years earlier, had sold it to representatives of James B. Duke for $4,000 for its building stone. Architects and builders had judged the stone suitable for the new Duke University.

Subject: Duke land purchases in Orange County

The Farmers and Merchants Bank moves into a new building on North Churton Street

The Farmers and Merchants Bank moved into a new building of granite and brick on the east side of Churton Street, between the old bank building and Mitchell's hardware store. The building cost about $5,000.

After its 1920s additions the Bellevue mill runs 10,740 spindles and 592 looms

The additions of the early 1920s more than doubled the mill's spindles and looms, and by 1926 the company's capital stock stood at $500,000. In 1919 it had still declared only its original $125,000.

Subject: Bellevue Mill

Former students place a memorial tablet to the Nash sisters and Sarah Kollock in the Presbyterian church

Students of the girls' school kept by Sally and Maria Nash and their relative Sarah Kollock put up a tablet in their memory on the wall of the Hillsborough Presbyterian sanctuary.

People: Sarah Kollock

Subject: Hillsborough Presbyterian Church

Orange County builds a new jail

The county replaced its run-down jail with a $65,000 building, also used as a base for convicts on road work. Five years later the state took over most sentenced prisoners and the jail was often nearly empty.

Subject: Orange County jail, Hillsborough