Chronology

A log house, later the Weaver House, is built beside the Hillsborough wagon road

A story-and-a-jump house of hewn logs, one room on each floor, went up a few yards from the wagon road to Hillsborough, whose roadbed could still be traced in 1983. Tradition says it was first a tavern; it is the oldest building standing in Carrboro.

Subject: Weaver House

Francis Nash becomes clerk of the Orange County court

Having settled at Childsburgh (Hillsborough), where he kept a store and a law practice, Francis Nash became clerk of the Orange County court in 1763. A superior court clerkship at Hillsborough was possible only after the 1767-68 act made the town a district court seat, with its first term in March 1768.

A house is built for Catherine Lockhart at Churton and Tryon streets

A one-and-a-half-story frame house is built for Catherine Lockhart on the northeast corner of Churton and Tryon streets. In the early 1800s shoemaker William H. Brown lived in it and kept his shop there; its front half survives next door at 103 East Tryon Street.

Clerk Francis Nash is cleared of charging illegal fees

In the first Regulator complaints against Orange County officials in 1768, the clerk Francis Nash was accused of taking illegal fees. He was exonerated.

Part of The Regulator crisis, 1766–1771 · 90 events

Orange County elects Francis Nash to a seat left by Herman Husband's expulsion

With John Pryor dead and Herman Husband expelled from the Assembly, Orange County filled the two vacant seats in 1771 with Ralph McNair and Francis Nash, both strong opponents of the Regulators. Nash had fought against the Regulators at Alamance that year as a militia captain.

Part of The Regulator crisis, 1766–1771 · 90 events

People: Herman Husband · Ralph McNair

Francis Nash builds his house on West Tryon Street

Francis Nash built the house now called the Nash-Hooper House on West Tryon Street in Hillsborough in 1772, on land bought from Isaac Edwards. After his death in 1777 it passed through other hands to William Hooper in 1782.

People: William Hooper

Subject: Nash-Hooper House

Congress at Hillsborough names Francis Nash lieutenant colonel of the 1st North Carolina Regiment

On September 1, 1775 the Provincial Congress meeting at Hillsborough appointed the officers of the first of its two new regiments: James Moore, colonel, and Francis Nash, lieutenant colonel. On the congress's opening day Nash had been asked to bring the Rev. George Micklejohn to open it with prayers in the church at Hillsborough.

Part of Third Provincial Congress at Hillsborough, 1775 · 15 events

People: George Micklejohn

The Assembly orders a new courthouse built at Hillsborough

Nathaniel Rochester and William Courtney oversaw the work. Planned in brick but built of wood because of wartime shortages, it was one room about 40 by 25 feet near the present courthouse site and served until fire destroyed it in late 1789 or 1790.

People: Nathaniel Rochester

Subject: Orange County Courthouse, Hillsborough

The oldest frame section of the Hill Farm house is built on St. Mary's Road

The earliest part of the Hill Farm house, a frame section on a stone foundation with a double-shouldered chimney nearly eight feet wide, may go back to the 1780s, making it one of the few eighteenth-century buildings along the road.

Subject: Hill Farm (Roland Hill House)

A brick courthouse replaces the first one at Hillsborough

The county's second courthouse, built of brick, went up in 1782. The book says fire destroyed it seven years later and a wooden courthouse followed in 1790.

Subject: Orange County Courthouse, Hillsborough

William Hooper makes the Nash house in Hillsborough his home

The house Francis Nash built in 1772 became the home of William Hooper, signer of the Declaration of Independence, in 1782. William A. Graham lived there in the 1860s.

People: Francis Nash · William A. Graham

Subject: Nash-Hooper House

Alfred Moore of Wilmington builds Moorefields near Hillsborough as a summer home

Moore, whom President John Adams later appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court, built Moorefields as his summer place. Local tradition held that Senator Thomas Hart Benton and Mrs. Henry Clay were born there, but both were born before the house was built, on Hart and Benton family land somewhat to the north.

Subject: Moorefields

Sterling Harris builds the house on East Queen Street later called Heartsease

Sterling Harris built the one-and-a-half-story core of the house about 1786. Polly Burke bought it in 1810 and added a bay, and Dennis Heartt's family named it Heartsease after 1837.

Subject: Heartsease

A one-story Federal house is built on West Queen Street, later the John Newman House

The hall-and-parlor house at 230 West Queen Street dates from about 1787; a deed of February 25, 1790 already describes the lot as improved. Its earliest recorded owner was Vincent Peter Williamson, and Governor Thomas Burke's widow Mary Burke Doherty owned it for a time before the Newman family bought it in the 1860s.

Daniel Mallett buys the West King Street lots where Twin Chimneys stands

On September 4, 1788, Daniel Mallett bought Lots 21 and 31 on West King Street, the first deed since 1768 to mention buildings or improvements on the property now called Twin Chimneys.

John B. Tenney is said to build a farmhouse northeast of the village

Local tradition credits John B. Tenney with building the one-story frame farmhouse now at 381 Tenney Circle around 1791, and says it stayed in the family into the mid-twentieth century and took in boarders early in the 1800s.

Catherine Lockhart's burial in 1792 is the earliest known grave in the Lockhart-Phillips family cemetery

The small walled cemetery on East Tryon Street holds seventeen marked graves; the earliest is probably that of Mrs. Catherine Lockhart, who died in 1792. Saddler James Phillips, a founder of the Presbyterian church, probably built the fieldstone wall around 1820 and was buried there in 1847.

William Kirkland opens his own store in Hillsborough

William Kirkland, who left Ayr, Scotland, to work in the mercantile trade, had married and opened his own store in Hillsborough by 1793.

Joseph Caldwell arrives in Chapel Hill as professor of mathematics

Joseph Caldwell, a Princeton graduate and tutor, moved to Chapel Hill in October 1796 to teach mathematics at the new university. He became presiding professor the next year.

People: Charles Harris

George Clarke is buried in the ground that becomes the Chapel Hill town cemetery

The oldest dated stone in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery, at Raleigh and Country Club roads, marks the 1798 grave of George Clarke, a member of the university's Philanthropic Society. It shows the burial ground in use by that year.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

A saddle-notched log house is built on the Webb Farm on St. Mary's Road

The Webb Farm's one-room log house, with a fieldstone chimney, dates from the early nineteenth century; a two-story frame house was built across its front late in the century with no inside door between them.

The Gosling log house is built in eastern Orange County

A one-room log house, later known as the Gosling Log House, is raised in eastern Orange County in the early 1800s. The survey placed it on the state Study List.

The Patterson family builds a Federal-style house near Mount Moriah

A two-story center-passage house with Federal mantels was built for the Pattersons, who owned much land and the Patterson grist mill. Colonial Revival changes, probably in the 1920s or later, and 20th-century additions have hidden its early form.

The one-story house later called the Nathaniel Rochester House is built on West King Street

A one-story frame house, close in detail to the Ruffin-Roulhac House, was built at 225 West King Street around 1800; tradition makes Nathaniel Rochester, founder of Rochester, New York, an early owner.

Duncan Cameron builds a law office on Margaret Lane, later the Nash Law Office

Lawyer Duncan Cameron built a one-story Federal-style law office on his lots on Margaret Lane. In 1807 he sold the property to Frederick Nash, who kept his practice there and taught law students in it until his death in 1858.

People: Frederick Nash

Subject: Nash Law Office

The Paisley-Rice log house is built near Mebane

A log dwelling now called the Paisley-Rice Log House went up in western Orange County near Mebane, probably for the Rev. William D. Paisley after he bought the 200-acre tract from James Davis on February 7, 1801. It is one of the few county log houses already on the National Register by 1993.

Subject: Paisley-Rice Log House

William Courtney Jr. deeds the Yellow House on East King Street to his brother Joseph

A 1801 deed from William Courtney Jr. to his brother Joseph is the first to call the property the "yellow house", the earliest evidence of a house on the lot. The two-story Georgian house still stands at 141 East King Street.

Joseph Caldwell is elected the first president of the university

When the trustees created the office of president in 1804 they elected Caldwell to it unanimously. He resigned the presidency in 1812 to teach and returned to it a few years later, holding it until his death in 1835.

A bill in the House would let Hillsborough's commissioners enclose the public spring

Mr. Holt brought in a bill in the House of Commons letting the commissioners of Hillsborough enclose the public spring lot and the school house lot, and also the churchyard, and improve them.

A brick house is built on West Queen Street for Rhody Berry, mother of builder John Berry

The one-and-a-half-story Federal house, the oldest surviving brick dwelling in the original town, was built about 1805 for Mrs. Rhody Berry. Tradition credits her son John Berry, but he was seven that year, and the 2014 nomination suggests neighbor Samuel Hancock, the brickmason who later became his partner.

People: Samuel Hancock

Subject: Berry Brick House

Saddler James Phillips builds a brick kitchen on the school-house lot on East Tryon Street

James Phillips, a Hillsborough saddler, buys the old school-house lot at the east edge of town and builds a two-room brick kitchen beside the house, where he lives until 1847. The kitchen, with his name scratched in a window pane, still stands beside BelleVue.

Subject: BelleVue (Phillips-Hill-Webb House)

The Faucett family builds a two-story house and inn beside their Eno mill

After buying the mill at the Eno ford northwest of Hillsborough, the Faucetts put up a two-story house next to it that also served travelers as an inn and tavern. It still stands beside the mill.

Subject: Faucett Mill (Chatwood)

Justice Alfred Moore dies and leaves Moorefields to his son

Former U.S. Supreme Court justice Alfred Moore, builder of Moorefields, died and willed the house to his son Alfred, a lawyer who went on to serve in the House of Commons and as its speaker in 1823-1824.

Subject: Moorefields

A log house said to date from 1811 is built for the Craig family near New Hope

Local tradition puts the building of this story-and-a-half log house on New Hope Church Road in 1811, for the Craigs; the Blackwoods owned it for many years and added to it around 1900. If the date holds it is the oldest log house in the survey.

Professor Andrew Rhea buys the Hillsborough Street land where the log "Old Tavern" stands

In 1812 professor Andrew Rhea bought a tract a few blocks north of the campus, and he may have built the log house still standing at 419 Hillsborough Street as his own home. The house goes by the name Old Tavern, although nothing shows it was ever used as one.

Subject: Old Tavern (419 Hillsborough Street)

William Cain builds Sans Souci

William Cain probably built Sans Souci, his Hillsborough town house, about 1813, soon after he bought the thirty-acre tract in 1812; a 1953 plate caption had dated it about 1760. It was the home of S. T. Latta Jr. in 1953.

Subject: Sans Souci

A log house, later the Maynard farm kitchen, is built in southwest Orange

The half-dovetailed log building that became the kitchen on the William Maynard farm went up about 1814, and is said to have been the family's first dwelling.

Subject: Maynard Farm

Margaretta Chapman's marble headstone becomes the oldest surviving monument in the Chapel Hill graveyard

The Baroque-style marble headstone of sixteen-year-old Margaretta Chapman, who died in 1814, was probably set soon after her death and is thought to be the oldest stone monument in the cemetery. Like other early stones it was likely shipped in, since no gravestone carvers worked in North Carolina before the 1820s.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Professor William Hooper builds a house on East Franklin Street

About 1814 William Hooper, professor of ancient languages, put up a plain two-story Federal house at 504 East Franklin Street, one block east of the campus, with brick chimneys at the gable ends and a center door under a transom. It is one of only two houses from the village of that decade still standing.

The earliest part of the Walker House is built off St. Mary's Road

The heavy-timber rear section of the Walker House on the Robert Walker farm, on Schley Road just off St. Mary's Road northeast of Hillsborough, is said to date from 1814.

The Rev. John Knox Witherspoon adds the paired end chimneys to his West King Street house

While he owned the house now called Twin Chimneys, the Presbyterian minister and schoolmaster built the Flemish-bond pairs of chimneys at each gable end that gave it its name. The two-story front porch dates from about 1816.

Mrs. Frederick Nash plants the double row of cedars that forms Hillsborough's Cedar Walk

Mrs. Frederick Nash planted two rows of cedar trees along a path of about ten feet running north from West Margaret Lane toward West King Street, linking the Nash house with the John H. Witherspoon house. The walk survives and several houses face onto it.

Students James K. Polk and William Horn Battle board at the Tenney farmhouse

The one-story frame house at 381 Tenney Circle, a dwelling on John B. Tenney's farm northeast of the campus, was probably standing by 1818 and keeps much of its early interior. James K. Polk of the class of 1818 and William Horn Battle of the class of 1820 took room and board there and walked two miles to classes.

People: William Horn Battle

The Puckett house stands on East Franklin Street across from Hooper's

John Puckett, a former postmaster, bought the lot at 501 East Franklin Street from John Craig in 1817, and by early 1818 his widow lived in a two-story Federal house there; Denison Olmsted bought it from her about 1820 and remodeled it. Before the Civil War it was the home of mathematics professor James Phillips, whose family held Ben and Dilsey Craig in slavery; the Craigs lived in a brick kitchen in the back yard.

Thomas Ruffin's law office is built beside his Hillsborough house

A one-room frame law office with a rubble stone chimney was built for Thomas Ruffin, later chief justice of North Carolina, near his house on what became the Burnside lawn. It still stands on its original site.

Subject: Burnside

A sitting-room wing and a separate kitchen are added at the Nash-Hooper House

A one-story frame sitting room, later the dining room, was built on a log base at the rear of the Nash-Hooper House, giving it an L shape. A detached frame kitchen went up just east of the house at the same time.

Subject: Nash-Hooper House

Samuel Hancock buys lots near the Eno for a brickyard

With a $50 loan from Dr. James Webb, brickmason Samuel Hancock bought lots near the Eno River for a brickyard, which became known as the Webb-Hancock brickyard. Webb's 1842 bankruptcy papers say the two men ran it as partners.

People: James Webb

A Federal house is built on West Queen Street for Eliza Hasell

Eliza G. Hasell bought the lots from Archibald D. Murphey on July 27, 1819, and the two-story house with pedimented one-story wings, modeled on a plate in Robert Morris's Rural Architecture, was built for her about 1820. After her marriage to William S. Plumer she sold it to Samuel Simpson, and his daughter Mary Simpson Nash's family held it into the twentieth century.

People: Archibald D. Murphey

Subject: Hasell-Nash House

A hall-and-parlor farmhouse is built on the Cabe land by the Eno

The one-and-a-half-story frame house, with unpainted heart pine walls and late Georgian mantels, was probably built in the 1820s by Jamima Cabe and her husband Jehu Brown, who married in 1827. It may instead date from before William Cabe's death in 1828.

David Faucette builds his farmhouse above the Eno

David Faucette built a two-story frame farmhouse above the Eno about 1820. It gained Greek Revival trim in the mid-1800s and a front porch about 1880. Placed on the state Study List in April 1992, it was listed in the National Register in 1999 as the David Faucette House; the name The Elms was given by owners in 1977.

Subject: David Faucette House (The Elms)

Professor Denison Olmsted buys the Widow Puckett house on East Franklin Street

In 1820 Denison Olmsted bought the two-story Federal house and lot at 501 East Franklin Street from the Puckett family. From 1826 it was home to the family of mathematics professor James Phillips.

People: James Phillips

Saddler James Phillips walls in the Lockhart-Phillips family cemetery

James Phillips probably built the fieldstone wall around the small family graveyard on East Tryon Street, where Catherine Lockhart was buried in 1792 and Phillips himself in 1847.

The Beasley House is built on a hall-and-parlor plan

Thought to date from the 1820s, the Beasley House ranks among the finest hall-and-parlor houses left in Orange County. Its early story-and-a-half section keeps its original room layout and its hewn, pegged frame, though the house was changed and enlarged late in the nineteenth century.

The Miller log house is built near Rougemont

The Miller house is a log dwelling with a second log pen behind it, joined by a covered breezeway; the rear pen served as the kitchen and has a stone chimney about eight feet wide.

A small Federal house is built on East Orange Street for Martin Hanks

The three west bays of the house later called Little Hawfields and the Ruffin-Roulhac House were built about 1821 for Martin Hanks. In the 1830s Francis L. Hawks and Frances C. P. Blount Hill bought it and added the east rooms.

People: Francis L. (Francis Lister) Hawks

Subject: Ruffin-Roulhac House (Little Hawfields)

The Rev. William Mercer Green builds the first house on the land later called Montrose

Around 1821 the Rev. William Mercer Green, rector of St. Matthew's, built the first house on land he had acquired from William Kirkland; the tract had first belonged to James Hogg. William A. Graham bought it in 1842.

People: William Kirkland

Subject: Montrose

Brickmason Samuel Hancock joins the Hillsborough Presbyterian Church he helped build

Samuel Hancock joined the Hillsborough Presbyterian Church on November 17, 1821, five years after his wife Susan. He rented a pew and gave toward the pastor's salary and a bell.

Subject: Hillsborough Presbyterian Church

Jonathan P. Sneed builds the house on the bluff south of the Eno later called Eno Lodge

Jonathan P. Sneed built a two-story Federal house on the high ground above the Eno across from town. It was later known as Norwood, Eno Lodge and the Eagles' Nest.

Subject: Eno Lodge

A lateral-hall house is built on Margaret Lane for Caroline Mallett Walker and Carleton Walker

After Peter Mallett's heirs deeded their shares of Lot 19 to their sister Caroline Mary Mallett Walker, a one-and-a-half-story Federal house was apparently built there for her and her husband Carleton Walker. With Ayr Mount it is one of only two lateral-hall houses in Hillsborough.

John Wall Norwood builds Over-the-River across the Eno from Hillsborough

John Wall Norwood and his wife built a two-story, center-hall house south of the Eno opposite the town. It became known as Over-the-River and later as the Norwood-Webb-Cheshire House.

Subject: Over-the-River (Norwood-Webb-Cheshire House)

Martin Hanks sells his lot and house at Churton and Orange streets to William H. Phillips

Martin Hanks sold town lot 181 to William H. Phillips for $650, a price that shows a house already stood there.

Subject: Ruffin-Roulhac House (Little Hawfields)

The trustees settle William Nichols's accounts for Old West and the campus repairs

The university settled with William Nichols, its supervisor and builder, for Old West, the new chapel, the bricks made on university land and repairs to South Building, the President's House and Steward's Hall. Battle gives the cost as about $26,587 and says the accounts showed a want of careful superintendence.

Subject: Old West · South Building · Steward’s Hall

Francis L. Hawks buys the house at Churton and Orange streets

William H. Phillips sold the house to Francis Lister Hawks, then reporter to the state supreme court. While living there Hawks left the law to study theology under William Mercer Green of St. Matthew's and was ordained deacon in 1827; he later became a noted Episcopal clergyman and historian.

Subject: Ruffin-Roulhac House (Little Hawfields)

Hillsborough's market house is torn down

The town clock, which had hung in the market-house tower after leaving the old Episcopal church steeple, was put in storage until the new courthouse was finished.

Subject: Orange County Courthouse, Hillsborough

Caldwell builds the first college observatory in the United States

Caldwell began an astronomical observatory on the campus in 1830 and finished it in 1831, paying more than 400 dollars himself, to house instruments he had bought in Europe in 1824. The DocSouth biography calls it the first American observatory built for teaching.

Frances Blount buys the Hawks house and the lot beside it

Walker Anderson, acting for Francis L. Hawks, sold the house to Frances Blount, who is thought to have been renting it. She also bought the neighboring lot 180 that year.

Subject: Ruffin-Roulhac House (Little Hawfields)

Frances Blount enlarges the house to a center-passage plan

Soon after buying it, Frances Blount added two rooms to the east side of the one-and-a-half-story house, turning its side-hall plan into the center-passage form it keeps today.

Subject: Ruffin-Roulhac House (Little Hawfields)

The core of the Huskey House is built on East Rosemary Street

The heavily altered house at 215 East Rosemary Street probably dates from the 1830s; only its Greek Revival doorway still shows its age. It is named for a later resident, village blacksmith John Huskey.

Schoolmaster William J. Bingham builds a house at Churton and Union streets

William James Bingham, then head of the Hillsborough Academy, builds a one-and-a-half-story house at the southeast corner of North Churton and East Union streets and lives there until 1845. Later owners included the Methodist church, which used it for a time as a parsonage.

Mary W. Burke deeds her Queen Street house to George Johnston, keeping one room

Governor Thomas Burke's daughter Mary W. Burke sold her East Queen Street house and lot, later called Heartsease, to George Johnston for one dollar and kept the use of one room for herself. The next year Johnston gave up his claim for the same sum.

People: George Johnston

Subject: Heartsease

Samuel Hancock goes bankrupt and Dr. James Webb buys his house and the enslaved man Abram

In 1834 Samuel Hancock went bankrupt. Dr. James Webb bought the Hancocks' house and lot, their furniture and Abram, a man they enslaved, and rented all of them back to Hancock for $1 a year.

People: James Webb

Paul C. Cameron builds Burnside on the foundation of Thomas Ruffin's old house

Paul Cameron built the town house he named Burnside on South Cameron Street, on the stone foundation of his father-in-law Thomas Ruffin's earlier house. Enslaved workers from Cameron's Fairntosh plantation built it under his master carpenter Jack, and John Berry laid the brick.

People: John Berry · Thomas Ruffin

Subject: Burnside

The Rev. Ira Ellis builds Little Ayr Mount, a two-story brick house west of Hillsborough

The Rev. Ira Ellis, who bought 300 acres on the Eno west of Hillsborough in 1835, built the plain two-story brick house later called Little Ayr Mount about that time. With Ayr Mount it is one of the few masonry houses the county survey found from the early nineteenth century.

Subject: Rev. Ira Ellis House (Little Ayr Mount)

University trustees pay for a stone wall around the Chapel Hill graveyard

By 1835 about six more marked graves had joined George Clarke's, among them society members James Neal and James Smith, and the trustees set aside $64.41 to enclose the burying ground with a stone wall.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

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.

People: John U. Kirkland

Subject: Ayr Mount

Alfred Moore the younger dies and leaves Moorefields to Francis Nash Waddell

On the death of Alfred Moore the younger, Moorefields passed to his son-in-law, Francis Nash Waddell.

Subject: Moorefields

Dr. Edmund Strudwick buys Archibald Haralson's house on West Queen Street and enlarges it

Dr. Edmund Strudwick bought the house from Archibald Haralson in 1837, enlarged it, and is thought to have built the brick kitchen that still stands in the rear yard. The house became known as the Haralson-Strudwick House.

Subject: Haralson-Strudwick House and brick kitchen

Dr. James Webb builds a house around Polly Burke's log schoolhouse

About twenty years after the one-room log schoolhouse went up on his East Queen Street land, Dr. James Webb built a house around it, with the log room as its living room.

Paul C. Cameron moves to Fairntosh to manage the Cameron plantations

Paul C. Cameron gave up the bar and moved with his wife, Anne Ruffin Cameron, from Burnside in Hillsborough to Fairntosh to manage the Cameron plantations with his uncle Thomas D. Bennehan. They lived there until 1856.

Isaiah Spencer builds the Hillsborough inn later called the Colonial Inn

Isaiah Spencer built the two-story inn on West King Street in 1838. Known locally as Spencer's Tavern and advertised as the Orange Hotel, a name it kept for fifty years, it was later the Occoneechee Hotel, the Corbinton Inn and, from 1946, the Colonial Inn. Local lore and a 1953 plate caption put it in the eighteenth century.

Subject: Colonial Inn

Paul Cameron sells Burnside to Cadwallader Jones Jr.

Paul Cameron sold Burnside, his three-year-old Hillsborough house, to Cadwallader Jones Jr. for $2,000. Jones sold it back to Cameron in the 1850s when he ran into money trouble.

People: Cadwallader Jones

Subject: Burnside

Commissioners seek bids to repair the Eno bridge at Hillsborough

John U. Kirkland was one of five commissioners, with Cadwallader Jones, Edmund Strudwick, Josiah Turner and Catlett Campbell, who advertised for proposals to repair the bridge over the Eno at Hillsborough, with bids due in November.

People: Edmund Strudwick · Cadwallader Jones · Josiah Turner Jr.

Subject: Eno River road bridge, Hillsborough

Alexander Dickson becomes owner of the house later called the Alexander Dickson House

Around 1839 Alexander Dickson acquired the late-Georgian frame farmhouse of about 1790 that stood near the later junction of Interstate 85 and NC 86 outside Hillsborough. Joseph E. Johnston used it as his headquarters in 1865, and it was moved to 150 East King Street in 1983.

Subject: Alexander Dickson House (Johnston’s headquarters)

A second stone chimney dated 1840 is added to the Strayhorn log house

The log house on the later Blackwood Farm has two stone chimneys side by side, a large one carved 1827 and a smaller one carved 1840, marking an enlargement of the house.

Subject: Blackwood Farm

Dennis Heartt's family adds a two-story wing to Heartsease

After buying Polly Burke's Queen Street house in 1837, the family of Recorder editor Dennis Heartt named it Heartsease and built a two-story Greek Revival wing on its west side about 1840.

Subject: Heartsease

John Berry adds a rear ell to Peter Brown Ruffin's house on West King Street

Builder John Berry added at least one two-story rear ell, with a Federal-style stair typical of his work, to the 1820s house that Peter Brown Ruffin owned in the 1840s. The house's first owner is unknown.

The two-story Wrenn log house is built near Cedar Grove

A two-story log house now called the Rosie Wrenn House is built near Cedar Grove around 1840. A large frame addition went on the back around 1869; the house is on the Study List.

Fayetteville carver George Lauder makes Lewis Bowen Holt's tomb-table in the Dialectic Society plot

The marble tomb-table over Dialectic Society member Lewis Bowen Holt, who died in 1842, carries a carved desert scene of a broken fountain and cistern drawn from Ecclesiastes 12. It is unsigned but matches a signed Lauder stone in Fayetteville's Cross Creek Cemetery.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery · Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies

William A. Graham builds a law office on his new Eno River property, Montrose

On buying the property in 1842, William A. Graham built a one-and-a-half-story frame law office there. It survives on the Montrose grounds; his son John W. Graham added a two-room rear ell around 1893.

People: John W. Graham

Subject: Montrose

William A. Graham buys the Eno River house that became Montrose

Senator William A. Graham bought 59 acres on the Eno River east of Hillsborough from John U. Kirkland, with the house the Rev. William Mercer Green had built there, paying $3,200 plus his town residence and three lots. Graham named the place Montrose, and his son and grandson lived there after him until 1977.

People: John U. Kirkland · William Mercer Green

Subject: Montrose

Samuel Phillips builds a law office with a Tudor entrance porch on East Franklin Street

About 1843 Samuel Phillips, a lawyer who taught at the university, put up a small law office on East Franklin Street; by 1847 a boys' preparatory school was meeting in it. Its stepped-gable Tudor porch matches the Eagle Hotel annex built for Polk's 1847 visit. Dabney Cosby probably built it, and the design may be his or A. J. Davis's.

People: 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.

People: John Berry · David L. Swain · Alexander Jackson Davis

Subject: Old East · Old West

Paul C. Cameron sends enslaved people from the family farms to cotton plantations in Alabama and Mississippi

Paul C. Cameron bought a cotton plantation in Greene County, Alabama, in 1844 and land for another in Tunica County, Mississippi, in 1856, and sent more than 100 enslaved men and women from the family's North Carolina farms to them.

Part of Slavery in Orange County · 102 events

John U. Kirkland is elected a Warden of the Poor for Orange County

At an election in April 1844 Orange County chose Cadwallader Jones, Dr. James Webb, Green Jordan, Nathaniel Bain, James Faucett, John U. Kirkland and Samuel N. Tate as Wardens of the Poor.

People: Cadwallader Jones · James Webb

Subject: Orange County poorhouse (County Home)

The Joseph Allison house is built near Caldwell

A frame side-gable house is built in 1845 on the Joseph Allison place near Caldwell, on land that goes back to a 1759 grant. It had been remodeled by 1993.

The Mallette-Wilson-Maurice House is built on West Cameron Avenue

A story-and-a-half Greek Revival house with a low gable roof and short upper windows went up about 1845 at 215 West Cameron Avenue, one of the oldest houses on the street. A small guest house stands beside it facing Wilson Street.

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

After the county built a new courthouse, its commissioners advertised the old wooden courthouse for sale at the November 1845 county court, to be removed from the court square. The Baptist missionary Elias Dodson bought it, and by about 1847 it stood at the corner of Churton and Queen streets as a church. The building later became the freedmen's school and then the home of Dickerson Chapel AME Church.

Subject: Orange County Courthouse, Hillsborough · Dickerson Chapel AME Church

The Smith-Cole House is built for a Hillsborough planter

Built in 1845 for a Hillsborough planter, the frame house stands two stories over a center-hall plan two rooms deep and five bays across, with a chimney at each gable end and a porch on thin columns.

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.

People: Dabney Cosby

Subject: Old East · Old West

Andrew Mickle turns the log schoolhouse at Highlands into a house

The log school built south of the Eno around 1844 was converted to a residence, and Andrew Mickle added a three-bay, two-story side-hall section in 1846. Paul C. Cameron enlarged it again in 1857.

People: Andrew Mickle

Subject: Highlands (Paul Cameron house)

Builder John Berry enlarges a St. Mary's Road farmhouse into Sunny Side, his country home

John Berry, the Hillsborough brickmason and builder, enlarged and remodeled an older farmhouse on St. Mary's Road as a home for himself and named it Sunny Side. He kept his library there and lived there until his death in 1870.

Subject: Sunnyside (John Berry farm)

Lemuel Lynch is paid to repair the courthouse clock

The old town clock, in storage since the market house came down, was repaired for the new courthouse, where it still hangs in the cupola. Lemuel Lynch was paid $250 for the work and afterward $25 a year to keep it running on time.

Subject: Orange County Courthouse, Hillsborough

The two-story Pickett log house is built near Cedar Grove

The Pickett House near Cedar Grove is a large log dwelling of two full stories, a size uncommon among the county's log houses. The survey could not settle whether it went up in 1846 or 1864.

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.

People: Dabney Cosby · David L. Swain

Subject: Old East · Old West

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.

People: David L. Swain · Charles Phillips · Alexander Jackson Davis

Subject: University Presbyterian Church

The Moorefields estate is divided and the house goes to Augusta Moore

The Moorefields lands were divided, and the tract with the house went to Augusta, a daughter of Alfred Moore the younger. The family kept it until 1913.

Subject: Moorefields

The Rev. William Mercer Green buys an East Franklin Street lot and builds a house

Episcopal minister William Mercer Green bought the lot at 513 East Franklin Street in 1847 and had a two-story frame house built there before he sold it, two years later, to Charles Phillips, professor of engineering and mathematics.

People: Charles Phillips

James Webb Jr. and his wife buy Over-the-River from the Norwoods and enlarge it

John Wall Norwood and his wife sold Over-the-River to James Webb Jr. and his wife, who added to the two-story wing. The house stayed in the family and passed to James Webb Cheshire in 1936.

Subject: Over-the-River (Norwood-Webb-Cheshire House)

Samuel Couch builds a two-story hall-parlor farmhouse near Durham

The Couch house is a tall frame dwelling with an off-center door and windows, Greek Revival trim and a corner stair in the main room. The farm also keeps a log granary.

William Whitted advertises Lochiel for sale

William Whitted offered Lochiel, his place a mile northwest of Hillsborough, for sale: an eleven-room house with barn, ice house and kitchen on 205 acres, with 140 more acres to the northeast. The notice ran in the Recorder into early 1851.

Subject: Lochiel

Dr. Johnston Blakeley Jones builds a Gothic Revival cottage on West Cameron Avenue

In the 1850s Dr. Jones, one of the village's two physicians before the war, built a board-and-batten cottage at 321 West Cameron with Gothic windows in its front gable, a bay window and a porch of arched latticework. It is the only Gothic Revival cottage known in Chapel Hill, probably based on a pattern book such as Downing's.

English landscape designer Thomas Paxton lays out the Montrose grounds for Mrs. William A. Graham

The terraced landscape at Montrose, running down to the Eno, was first shaped in the 1850s by the English landscape architect Thomas Paxton, working under the direction of Mrs. William A. Graham.

Subject: Montrose

Signed marble obelisks go up in the Dialectic and Philanthropic plots

George Lauder signed obelisks for Philanthropic members David White Fisher (died 1850) and Mark Bennett (died 1851) and for Dialectic member John Alexander Smith (died 1855), and the Raleigh firm of Maunder & Campbell signed the obelisk of Joshua P. Perry (died 1856). Signed stones are rare in the cemetery.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery · Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies

Smith Hall is built to Alexander Jackson Davis's design as the university library and ballroom

The New York architect Alexander Jackson Davis designed Smith Hall, built from 1850 to 1852 for just over $10,300 and named for the trustee and former governor Benjamin Smith. It served as library and ballroom and is now the Playmakers Theatre.

People: Benjamin Smith

Subject: UNC Libraries · Smith Hall (Playmakers Theatre)

The Smyth House is built near Chapel Hill

A two-story frame hall-parlor house in a restrained Greek Revival manner, its stone chimneys stuccoed and scored to look like cut blocks.

The Taylor log house is built near Carr

A single-pen log house divided into two unequal rooms on the hall-parlor plan, a layout also common in frame houses of the period.

Job Berry and Billy Payne begin the congregation that became Dickerson Chapel

Dickerson Chapel AME Church dates its founding to 1851, when Job Berry, an enslaved painter and its first pastor, began gathering the congregation with Rev. Billy (William) Payne, enslaved by Dr. Edmund Strudwick. With state law barring Black preachers, they met in homes; the congregation moved into the old courthouse on Queen Street in 1866.

Subject: Dickerson Chapel AME Church · Orange County Courthouse, Hillsborough

Paul C. Cameron builds new quarters for enslaved families at Horton Grove

In the decade before the Civil War Paul C. Cameron began a building campaign at the family's Horton Grove farm near Stagville. Four of the dwellings built to house families the Camerons enslaved still stand.

Part of Slavery in Orange County · 102 events

William Strowd builds a two-story frame house near White Cross

A two-story frame house is built in 1851 on the William Strowd place near White Cross.

Isaac Collier builds an I-house on East Rosemary Street

Isaac Collier is thought to have built the two-story I-house at 315 East Rosemary Street between 1853 and 1858. The novelist Betty Smith, author of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, later lived there.

People: Betty Smith

Thomas Blount Hill buys the Phillips place and makes it the BelleVue villa

Thomas Blount Hill of Halifax County buys the East Tryon Street estate and adds a west wing, a three-story central tower and wide porches, turning the old house into an Italianate villa he names BelleVue. It passed to his daughter Mary Alice and her husband Joseph Cheshire Webb, and in the 1980s opened as the Hillsborough House Inn.

Subject: BelleVue (Phillips-Hill-Webb House)

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.

Subject: Orange County Courthouse, Hillsborough · Dickerson Chapel AME Church

Benjamin Hedrick's house with an eight-sided room goes up on East Rosemary Street

Professor Benjamin Hedrick's house at 610 East Rosemary Street, known for its octagonal room, was ready by 1855 and the Hedricks moved in; Preservation Chapel Hill credits the Hillsborough builder John Berry and Hedrick's own design, and Little says he bought an older farmhouse from the university and added the eight-sided room. Horace Williams later owned it, and Preservation Chapel Hill now has its offices there.

People: John Berry

Subject: Horace Williams House

Judge John L. Bailey buys the Norwood house south of the Eno and names it Eno Lodge

Superior court judge John Lancaster Bailey bought the house above the Eno from Joseph C. Norwood, probably added the rear ell and north bay, and called it Eno Lodge. He lived there until about the start of the Civil War, when he moved to Buncombe County.

Subject: Eno Lodge

Benjamin Hedrick is appointed the university's professor of analytical and agricultural chemistry

The university appointed Benjamin Sherwood Hedrick to its new chair of analytical and agricultural chemistry. He held it until the trustees' executive committee dismissed him in October 1856.

Warrenton builder Jacob Holt puts up an Italianate house for Mary Southerland on West Franklin Street

In the mid-1850s Mary Southerland engaged Jacob Holt, the Warrenton builder, for a house on West Franklin a little west of Columbia Street, done in his heavy Italianate style with sawn brackets, corner pilasters and arched windows. She had bought the lot from Dr. Johnston B. Jones in 1851. The house has been torn down; University Square now occupies the lot.

Paul C. Cameron repurchases Burnside and moves back to Hillsborough

Paul and Anne Ruffin Cameron left Fairntosh in 1856, bought back Burnside, the Hillsborough house where they had first lived after their 1832 marriage, and moved back to town.

Subject: Burnside

Samuel Phillips builds a gable-and-wing house beside his law office

In 1856 Samuel Phillips built his family a two-story house at 407 East Franklin Street, beside his law office. With a projecting front wing and arched French doors and casements, it was the first house in the village to break from the box-like Federal and Greek Revival plan.

The Gordan house is built near Efland

A story-and-a-half frame house, recorded as the Gordan House, is built near Efland in 1856.

An octagonal brick ice house is built for Burnside

A mostly underground octagonal brick ice house with a conical shingled roof was built for Burnside, the Cameron family estate on South Cameron Street; the brickwork is said to be John Berry's. It stands in the woods south of Cameron Park Elementary School and was restored around 2002.

People: John Berry

Subject: Burnside

Paul C. Cameron enlarges Highlands, the former log schoolhouse south of the Eno

Paul C. Cameron added two bays to Highlands, giving it the center-hall plan it keeps. The house had begun about 1844 as a log school and was made a dwelling by Andrew Mickle in 1846.

People: Andrew Mickle

Subject: Highlands (Paul Cameron house)

Paul Cameron brings English gardener Thomas A. Adams to plant the Burnside grounds

Paul Cameron hired Thomas A. Adams, a landscape gardener from Chester, England, to plant the twenty-acre front yard of Burnside with trees ordered from Parsons and Co. of Long Island. The grounds became known as Cameron Park, and many of the trees still stand.

Subject: Burnside

Pride Jones has John Berry enlarge Sans Souci

After inheriting Sans Souci from Dr. William Cain in 1857, Dr. Pride Jones has builder John Berry renovate the house, adding the rear dining room and stair, the full-width front porch and the one-story wings.

People: Pride Jones

Subject: Sans Souci

Thomas Ruffin buys a West Tryon Street house for his widowed daughter Catherine Roulhac

About 1857 Chief Justice Thomas Ruffin bought the house at 143 West Tryon Street, built around 1840, for his widowed daughter Catherine Ruffin Roulhac, who named it Laburnum Cottage. After her death in 1880 it passed to her daughter Annie Roulhac and then to the Hamilton family, whose children included the historian J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton.

Subject: Roulhac-Hamilton House (Laburnum Cottage)

William Cain dies and leaves Sans Souci to his son-in-law Pride Jones

William Cain, who built Sans Souci as his town house and was married to a sister of Chief Justice Thomas Ruffin, died and willed the house he had formerly lived in to his son-in-law, Pride Jones.

People: Pride Jones

Subject: Sans Souci

The brick McDade House is built on West Franklin Street

The two-story brick I-house at 113 West Franklin Street, with late Greek Revival touches and a long rear ell, was built after Isaac Hudson bought the old Nunn lot in 1854, probably for him about 1858-60, and stood by 1865. The 1992 survey's "about 1850" is a guess from its style. The McDades did not own it until 1894.

A marble monument to Joseph Caldwell is dedicated in McCorkle Place

A marble obelisk to Caldwell was dedicated north of the Davie Poplar. Its inscription names the President of the United States, the Governor and other alumni as donors and praises his advocacy of common schools and internal improvements. Caldwell and his wife still lay by the old sandstone shaft near New West; their remains, with her son's, were moved to the monument's east base in July 1904.

Subject: McCorkle Place (with the Davie Poplar)

New East and New West are built to William Percival's design

To house more students, the university built two dormitories with classrooms and debating society halls on either side of Old East and Old West, to designs by the English architect William Percival, with Thomas Coates as contractor. Work began in June 1858, and the faculty announced on July 31, 1861 that the buildings were ready to occupy.

Subject: Old East · Old West · Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies

Merchant Calvin Scott builds a Greek Revival house on West Cameron Avenue

Calvin Scott, a Chapel Hill merchant, is thought to have built the two-story I-house at 400 West Cameron Avenue about 1860. It later belonged to Samuel Mallette Gattis, a UNC alumnus of 1884 and a university trustee from 1909 to 1911.

The Neville House is built

The Neville House, built about 1860, was placed on the state Study List in July 1992 after the Chapel Hill Township survey.

The Sikes log house is built

The Sikes log house dates from about 1860 and was placed on the state Study List in July 1993.

The brick Mason-Lloyd-Wiley House is built on West Cameron Avenue

About 1860 a two-story brick house with carefully laid walls and a sidelighted double entrance went up at 412 West Cameron Avenue, among the biggest houses on the west side of the university. Turner Bynum may have built it.

The Weavers add a frame front wing to the log house

A plain one-and-a-half-story frame block with two rooms per floor was built across the front, by family account to shelter the wife and children of a Weaver who went off to the Civil War. The log wing got matching Greek Revival doors and sash at about the same time.

Subject: Weaver House

William A. Graham's house at Montrose burns

The house the Grahams had enlarged at Montrose burned in 1862, and the family moved to a house on West Tryon Street. Only the law office and outbuildings were left on the land.

Subject: Montrose

Fire destroys the block at the northwest corner of Churton and King streets

A fire that broke out about 1 a.m. destroyed seventeen buildings on the northwest corner of Churton and King streets in Hillsborough, among them the corner store owned by John U. Kirkland and occupied by W. F. and T. J. Strayhorn. The Recorder reported that few owners were insured.

People: Josiah Turner Jr.

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.

People: Thomas Ruffin

Subject: Burnside

Fire destroys the Hargrave house on Franklin Street

The large house Dr. Charles Yancey built in 1822, owned by the Hargraves since 1840, burned. Jesse Hargrave's children Molly and Fred stayed on the lot in a much smaller building facing the street.

John U. Kirkland serves as Orange County's clerk and master in equity

In 1866 John U. Kirkland, as clerk and master in equity at his office in Hillsborough, advertised court-ordered sales of Orange County land.

John Wall Norwood buys the brick law office facing the courthouse

Attorney Richard Ashe sold the one-room brick law office on Court Street, facing the Orange County Courthouse, to John Wall Norwood for $400. The office, already shown on an 1839 map, is now called the Norwood Law Office.

Thomas Ruffin buys six lots next to his Hillsborough house from Pride Jones

Thomas Ruffin bought lots 177, 178, 179, 204, 205 and 206, which adjoined the house he had acquired the year before, from Pride Jones.

People: Pride Jones

Subject: Ruffin-Roulhac House (Little Hawfields)

Former governor William A. Graham lives in the Nash-Hooper House

William A. Graham, former governor of North Carolina, made the Nash-Hooper House on West Tryon Street his home from 1869 until 1875.

Subject: Nash-Hooper House

A two-story frame house, later known as the Pool-Patterson House, goes up on West Cameron Avenue

The survey dates the L-plan frame house at 403 West Cameron Avenue to about 1870. Its bracketed roofline and wraparound porch reflect the later Victorian remodeling.

Anne Ruffin buys the last two lots and the Ruffin place fills a whole town block

Completing a purchase begun before her husband's death, Anne M. Ruffin bought lots 202 and 203. The Ruffin property then took in an entire block of about ten acres, which was still intact in 1971.

Subject: Ruffin-Roulhac House (Little Hawfields)

The Reilly Log House is built near Rougemont

A one-room log farmhouse with half-dovetailed corners, a rock chimney, and a log kitchen joined by a breezeway was built near Rougemont in the 1870s. Mattson treats it as one of the county's best late log dwellings.

Builder John Berry dies at Sunny Side while starting the Berry Building

John Berry, the self-taught builder of the Orange County Courthouse and a longtime state legislator, died of pneumonia at his home Sunny Side at 72. He had caught cold that winter while beginning his last project, a two-story brick store and ballroom downtown known as the Berry Building.

Subject: Sunnyside (John Berry farm)

Land is bought for Hillsborough's (New) Town Cemetery on Corbin Street

The six-acre cemetery just north of the old town limits stands on land bought in 1871, though its earliest graves date from the 1860s. It now holds more than 3,000 graves in regular rows behind a brick wall on East Corbin Street, including military markers for both Confederate and Union soldiers.

John U. Kirkland is appointed a magistrate of Hillsborough township

When James B. McDade resigned as one of the township's magistrates, the board of trustees appointed John U. Kirkland to fill the vacancy, a choice the Recorder called admirable.

The county school board settles the school fund account with Treasurer David C. Parks

The Board of Education settled the school fund account with county treasurer D. C. Parks up to March 7, 1872. It showed $9,245.36 received from the state apportionments for 1869 to 1872 and the 1871 school poll tax, and $3,869.54 paid out to the townships.

Maj. John W. Graham builds a twelve-room house at Montrose on his father's old foundation

In 1874 William A. Graham gave the vacant Montrose land to his son Maj. John W. Graham, who built a twelve-room house on the foundation of the first house. It burned in 1893.

People: John W. Graham

Subject: Montrose

Archibald Jordan completes an Italianate house at Caldwell

Archibald C. Jordan, later Caldwell's physician, finished a two-story Italianate house there in 1875, with a projecting center pavilion, a bracketed cornice and arched windows. Inside is a curved staircase in a diagonally sheathed hall.

Subject: Arch Jordan House

Herbert McCauley builds an I-house off Old Greensboro Road

Around 1875 a two-story frame house mixing Greek Revival and Victorian trim was built for Herbert McCauley, with a log house and smokehouse on the place. Neighbors know it as the house where the singer James Taylor grew up.

James A. Cheek builds an Italianate house on North Churton Street

James A. Cheek built a five-bay Italianate I-house with an ornate sawnwork porch on Lot 78, on a rise above North Churton Street. His family kept it until 1908; a brick kitchen and an 1880s barn survive behind it.

Joseph B. Martin builds an I-house on East Rosemary Street

The two-story I-house at 401 East Rosemary Street, with end chimneys and a three-bay front, is credited to Joseph B. Martin, who probably put it up sometime from 1875 to 1885. W. M. Dey, who owned it later, gave the house its name.

People: William Morton Dey

Solomon Pool sells his West Cameron Avenue house to Dr. Thomas W. Harris

Solomon Pool owned the Greek Revival I-house at 206 West Cameron Avenue, built about 1870, until about 1875, when physician Thomas W. Harris bought it. Harris went on to found and lead the university's medical school.

Commissioners order a new bell for the courthouse

The board authorized David C. Parks to buy and hang a new bell for the courthouse and to sell the old one on the best terms he could.

People: David C. Parks

Subject: Orange County Courthouse, Hillsborough

Thomas Ruffin Jr. and his wife Mary build the Ruffin-Hill House

Thomas Ruffin Jr. and his wife Mary built an I-house with Italianate and Eastlake trim on a 47-acre tract near the burned Priestly Mangum House. Their daughter Mary Ruffin Hill and her husband Thomas Hill lived there for many years.

Subject: Ruffin-Hill House

George T. Winston buys Benjamin Hedrick's house with its polygonal annex

Professor George T. Winston bought the former Hedrick house in 1879. In the 1880s or early 1890s he tied the old farmhouse and its many-sided annex together with a Queen Anne addition of porch, entrance hall and parlor, turning the house toward Franklin Street. It is now called the Horace Williams House after its later owner.

People: George Tayloe Winston

Subject: Horace Williams House

F. K. Ball builds a shingled house on East Franklin Street

F. K. Ball built the house at 604 East Franklin Street in 1880, with a steep roof, a large dormer and shingled walls and porch piers. It is named for a later owner, Dr. R. B. Lawson.

Fire destroys the old Pleasant Henderson house on East Franklin Street

The old Pleasant Henderson house, where the children of Dr. George Moore were then living, burned. In 1881 Dr. William P. Mallett bought the lot and built on it.

Francis P. Venable is offered the chair of chemistry at the university

Venable, a University of Virginia chemistry graduate then studying in Germany, was offered the university's chair of chemistry in 1880. He taught at Chapel Hill until he retired in 1930.

James Webb Jr. builds Mid-Lawn at East Queen and North Cameron streets

James Webb Jr. built a two-story Italianate house, later called Mid-Lawn, on the northwest corner of East Queen and North Cameron streets. David and Elizabeth Patterson bought it in 1919.

Horace Williams earns a master's degree at the university

Williams entered the state university at Chapel Hill in 1879 and in 1883 took both the B.A. and an M.A. His M.A. and William Battle Phillips's Ph.D., conferred at the same commencement, were the first advanced degrees the reopened university granted for further study. Before 1875 any graduate could receive the A.M. three years after the B.A.

Venable co-founds the Elisha Mitchell Scientific Society

Venable was a co-founder and the first president of the Elisha Mitchell Scientific Society, a society of university scientists named for the geologist Elisha Mitchell.

People: Elisha Mitchell

Memorial Hall rises at UNC under Paul C. Cameron's building committee

The cornerstone of Swain Memorial Hall was laid on September 25, 1883, and the hall was dedicated on June 3, 1885, honoring President David L. Swain, faculty and the university's Confederate dead. Paul C. Cameron, president of the Alumni Association and chairman of the building committee, raised money for it and gave money himself.

People: Kemp Plummer Battle · David L. Swain

Subject: Memorial Hall

A building of Mrs. Charles White's used by Bingham School cadets as a mess burns

Early on Tuesday morning, August 19, 1884, fire destroyed a building owned by Mrs. Charles White that some Bingham School cadets used as a messing club. Its insurance had lapsed and the loss was put at about $1,000.

Subject: Bingham School

Professor Adolphus Mangum buys the Collier house on East Rosemary Street

Professor Adolphus W. Mangum bought the house at 315 East Rosemary Street in 1885 and owned it for five years.

People: Adolphus Williamson Mangum

Thomas F. Lloyd buys the brick house on West Cameron Avenue later called the Lloyd-Wiley House

With his West End gin and grist mill doing well, Thomas F. Lloyd bought a two-story brick house on West Cameron Avenue in Chapel Hill in 1885. It has been known since as the Lloyd-Wiley House.

The new Board of Education sets aside $50 for an institute for Black teachers

At its first meeting in the Hillsboro courthouse, the board created under the 1885 school law organized with Joseph Harris as chairman and voted fifty dollars to hold a training institute for the county's Black teachers.

People: George Tayloe Winston

James Lee Love becomes University Librarian and secretary of the faculty

In the 1886-87 session the mathematics professor James Lee Love took on the posts of librarian and secretary of the faculty, after representing the university in the merger of the literary societies' libraries with its own.

Subject: Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies

D. C. Parks is elected a Hillsborough town commissioner

At a quiet town election Hillsborough chose George C. Corbin mayor and elected A. W. Graham, James Webb Jr., J. W. Hooker, William Anderson, D. M. Laws, D. C. Parks and William H. Newman commissioners.

Fire destroys the old president's house on Christmas morning

The house Helen Hooper built, later home to Presidents Caldwell and Swain, burned the day after Professor Thomas Hume's family moved in. Fire spread from boxes and straw in an outbuilding, and Chapel Hill had no fire engine or ladder company to stop it.

People: Joseph Caldwell · David L. Swain · Thomas Hume