Chronology

Julia Spencer drives a last spike to celebrate the finished University railroad

Chapel Hill celebrated the completed State University Railroad with speeches and the driving of the last spikes, one by Julia J. Spencer, daughter of Cornelia Phillips Spencer, and one by the railroad's agent, J. G. Cooley. Passenger trains had been running to the West End terminus since February.

The commissioners call a fence-law election in Hillsborough Township

On a petition from the township, the board ordered a vote at each Hillsborough Township precinct for and against the fence law on June 10, 1882 and named the men to hold it. The result is not given; an 1885 act later put Hillsboro and three other townships under the stock law.

Bingham School finishes new buildings after the spring fire

Less than three months after the fire, the rebuilt Bingham School stood nearly complete, with timber cut and sawed nearby. Thomas C. Oakley of Durham was the builder.

People: Robert Bingham

Subject: Bingham School

Cross Roads Baptist Church is organized as Betheden

W. P. Roberts and S. S. Cates led the founding of a Baptist church first called Betheden and later Cross Roads, with R. A. Patterson as first pastor. It built a 300-seat church in 1910.

Dr. Pride Jones serves as Orange County clerk of superior court

Dr. Pride Jones followed George Laws, clerk for thirty years, as clerk of the superior court of Orange County and held the office from 1883 to 1888, when Samuel M. Gattis succeeded him.

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.

The Berry family moves to Sunnyside south of Hillsborough

Dr. John and Mary Strayhorn Berry moved from their West King Street house, now known as Two Chimneys, to Sunnyside, the Berry family plantation two miles south of town. Mary Berry tutored her daughter Harriet at home until she was twelve.

People: Harriet Morehead Berry

Subject: Sunnyside (John Berry farm)

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

William Battle Phillips receives the university's first doctorate after the reopening

In 1883 William Battle Phillips, one of the five graduates of 1877, received a Doctor of Philosophy, the first doctorate in Battle's list of degrees granted since the 1875 reopening.

William H. S. Burgwyn is appointed a trustee of the University of North Carolina

Burgwyn was appointed a trustee of the University of North Carolina in 1883, the year after he returned to the state and settled at Henderson.

Tenant farmer Jessa Buttler mortgages his horse and crop to landowner C. R. Miller

Orange County tenant Jessa Buttler signed a chattel mortgage pledging his horse and his entire crop of corn, wheat, oats and tobacco to landowner C. R. Miller for a debt of $88.20. By October 1890 the debt stood at $106.04 despite partial payments.

Charles White, merchant and postmaster at Bingham School, dies

Charles White, who kept the store and post office at Bingham School near Mebane, died on Thursday, May 24, 1883. The Observer called him successful in business; his widow, Mary E. White, qualified as executrix of his will.

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 brick saloon and barber shop stands at 106 North Churton Street

The two-story brick building at 106 North Churton Street appears as a saloon and barber shop on the Sanborn maps from 1884 through 1911. By 1924 it held bank offices, and its storefront was redone in the Colonial Revival style about the 1930s.

Adam A. Kluttz takes over management of Dr. Roberson's general store

Adam Alexander Kluttz became the active manager of Dr. Abner Benton Roberson's general store. He later opened stores of his own and built a brick store on East Franklin in 1893 and 1894.

People: Abner Benton Roberson · Adam Alexander Kluttz

Beta Theta Pi is reestablished at UNC and takes in the Mystical Seven chapter

The Eta chapter was revived in 1884, absorbing the Star of the South chapter of the Mystical Seven, once the strongest fraternity in the South.

Subject: Beta Theta Pi Fraternity House

Election fight splits the Philanthropic Society

A quarrel over whether two South Building students could join the Philanthropic Society at the last meeting of a term, in time to swing its election, led some members to secede in 1884, and a split nearly followed in the Dialectic. Professors Winston and Manning could not bring the seceders back.

People: John Manning · George Tayloe Winston

Subject: Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies

Foxes Knob School opens as a one-room log school near Mebane

Foxes Knob School opened in the mid-1880s in a single log room. It gained a frame addition about 1900 and was later turned into a house.

Francis P. Venable brings tennis to Chapel Hill

Venable laid out a tennis court in the grove south of his house about 1884, when sport at the university was otherwise limited to casual baseball and an old-style kicking football.

People: Francis Preston Venable

Hillsborough Methodists report their Sunday school's hundredth anniversary

In 1884 H. N. Brown reported that the Hillsborough Methodist Sunday school had celebrated its centennial; it then had thirty-five pupils and seven teachers and a library of church literature.

Subject: Hillsborough Methodist Church

Orange County reports 33 white and 31 Black public schools

In 1884 Orange had 33 white and 31 Black public schools, with 1,369 white and 1,134 Black pupils, a term under ten weeks, and mostly log buildings. School property was valued at $3,500 for white schools and $2,500 for Black schools.

Randall speaks on North Carolina folklore at commencement

Graduating with the class of 1884, Randall was class prophet at the Class Day exercises in the Chapel and gave the commencement speech 'North Carolina Folk Lore', which met with unusual applause.

People: Samuel Mallett Gattis

Subject: Gerrard Hall

Robert Strange MacRae buys Dr. Harris's drugstore and its building

MacRae bought the drug business from Dr. Thomas W. Harris and the building it occupied, at Franklin and Henderson streets, from David McCauley. He sold the drugstore to Dr. R. H. Whitehead in 1893.

People: David McCauley

Students and Black residents nearly come to blows on election night in Chapel Hill

While votes were being counted on the night of a Chapel Hill election in 1884, a young Black man from the country tried to trip a student, and students and Black townspeople gathered on both sides before the crowd broke up with little harm. Students afterward whipped Eli, a Black man who waited on the West Building, for cheering the other side.

The Park Building, a brick general store, stands on North Churton Street

The two-story pressed-brick building at 128 North Churton Street, one of the oldest commercial buildings in the district, is built as a general store and is labeled the Park Building on Sanborn maps from 1884 to 1911. It now serves as a bank with drive-through lanes.

Pleasant H. Dalton is installed as pastor of New Hope

After nearly ten years as stated supply, Dalton was installed as the church's pastor.

Subject: New Hope Presbyterian Church

The University Summer Normal School holds its last session

The eighth and last session enrolled 305 teachers, after which the legislature divided the $2,000 yearly appropriation among four normal schools chosen by the Board of Education. Battle counted 2,480 enrollments at Chapel Hill from 1877 through 1884.

People: Kemp Plummer Battle

Subject: University Summer School

A Hillsborough doctor has the picnic grounds and paths on Occoneechee Mountain put in order

A Dr. Wilson raised money to fix up the picnic grounds near the mountain spring and the paths to Sofa Rock and the Panther's Den, so the town could reach them easily. The Orange County Observer thanked him for the people of Hillsboro.

Subject: Occoneechee Mountain State Natural Area

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

Old students start a subscription for a monument over Nancy Hilliard's grave

E. T. McKethan of Fayetteville began collecting money from former Chapel Hill students to put a plain stone over Nancy Hilliard's neglected grave, and Cornelia Phillips Spencer endorsed the plan. The stone records the alumni's gratitude for her kindness and hospitality.

People: Cornelia Phillips Spencer

A farmstead with a center-hall house and five outbuildings is built on Mount Moriah Road

In 1885 a story-and-a-half center-hall frame house went up with five frame outbuildings, all of which survived in good condition in 1992.

A stock law ends open range in four Orange County townships

An 1885 act barred cattle from running at large in Cedar Grove, Little River, Hillsboro and Bingham townships and had the commissioners fence those townships from a special tax. A second act let Chapel Hill Township adopt the stock law on a petition of three-fourths of its freeholders.

Alumni build the university's first gymnasium off university land

After the dancing ban, a chartered Gymnasium Association sold $10 shares to alumni and built a hall 110 by 45 feet on its own land, rented to the university for exercise and used for the 1885 commencement ball. The building later became Commons Hall, the student dining hall.

People: Julian S. Carr · Robert Bingham · David Gaston Worth · Isaac Hall Manning · Richard H. Lewis

Chapel Hill's Black residents begin burying their dead in Section A

Section A, beside the old slave section on the west side of the cemetery, came into general use by Chapel Hill's African American community in the mid-1880s. Its later markers include cast concrete headstones common in Black cemeteries of the period.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Dr. William P. Mallett begins handing out Chapel Hill's mail from his lot

Dr. Mallett and his daughter started distributing the village mail. The post office building he put up on the southwest corner of his East Franklin Street lot also held his doctor's office at the back, and after his death Thomas Kirkland ran the post office there.

Edward Atkins Rosemond buys the East Tryon Street lot where he builds his house

Deeds show Edward Atkins Rosemond bought the property at 115 East Tryon Street in 1885. His two-story I-house went up between 1888 and 1894, was enlarged by 1905 and 1911, and passed to his daughter and granddaughter.

Orange County sets up its first postwar Board of Education

Under an 1885 law, Orange created its first Board of Education since the Civil War, chosen by the justices of the peace and county commissioners together. The Rev. J. L. Currie became superintendent in June 1885.

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

The General Assembly adds $15,000 a year to the university's support

An Act for the Maintenance of the University, introduced by Lee S. Overman and passed by the House 58 to 32, added $15,000 a year, payable quarterly. Because the $2,000 normal school grant was moved to other schools, the net gain was $13,000, and the act also ended the rule that county scholarship students must teach.

People: Lee S. Overman · Kemp Plummer Battle

The faculty requires most students to join a literary society

A faculty law made membership in the Dialectic or Philanthropic Society compulsory for all students except those in medicine, law, graduate and special study, and barred non-members from rooming in university buildings without permission.

Subject: Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies

The trustees allow fraternities at the university

On a petition from Alpha Tau Omega, Kappa Alpha and Phi Kappa Sigma, the faculty recommended and the trustees granted the admission of all Greek-letter societies, on condition that they give the faculty their members' names and pledge to serve no liquor at banquets in Chapel Hill.

The trustees bar dancing from university buildings

Pressed by church members who opposed the modern dance, the trustees prohibited the commencement ball in Smith Hall or any other university building. Battle welcomed the ban because he wanted Smith Hall kept as a library.

People: Paul C. Cameron · Kemp Plummer Battle

Subject: Smith Hall (Playmakers Theatre)

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.

Mrs. William L. DeRosset and others give St. Matthew's a Bible

Mrs. William L. DeRosset, with family and friends, presented the church's Bible as an Easter offering.

Subject: St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church

A rector's chair is given to St. Matthew's in memory of Sarah Mary Matthews Murphy

Her husband and children gave the rector's chair on the south side of the altar in memory of Sarah Mary Matthews Murphy.

Subject: St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church

The university dedicates Memorial Hall

Memorial Hall, the big arched-roof auditorium near the west end of Cameron Avenue, was dedicated in June 1885. It had no heat and swallowed speakers' voices, so it served mainly during commencement week and at times as a gymnasium until it was judged unsafe and torn down.

Subject: Memorial Hall

Emile Alexander de Schweinitz is awarded a Doctor of Philosophy degree

At the 1885 commencement, held in the newly dedicated Memorial Hall, the university conferred the Ph.D. on de Schweinitz, who became a government chemist and a professor in Washington.

Subject: Memorial Hall

The trustees elect Nelson B. Henry to a new chair of the science and art of teaching

Using the new appropriation, the trustees filled a chair of the science and art of teaching with Nelson B. Henry of Missouri, and the university opened a normal department with a teachers' course. Winston later called it the first chair of pedagogy in North Carolina or any Southern university.

The trustees enlarge the faculty from nine to fifteen

Meeting in Raleigh, the trustees chose from several hundred applicants Thomas Hume for English, Walter D. Toy for modern languages, William B. Phillips for agricultural chemistry and mining and James Lee Love for mathematics. A faculty circular then announced postgraduate courses toward the A.M., Ph.M. and Ph.D., free of tuition to graduates of any college.

People: Thomas Hume · James Lee Love

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

The school board requires the superintendent to visit every school and grade its teachers

On resolutions offered by Professor Winston, the board told Superintendent Currie to spend a day at each public school while in session, give each teacher a mark for practical skill, meet each district committee and report on where districts and schoolhouses should be, at $2.50 a day.

People: George Tayloe Winston

James H. Pratt's will leaves the Cabe farm to the family of Lucinda Harris

Pratt left the 140-acre Cabe tract and the 160-acre Jehu Brown tract to Lucinda Harris for life and then to her daughters Emma and Jane, keeping a promise to provide for the family after her husband Benton Harris died in the Civil War. The Harrises held the farm until 1942.

Mary Ruffin Smith dies and leaves the university a Chatham County plantation

Smith, daughter of the Orange County doctor and congressman James S. Smith, left about 1,500 acres in Chatham County to the university to educate poor students, the Francis Jones Smith Fund. She left small bequests to people formerly enslaved in her household and most of her estate to the Episcopal Church, with Kemp Battle as executor.

People: Kemp Plummer Battle

Eben Alexander comes to Chapel Hill as professor of Greek

Eben Alexander, who had taught ancient languages at East Tennessee University for thirteen years, accepted the professorship of Greek at the University of North Carolina in 1886 and moved to Chapel Hill.

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

Miss Heartt keeps a private primary school in Hillsborough, later with Mrs. Bragg

A small private school for young children run by Miss Heartt appears in the Hillsborough paper by June 1886. From 1890 she taught it with Mrs. Bragg, and the two advertised each August that they would resume classes, the last such notice found being for August 28, 1911.

Robert L. Strowd marries and likely builds a two-story L-plan house on land from his father

Strowd, a farmer who also kept a store on Franklin Street, received the tract from his father in 1886 and married Frances Hedon that year; the house at 51 Davie Circle probably went up then. It stood alone at the edge of town until the area filled in during the 1910s and 1920s.

Subject: Strowd House (51 Davie Circle)

The university begins leasing its Franklin Street land to faculty for houses

Because a federal court had ruled about 600 acres around the campus inalienable, the trustees leased a Franklin Street parcel to James Lee Love for fifty years, followed by leases to Charles Baskerville and Francis K. Ball. Later, on legal advice, such lots were sold outright to faculty members.

People: Charles Baskerville · James Lee Love

Thomas F. Lloyd buys out his partner and adds a flour mill by the depot

Lloyd bought William Pritchard's share of the steam grist mill and cotton gin the two had built north of the station in 1883, and had a flour mill built on the property.

People: Thomas F. Lloyd (Carrboro mill builder)

Subject: Lloyd grist mill (Broad Street)

Two rear wings are added to Person Hall as chemistry laboratories

The university's only other building work of the late 1800s besides Memorial Hall was a pair of wings on the back of Person Hall, added in 1886 and 1892 to hold its first chemistry laboratories.

Subject: Person Hall

Wilson Caldwell is elected to the Chapel Hill board of commissioners

Placed on the Republican ticket without seeking it, Wilson Caldwell, head of the university's labor force, was elected a Chapel Hill commissioner in 1886, defeating Professor Ralph Graves.

People: Wilson Swain Caldwell

W. V. Andrews takes Professor Winston's seat on the county Board of Education

Professor Winston of the university left the new Orange County Board of Education six months after its first meeting, and W. V. Andrews was named in his place.

People: George Tayloe Winston

Superintendent Currie's first annual report lists each district schoolhouse as log or frame

Currie's report read to the board in January 1886 gave the first district-by-district inventory of schoolhouses for both races, most of them log buildings valued at $50 to $200, and a school term averaging ten weeks.

Professor John DeBerniere Hooper dies

Hooper, a first-honor graduate of 1831 who taught French, Latin and then Greek at Chapel Hill before and after the war, died soon after resigning in 1885 because of failing health. Student Solomon C. Weill taught his Greek classes until Eben Alexander arrived.

People: Eben Alexander

Dickerson's Chapel trustees buy the old courthouse from the Philadelphia Friends

Trustees of the Philadelphia Friends' association for the relief of freedmen sold the old Baptist church lot, with the former courthouse on it, to the trustees of Hillsborough's African Methodist Episcopal church for $800. The congregation had worshipped and kept school there for twenty years.

Subject: Dickerson Chapel AME Church

The annual YMCA convention meets at Chapel Hill

The Young Men's Christian Association's annual convention met at Chapel Hill, with sessions in Gerrard Hall, reports from associations around the state and a Sunday talk to townspeople in the Baptist church. Professor J. W. Gore was chosen its president.

People: Thomas Hume

Subject: Gerrard Hall · University YMCA

The literary societies merge their libraries with the university's

The Philanthropic Society voted almost unanimously and the Dialectic 42 to 30 to join their books to the university library in Smith Hall, to be called the Library of the University of North Carolina endowed by the Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies and opened every weekday. Borrowing rose from 3,657 books in 1885-86 to 4,761 the next year.

People: George Tayloe Winston · James Lee Love

Subject: Smith Hall (Playmakers Theatre) · UNC Libraries · Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies

Haywood Craig, a Black man, is received into the Hillsborough Presbyterian Church

The session received Haywood Craig on profession of faith; the book records him under a heading for the church's Black members.

Subject: Hillsborough Presbyterian Church

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.

The school board asks the commissioners for a special tax to keep schools open four months

Superintendent Currie found the schools needed $2,000 beyond their apportionment to run the four months the law required, and the board petitioned the county commissioners to levy it. The board also set a floor of $40 for each white school and $30 for each Black school.

The Charleston earthquake shakes Chapel Hill

The earthquake that wrecked Charleston rattled windows and moved bottles on the shelves of the chemical laboratory at Chapel Hill without doing damage. Some students in the New East Building fled outdoors.

Student Jacob A. Freeze is shot dead during a clash between students and Black residents

After a student quarreled with a Black man, Pat Brewer, a group of students besieged Jack Barbee's house in Chapel Hill, where Brewer and others had gathered, and a shot from inside killed Jacob A. Freeze, a first-year student from Rowan County, about 1 a.m. on Sunday, October 10, 1886. After the state Supreme Court upheld the sentences in December 1887, Brewer went to the penitentiary for ten years and Frank Kirby and Jesse Harris for five each. Battle, writing later, gives Pat seven years and says he escaped.

Students hold the first of a series of gymnastic contests

On Thanksgiving Day students competed on the horizontal and parallel bars, ladders, Indian clubs and swings and in a half-mile race, a tug of war and a high jump, with Francis P. Venable calling the events. It was the first of a series of such contests.

People: Francis Preston Venable

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

Pleasant H. Dalton's pastorate at New Hope is dissolved amid a divided session

Dalton offered his resignation in February 1886, but most of the congregation would not accept it; the relation was dissolved that December after the session fell into disagreement. The church stood vacant about a year while a presbytery commission settled the trouble.

Subject: New Hope Presbyterian Church

Berry's Grove Baptist Church is organized

Berry's Grove Baptist Church was organized in 1887 with A. T. Hord as first pastor and built a 400-seat church the next year.

Edmund Strudwick of Norfolk buys the Turner house on North Churton Street for his mother and sisters

Norfolk cotton merchant Edmund Strudwick bought the house built for tinner Josiah Turner Sr. and enlarged it for his mother and sisters, apparently adding the gables, bay windows and new sash that give it a Victorian look.

Subject: Turner-Strudwick House

James Lee Love builds a house on East Franklin Street for his wife, June Spencer

Professor James Lee Love built the one-story house at 410 East Franklin Street in 1887, on the lot of the old president's house that burned the Christmas before, for his wife June, the only daughter of Cornelia Phillips Spencer. It is known as the Spencer House after his mother-in-law.

People: Cornelia Phillips Spencer

Professor Thomas Hume buys the house across from the Baptist church

Burned out of the president's house, Professor Thomas Hume bought the West Franklin Street house opposite the Baptist church. It had been home to the Baptist minister Needham Byron Cobb until the congregation turned its school building into a parsonage.

People: Thomas Hume

Stephen B. Weeks publishes a register of the Philanthropic Society

Stephen Beauregard Weeks, class of 1886, published a 72-page catalogue of Philanthropic Society members since 1795, with a short history of the society and notes on members' careers.

Subject: Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies

The county school board adds nine new school districts under Superintendent Currie

In the first years of the 1885 board, Superintendent James L. Currie laid out school districts and appointed committeemen, and by 1887 nine more districts had been created. In June 1886 he had told the board it needed $2,000 to keep the schools open four months.

The legislature moves the land-grant income from the university to a new A. and M. College

After a campaign led by Leonidas L. Polk, the General Assembly of 1887 took the $7,500 yearly land-scrip interest from the university for a separate Agricultural and Mechanical College at Raleigh, leaving the university $20,000 a year. A House bill to cut that to $12,500 was tabled, and the university dropped pedagogics, mining engineering, animal breeding and practical horticulture.

People: Leonidas Polk · Kemp Plummer Battle

The revived Hillsboro Recorder moves Dennis Heartt's old press into its office

The new Hillsboro Recorder reported that it had just moved the press and some wood type Dennis Heartt brought from Connecticut for the first Recorder of 1820 out of a Hillsborough cellar, where they had sat since 1867, and into its own office.

People: Dennis Heartt · Frederick N. Strudwick

Subject: Hillsborough Recorder

The school board forms the Mary Smith school district along the Chatham line

A new district in Chapel Hill Township next to Chatham County was created and its school named the Mary Smith School, District 39.

The Webb & Co. tobacco partnership in Hillsborough is dissolved

James Webb Jr., Joseph C. Webb and George C. Corbin gave notice that their tobacco manufacturing firm, Webb & Co., was dissolved, leaving the two Webbs to collect its debts and wind up its business. The firm had been making tobacco in Hillsborough since at least 1881.

The school board pays H. O. Strain for an acre to build the Orange Church school

The board allowed H. O. Strain $20 for one acre on which to build a schoolhouse for white children of the Orange Church district.

James L. Currie is installed as pastor of New Hope

Currie, who had preached there briefly in 1874, was installed as pastor; the relation was dissolved in November 1889 after new troubles in the session.

Subject: New Hope Presbyterian Church

Battle Lane is cut along the edge of the president's house lot

After the president's house burned, the eastern edge of its lot on East Franklin Street was opened as Battle Lane, and the rest of the eastern part was leased to Professor James Lee Love for fifty years at $15 a year.

People: James Lee Love

David S. Payne marries Eliza Mayo

The marriage joined two Black Hillsborough families tied to the Burwell School: Eliza was a granddaughter of the school's laundress Eliza Chavious, and David was the son of Bettie Payne and a grandson of Rev. William Payne, a founder of Dickerson Chapel.

Part of Orange County’s nineteenth-century academies · 102 events

Subject: Burwell School

Frederick Strudwick co-owns and edits the Hillsborough Recorder

On 11 August 1887 Strudwick and C. E. Parish became co-owners and editors of the Hillsborough Recorder. Their first issue promised a firm and conservative stand on matters of public welfare and a thoroughly Democratic line in politics. Strudwick left the paper after the issue of 8 March 1888.

Subject: Hillsborough Recorder

Julius I. Foust heads the Caldwell Institute at Caldwell

The Caldwell Institute, a school for boys and girls in northern Orange County, advertised with Julius I. Foust as principal, offering primary through higher studies and music.

Subject: Caldwell School

The school board forms Occoneechee school district from land south of the Eno

The board created District 41, Occoneechee, from land south of the Eno River and part of the Hillsboro district.

The school board condemns a lot for a school for Black children at Walnut Grove

After two committees were named in March and September 1887 to condemn half an acre in the Walnut Grove district, the board had the deed for the site of a schoolhouse for Black children recorded on October 1.

The superintendent's report shows Black schools running half the term of white schools

Currie's annual report counted 33 white and 25 Black public schools. White schools averaged close to nine weeks of teaching and Black schools under four and a half, and Black women teachers earned $17 a month against $24 for white women.

A carved eagle lectern at the Chapel of the Cross memorializes Mary Ruffin Smith

A lectern topped by a carved wooden eagle was placed in the Chapel of the Cross nave in memory of Mary Ruffin Smith, with an inscription on its base dated 1888.

Subject: Chapel of the Cross

Edward Atkins Rosemond builds his house on East Tryon Street

Edward Atkins Rosemond built a two-story I-house on the East Tryon Street lot he had bought in 1885. It was enlarged at the rear by 1905 and given a front-gabled east wing by 1911.

Hillsborough's commissioners sell the Public Spring Lot

The town sold its Public Spring Lot, one of the public lots set aside when Hillsborough was laid out, for $100. The finance committee's report for the year ending May 1, 1889 lists the sale.

Piney Grove Baptist Church is organized

W. M. Ray organized Piney Grove Baptist Church, a Black congregation, and served as its first pastor.

Richison Nichols buys the old Orange Hotel and builds its piazza over the West King Street sidewalk

Richison Nichols bought Isaiah Spencer's inn, apparently in 1888, and built the two-story piazza that reaches the street. The 1888 Sanborn map shows it as the Occoneechee Hotel, the name it kept until 1908.

Subject: Colonial Inn

Samuel M. Gattis becomes chairman of the Orange County Democratic executive committee

In the year he began practicing law in Hillsborough, Gattis was elected chairman of the Orange County Democratic executive committee and a delegate to the party's national convention.

Thomas West Harris, first dean of UNC's medical school, is buried in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Thomas West Harris (1839-1888), the first dean of the university's medical school, was buried in the cemetery.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

UNC plays its first intercollegiate football season

Organized football began at UNC in 1888.

University Lodge No. 408 is chartered at Chapel Hill

Chapel Hill Masons revived their lodge under a new charter as University Lodge No. 408, with W. N. Pritchard as first Master. It met for years above a store on Franklin Street.

Subject: University Lodge

The school board authorizes a countywide summer institute for teachers

The board empowered Superintendent Currie to hold a teachers' institute for the whole county that summer.

Judge Walter Clark gives the annual address at the 1888 commencement

Chosen by the Philanthropic Society, Walter Clark gave the annual address on the Wednesday of the 1888 commencement, speaking on the opportunities before young men and the duties that came with them.

Subject: Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies

Black parents in the Cool Spring district petition for Black school committeemen

Black residents of the Cool Spring district asked the board to replace their school committee with Black members of their own choosing. The board tabled the request.

The school board creates Cole's District at Walnut Grove on Anthony Cole's petition

After Anthony Cole petitioned for a school for about 65 children, the superintendent held a public meeting and the board set up Cole's District, No. 42, cut from parts of the Caldwell, Little River, Oak Grove and Walnut Grove districts.

The school board forms Bethel district for the Bethel Church community

On a petition from the Bethel Church community the board created a new district, Bethel, No. 43.

Fire destroys the Parish and Berry buildings and the Recorder printing office in Hillsborough

A fire before dawn burned Postmaster Harry L. Parish's brick building, which held the post office, his store and the Hillsboro Recorder's printing office, then spread to the three-story Berry building next door. The Recorder lost its press, type and subscription books.

Subject: Hillsborough Recorder

Hillsborough church men organize a Young Men's Christian Association at the Presbyterian manse

Men from the town's churches met at the Presbyterian manse on a Monday night, adopted a constitution and bylaws, and elected Charles M. Parks president and Joseph A. Harris secretary. The next meeting was called for the manse on December 10.

Subject: Hillsborough Presbyterian Church

The school board runs Harmony School directly when no committee can be found

Unable to find anyone to serve as its committee, the board placed Harmony School under its own supervision so a school could be taught there.

Samuel M. Gattis becomes clerk of the Orange County superior court

Judge Gilmer appointed the young Hillsborough lawyer clerk of the superior court after Dr. Pride Jones resigned. Gattis was elected to the office in 1889 and held it until 1894.

People: Pride Jones

A small office from the Turner-Strudwick grounds is moved to East Orange Street

A one-story frame office on the Turner-Strudwick House lot, shown on John Bailey's 1839 map when the lot belonged to Josiah Turner Sr., was moved next door to 110 East Orange Street, two years after Edmund Strudwick of Norfolk bought the property. It was later enlarged into a house and rebuilt in 1987. It is not Dr. Edmund Strudwick's medical office on West King Street.

Subject: Turner-Strudwick House

Barbee Drive is cut beside Algernon Barbee's house lot

A road was opened along the eastern edge of Algernon S. Barbee's residential lot on Franklin Street and named Barbee Drive.

Chapel Hill physician William Peter Mallett dies

Mallett, the village's leading doctor, who had lived in Chapel Hill for more than thirty years, died in the fall of 1889.

People: William P. (William Peter) Mallett

Cornelia Phillips Spencer compiles a catalogue of every student since

For the 1889 centennial the university issued a general catalogue of students from 1795 to 1889, prepared by Cornelia Phillips Spencer after long correspondence and checked by Eben Alexander. It held 5,422 names, with Battle's sketches of the university's history.

People: Eben Alexander · Kemp Plummer Battle

First Baptist Church of Hillsborough repairs its church and ties the walls with rods

In 1889 the Romanesque Revival brick church at 201 West King Street, which John Berry finished by 1868, was fully repaired, including reinforcing its walls with rods.

Fred Smith begins about fifty years as conductor on the Chapel Hill branch train

Captain Fred Smith became conductor on the University Station branch in 1889 and kept the job for about half a century, until passenger service ended.

Subject: University Station

James Lee Love leaves Chapel Hill for Harvard

Love left the university with his family in 1889 to teach mathematics at Harvard. His mother-in-law, Cornelia Phillips Spencer, stayed on in his East Franklin Street house.

People: Cornelia Phillips Spencer

Law professor John Manning builds his house on East Franklin Street

Before 1892 Laura Phillips sold John Manning the lot west of the Presbyterian manse, and he built his home there. Manning had earlier set up the university's law school, and his daughter Mary stayed on in the house after he died in 1899.

Mount Adar Baptist Church is organized

W. H. Whitted and A. J. Compton organized Mount Adar Baptist Church. A. T. Hord, first pastor at Berry's Grove two years earlier, was its first pastor too.

Orange County names its first superintendent of health

Ten years after the 1879 law allowing county boards of health, Orange organized one, and the state health board's report for 1889-90 lists Dr. D. C. Parris of Hillsborough as part-time superintendent. Dr. C. D. Jones succeeded him in 1898 and served until the full-time department began in 1935.

Students found the Order of Gimghoul after hearing the Dromgoole story

Five undergraduates founded a secret society after hearing university president Kemp Battle tell the Dromgoole story. They first called it the Order of Dromgoole and later shortened the name to Gimghoul.

People: Kemp Plummer Battle

Subject: Gimghoul Castle and neighborhood

The Keystone Bridge Company replaces the wooden railroad bridge over the Eno at Hillsboro with an iron one

Crews of the Keystone Bridge Company of Pittsburgh began replacing the wooden railroad bridge over the Eno near the Hillsboro depot with an iron bridge, expecting to finish by August 10. Trains kept running across it at three miles an hour.

Subject: North Carolina Railroad

The Presbyterian church buys the Phillips house on East Franklin Street for a manse

After Charles Phillips left Chapel Hill and died in 1889, the Chapel Hill Presbyterian church bought his former home at 513 East Franklin Street and made it the minister's residence. Bryant dates the purchase to 1891.

Subject: University Presbyterian Church

The YMCA takes charge of regular gymnasium training

The trustees accepted a YMCA plan to put gymnasium exercises on a system, with each student paying a small fee, and Lacy L. Little, a recent honor graduate and former football captain trained at Springfield, was hired as trainer.

Subject: University YMCA

Orange Presbytery decides an estate dispute that had divided New Hope's session

A quarrel over a member's settlement of an estate, which Craig thought belonged in the civil courts, had been brought before the session. An adjourned meeting of the presbytery decided it, and the ruling deepened the split in the session.

Subject: New Hope Presbyterian Church

Professor emeritus Charles Phillips dies

Phillips, who came to Chapel Hill at four, graduated in 1841, taught mathematics for decades and chaired the faculty at the 1875 reopening, died ten years after retiring. He was buried in the Chapel Hill cemetery, and a tablet in the Presbyterian church records his work in building it.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Hillsborough's town commissioners first meet in the new brick mayor's office and guard house

The town board met for the first time in its new brick building on the courthouse square, with the mayor's office in front and two cells for prisoners behind. The building committee accepted the work and the board ordered $560 paid in full.

Orange Presbytery removes all six active elders of New Hope

Member David A. Claytor had carried a petition, which most of the members signed, calling on the active elders to resign; three agreed and three refused. Meeting at the church, the presbytery heard the parties, dissolved all six elders' relation to the church and ordered a new election.

Subject: New Hope Presbyterian Church

New Hope re-elects three of its removed elders

With the Rev. F. H. Johnston presiding, the congregation chose Charles W. Johnston, John T. Hogan and William C. Claytor again, and they were reinstalled before a large congregation.

Subject: New Hope Presbyterian Church

Justices and commissioners elect a new board of education and school superintendent

In joint session on June 3 the justices and commissioners chose John Thompson, W. V. Andrews and D. S. Parker as the county board of education. The next day, at a joint meeting of the commissioners and the new board, B. C. Patton was elected county superintendent of public instruction in place of the Rev. J. L. Currie, who had resigned.

Sans Souci is sold at auction and passes to Episcopal Bishop Lyman

Sans Souci was sold at public auction to a bidder named Parrish, who at once assigned his bid to the Episcopal bishop of North Carolina, Bishop Lyman of Raleigh.

Subject: Sans Souci

The university celebrates the centennial of its charter

Alumni from Colorado to Florida filled Memorial Hall for a roll call of classes back to 1824, then sat down to a banquet for three hundred in Gerrard Hall with delegates from Harvard, Yale, Virginia and other schools. The reunion led to an annual alumni banquet, branch alumni associations and a drive to endow a chair of history.

People: Kemp Plummer Battle

Subject: Memorial Hall · Gerrard Hall

Chapel Hill's new Methodist church is dedicated

During the centennial commencement Bishop W. W. Duncan preached at night in the new Methodist church, a collection cleared its $800 debt, and the church was dedicated.

Subject: University United Methodist Church

Mathematics professor Ralph Henry Graves dies

Graves, head of mathematics since the reopening, fell into deep depression, sought treatment in Baltimore and took his own life. His widow raised their four children in Chapel Hill and sent the sons through the university.

David C. Parks buys the Parks-Richmond lot and joins it to the Colonial Inn lot as one hotel

D. C. Parks bought Town Lot 18 on West King Street and combined it with Lot 15, the site of the present Colonial Inn, to run them as one hotel. The house on Lot 18 held the office, reception rooms and dining room, and the inn building held the sleeping rooms.

People: David C. Parks

Subject: Colonial Inn

A Hogan family log house goes up on Homestead Road

In the 1890s a one-room log house was built for one of the Hogans, a family with homes all along the road. About 1935 it was built over and enlarged.

A miller's house is built above Pritchard Mill

About 1890 a small frame I-house was set on a knoll over the Pritchard Mill site on Damascus Church Road. The survey found no other miller's dwelling in the township; an early log barn stands beside it.

B. C. Patton's report finds most Orange County schoolhouses still built of logs

Patton's annual report to the state counted 43 white and 41 Black schools with 1,425 white and 1,048 Black pupils. Thirty of the 43 white schoolhouses and 17 of the 24 Black ones were log buildings, and terms ran about twelve weeks.

Breeze School is built near Caldwell

A plain two-room frame schoolhouse with shuttered windows was probably built at Breeze, near Caldwell, in the 1890s. It is one of the few nineteenth-century schools left in the county.

Subject: Breeze School

Caldwell Institute post office grows into a small trading place

Around 1890 the Caldwell Institute post office, with about 119 people, had Jordan's and Terry's stores, Allison's carriage shop, a blacksmith, a doctor, Turner's Mill, the Caldwell Institute school and Little River Presbyterian Church.

Cedar Grove is the busiest post office community in its township

In the early 1890s Cedar Grove, with about sixty-five people, had the most businesses in its township. It had Cedar Grove Academy, the Methodist church, a doctor named Terrell, a tanner, a carriage maker and a dry goods merchant, with Eno Presbyterian Church and Compton's and Warren's mills a short way off. The High Rock and Yanceyville roads joined and ran east-west through the village.

Chestnut Ridge Methodist Church is organized

Chestnut Ridge Methodist Church was organized about 1890 and counted 270 members in 1953.

D. C. Parks has designer Jules Körner remodel his hotel buildings and Twin Chimneys

While he owned the Occoneechee Hotel, David C. Parks hired Jules Körner of Kernersville to update the hotel, the Parks-Richmond House next door and Twin Chimneys across West King Street, giving them new window and door frames with pointed-arch surrounds.

People: David C. Parks

Subject: Colonial Inn

Four post offices serve Bingham Township

In 1890 Bingham Township had post offices at Rock Springs (about 25 people), Teer's, Oaks (about 75) and Gath (about 40), each with nearby stores, doctors, carriage makers, blacksmiths and mills.

Harris Grove Baptist Church is built near Rougemont

Harris Grove Baptist Church in northeastern Orange County builds a front-gable frame church with a bell tower around 1890. Its cemetery holds burials from before 1920; the church stood empty by 1993.

Horace Williams begins teaching philosophy at the University of North Carolina

Williams joined the faculty in 1890 as professor of philosophy and chaired the department from 1890 until 1935. He taught at Chapel Hill for fifty years, until his death in 1940.

John Borland builds a two-story log house on his 100-acre farm

About 1890 John Borland put up a full two-story log house with half-dovetail corners. It is one of only two two-story log houses the survey found in the township.

Jule Gilmer Korner remodels the former Burwell School

In the 1890s the old Burwell School house was remodeled by Jule Gilmer Korner of Kernersville, who gave it a bracketed cornice, a sawnwork porch, a new hall stair and new mantels, including a marble one in the parlor. Several of the older mantels were lost in the work, which was done for an owner thought to be Mrs. Charles M. Parks.

Part of Orange County’s nineteenth-century academies · 102 events

Subject: Burwell School

Laws and Border post offices serve the far corners of Cedar Grove Township

In 1890 Cedar Grove Township had post offices at Cedar Grove, Laws and Border. Border, in the far southwest of the township, counted about twenty people, and Laws, in the far northeast, about twenty-five.

Louis H. Hackney is pastor of Rock Hill Baptist Church on West Franklin Street

Louis H. Hackney, listed as a minister and living in Chapel Hill with his wife Lara Edwards Hackney by 1880, was pastor of Rock Hill Baptist Church on West Franklin Street by 1890. The church, organized in 1865, later moved to Roberson Street as First Baptist Church.

Subject: First Baptist Church, Chapel Hill

Merchant Henry "Hoot" Patterson turns a West Cameron Avenue I-house into a Queen Anne villa

In the 1890s Henry "Hoot" Patterson, whose general store was on East Franklin Street, bought the frame I-house at 403 West Cameron Avenue and turned it into a Queen Anne house with a rose window in a front gable, bracketed eaves, a bay window and an elaborate porch that wraps the corner.

Meridith post office serves northern Little River Township

Around 1890 the Meridith post office in northern Little River Township had J. Law's store, the Riley and McKee sawmill and Berry's Grove Baptist Church close by.

Most Orange County farmers are renters, sharecroppers or hired hands

In 1890, 58 percent of the county's farmers did not own their farms. Among Black farmers over half were field hands, a third sharecroppers and a tenth owners; more than a third of white farmers owned no land.

Robert Worth Bingham wins the university's Representative Medal

As a University of North Carolina student, Robert Worth Bingham won the Representative Medal in 1890 for his oration "Manifest Destiny and Manifest Duty."

Students start the Chapel Hillian newspaper

A student paper called the Chapel Hillian appeared, edited by F. H. Argo and S. A. Ashe Jr. It gave way to two rival papers, the White and Blue of the non-fraternity men and the Tar Heel of the fraternity men, and the Tar Heel outlasted its rival.

The Chapel of the Cross adds a chancel and vestry

A chancel and a vestry room were built onto the rear of the 1848 Chapel of the Cross, replacing its original back wall. The vestry kept its corner fireplace, paneled wainscot and built-in cupboards into the 1970s.

Subject: Chapel of the Cross

The Jacobs farmhouse is built on St. Mary's Road

A two-story frame farmhouse of the Triple-A type was built in the 1890s on what the 1999 survey called the Jacobs property, where three barns and a silo also stand.

The Manly Snipes House is built in southwest Orange County

The Manly Snipes House, a two-story farmhouse with a second-story wing projecting over the front entrance, was probably built around 1890.

The Pritchard-Poythress Farm is built

The Pritchard-Poythress Farm dates from the 1890s and was placed on the state Study List in July 1992 after the Chapel Hill Township survey.

The average Orange County farm is down to 114 acres

As plantation land was sold off after the Civil War, farms in Orange County grew more numerous and smaller; the 1890 agricultural census put the average at 114 acres.

The state superintendent tells Orange County to make its sheriff pay over the school taxes

Teachers were holding $500 in unpaid orders with nothing in the school treasury because Sheriff John Knox Hughes had not turned over the taxes he collected. Asked for advice, the state superintendent advised Patton to collect from the sheriff or take him to court.

The trustees ban intercollegiate athletic contests

After disputes with other colleges, the faculty in 1889 limited games to college grounds, and in 1890 the trustees forbade intercollegiate contests altogether. A student petition won repeal, with athletics put under an advisory committee of a professor, a graduate student and an undergraduate.

The university confers an honorary doctorate of laws on Zebulon Vance

The University of North Carolina awarded Vance an honorary LL.D. in 1890, listing him as a student who had entered in 1851.

The university starts a student medical fee

Each student paid $5 a year for medical care without further charge. The university's infirmary building followed in 1894.

Subject: University infirmary (Abernethy Hall)

The university's medical school reopens under Richard H. Whitehead

After Dean T. W. Harris left in 1886, the medical school closed for three years for lack of money. It reopened in 1890 as the Medical Department under Dr. Richard H. Whitehead.

Subject: UNC School of Medicine

Thomas Hume leads the university Shakespeare Club's study of All's Well That Ends Well

In the 1890-91 session Dr. Thomas Hume chaired a Shakespeare Club meeting on All's Well That Ends Well, gave a paper on the play's mixed styles and closed with notes on new books. Other members gave papers on the plot's source in Boccaccio and on its characters.

William Cain is elected to head mathematics and engineering

To succeed Ralph H. Graves the trustees elected William Cain of the South Carolina Military Academy, an author on bridge building, which let the faculty begin teaching civil engineering at little added cost.

William James Battle publishes a register of the Dialectic Society

The Dialectic Society catalogue, edited by William James Battle, was published in 1890. Its 168 pages hold a history of the society, members' recollections and sketches of members since 1795.

Subject: Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies

Professor Adolphus W. Mangum dies

Mangum, a Methodist minister who had taught mental and moral science, history and English since the reopening, died after a long illness. Josephus Daniels gave a memorial address in Gerrard Hall on May 31, 1891.

People: Josephus Daniels · Adolphus Williamson Mangum

Subject: Gerrard Hall

John W. Thompson of Cedar Grove becomes superintendent of the Orange County schools

John W. Thompson, a Cedar Grove teacher, took over the county schools from B. C. Patton in June 1890. He held the post until the board was abolished in 1895 and stayed on as supervisor under the county commissioners.

Alumni pledge an endowment for a chair of history

At the 1890 commencement banquet, alumni answered a call to endow a chair of history: Julian S. Carr pledged $10,000 and Judge James Grant offered to make up the balance. Battle then visited alumni in the larger towns to complete the fund.

People: Julian S. Carr · Robert W. (Robert Watson) Winston

Frederick Strudwick dies and Hillsborough holds a meeting in his honor

Strudwick died on 29 July 1890 after an illness of several months and was buried in the Hillsborough Cemetery. A special town meeting led by C. E. Parish was convened in his honor. Between the legislature and his death he had served as solicitor for the Fifth District for eight years.

James E. Fogartie is installed as pastor of New Hope and Chapel Hill

Fogartie was called to New Hope jointly with the Chapel Hill church. About the same time the synod's evangelists W. D. Morton and a Mr. Maxwell held a meeting at New Hope that added a number of members.

Subject: New Hope Presbyterian Church · University Presbyterian Church

The school board rebukes teachers who skipped Charles McIver's institute

Told that some teachers had not attended the state institute taught by Charles D. McIver, the board passed a resolution regretting their want of zeal and noting that attendance was required by law.

A county farmer writes that merchants hold mortgages on most Orange farms

With tobacco and cotton prices falling, a yeoman farmer said Orange was "mortgaged to death," claiming merchants held liens on seven-tenths of the county's farms.

Benjamin Duke builds a country house at University Station

Durham tobacco industrialist Benjamin Duke built a large, richly trimmed country house at University Station in 1891. The site lay south of Hillsborough, where a railroad spur met the North Carolina Railroad. The retreat once took in a big pond, bridges, an office and many outbuildings; by 1993 most of these were gone, but the house with its wraparound porch was well kept.

Subject: University Station

Bingham School leaves Orange County for Asheville

After fire destroyed the academic buildings and dormitories at the Mebane campus in December 1890, Robert Bingham moved the school to Asheville in 1891. Owen W. Bingham ran a separate school, the William Bingham School, at the Mebane site.

People: Robert Bingham

Subject: Bingham School

Dickerson's Chapel remodels the old courthouse church

The AME congregation remodeled its building, the county's former courthouse, five years after buying it.

Subject: Dickerson Chapel AME Church

Dr. Abner B. Roberson buys the Central Hotel and moves his drugstore into it

After the hotel's owner, Jones Watson, died, Dr. Roberson bought the Central Hotel, moved his drugstore into it with Clyde Eubanks as druggist, and leased the hotel's management to 'Bunn' Patterson. Adam A. Kluttz opened a store called the Glass Front in the many-windowed west end of the building.

People: Jones Watson · Abner Benton Roberson · Clyde Eubanks · Adam Alexander Kluttz

Subject: Central Hotel (Chapel Hill)

Five Forks rivals Cedar Grove as a crossroads settlement

In 1891 the crossroads of Five Forks was probably as populous as Cedar Grove. Allen's flour and grist mill and Sharp's sawmill stood nearby, and a Dr. Murphy lived at the fork and likely kept a store. Riley School, Harmony Primitive Baptist Church and Mount Zion Church lay between Five Forks and Border.

George Tayloe Winston serves as president of the university

Elected president when Kemp Plummer Battle resigned in 1891, Winston led the university for five years, during which enrollment tripled to almost six hundred. In 1896 he left Chapel Hill to become the first president of the University of Texas.

People: Kemp Plummer Battle

J. Laws keeps a country store at Laws post office

In 1891 J. Laws ran a small country store at the Laws post office in northeastern Cedar Grove Township. Walnut Grove Methodist Church, Sartain School, G. W. Parker's sawmill and Hawkins's flour and grist mill stood nearby.

J. McAdams runs a mill and a country store near Border

Around 1891 J. McAdams operated a mill and a small country store near the Border post office in southwestern Cedar Grove Township.

Julian S. Carr buys Poplar Hill south of the Eno and renames the estate Occoneechee Farm

John Wall Norwood sold Poplar Hill, the house James Hogg had built about 1794 on the south bank of the Eno, to the Durham industrialist Julian S. Carr, who renamed the property Occoneechee Farm. Carr enlarged and altered the house over the next three decades.

Subject: Occoneechee Farm

Laura Phillips sells the old Fetter house to Sarah Wellington

After Charles Phillips died, his widow Laura sold off much of the family's property, including the old Fetter house on East Franklin Street. Professors John Manning, Edwin A. Alderman and Edward Vernon Howell lived there in turn over the next years.

Mary Ann Smith's bequest endows the university's chemistry chair

Smith of Raleigh had willed half her estate to the university in 1861 for a chair of chemistry applied to the useful arts, with free tuition for needy students. When she died in 1891 after many years in an asylum, the university settled its claim for $37,000, and her name went to the Smith professorship of chemistry and later the Mary Ann Smith dormitory.

Nash and Kollock School closes as a boarding school

The Nash and Kollock boarding school closed at the end of its 1890 to 1891 session after thirty-one years. The Misses Nash and Kollock went on with a day school from August 6, 1891.

People: Sarah Kollock

Subject: Nash and Kollock School

Orange County adopts a countywide road tax

Using an 1889 state act, the county laid a road tax of 7 cents per $100 valuation and turned the money over to the township supervisors. It ran for 1891 and 1892 before the justices forced its repeal.

The Farmers' State Alliance buys the old Hillsborough Military Academy grounds

The former academy property west of Hillsborough passed in 1891 to the Farmers' State Alliance, the statewide farmers' organization, which bought the land. A 1913 plat of the neighborhood labels the old barracks as the Farm Life School building.

Subject: Hillsborough Military Academy

Trustee Paul C. Cameron dies

Cameron, who had held nearly two thousand people in slavery before emancipation, chaired the building committees for the 1875 repairs and for Memorial Hall and lent $8,000 to finish the hall. After his death his heirs accepted ten Cameron Scholarships, each giving one student free tuition, in settlement of the loan.

The school board hires D. H. Thompson to audit the sheriff's school accounts

Rather than sue, the board engaged Major D. H. Thompson to go through Sheriff Hughes's accounts of school money, hoping to settle the matter without a lawsuit.

Kemp Battle resigns the presidency to take the new chair of history

Battle told the trustees in February 1891 that he would leave the presidency at the end of the session after fifteen years, and he became professor of history in the newly endowed chair. The trustees adopted resolutions of thanks.

People: Kemp Plummer Battle

Hillsborough Methodist Church buys its first parsonage from C. M. Parks

The church bought about nine-tenths of an acre at Union and Churton streets, with a house that became its first parsonage. The trustees were H. N. Brown Sr., S. M. Gattis, J. A. Harris, O. J. Forrest and James Hedgepeth.

People: Samuel Mallett Gattis

Subject: Hillsborough Methodist Church

Julian S. Carr rebuilds the Occoneechee mineral spring with a marble basin and a rustic spring house

On his new Occoneechee Farm, Carr had the old mineral spring cleaned out and extended, set a marble basin in it, laid a cement floor and covered it with a rustic spring house with seats for visitors. The Orange County Observer described the finished work in September 1891.

Subject: Occoneechee Farm