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6 dated events match your filters.
Searched the full chronology of 6,171 dated events and 63 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1–6.Back to highlights
- Antebellum and Civil War · 1800–1865
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Polly Burke buys her house on East Queen Street
Mary Williams Burke, the only child of Governor Thomas Burke, bought a modest house on East Queen Street in Hillsborough for four hundred dollars on June 5, 1810, when she was twenty-eight. She added the east bay to the house, which was later enlarged and named Heartsease.
Subject: Heartsease
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Polly Burke helps organize the Hillsborough Presbyterian Church
In September 1816 Mary W. Burke joined eight other people and the Rev. John Knox Witherspoon to organize the Hillsborough Presbyterian Church, which acquired the town's brick church built in 1810. She rented pew 13 on the first pew list and supported the church for the next eighteen years.
People: John Knox Witherspoon
Subject: Hillsborough Presbyterian Church
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Dr. James Webb deeds land for Polly Burke's log schoolhouse
On November 6, 1817, Dr. James Webb deeded to his neighbor Mary W. Burke a strip of his lot on East Queen Street, where a log schoolhouse was built for her to teach the Webb children. Known as Miss Polly Burke's School, it took neighborhood children from about 1818 to 1834 and is cited as a forerunner of the Burwell School.
People: James Webb
Subject: Burwell School
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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
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Polly Burke leaves Hillsborough for Alabama
In August 1834 Mary W. Burke sold most of her household goods and moved to Greensboro, Alabama, with her niece's family, part of a wider migration of Hillsborough people to Alabama. After her nephew-in-law died there she settled in Marion, where she taught again for many years.
People: George Mulholland Johnston
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Polly Burke's Queen Street house passes to Dennis Heartt's family
On May 4, 1837, Mary W. Burke, then living in Alabama, gave Dr. James Webb power of attorney to dispose of her remaining Hillsborough property. Her East Queen Street house was sold that year to the family of Recorder editor Dennis Heartt, who named it Heartsease and added a Greek Revival wing about 1840.
People: James Webb · Dennis Heartt
Subject: Hillsborough Recorder · Heartsease
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Compiled and maintained by the Friends of the Orange County Public Library from county records, the sources named on each card, and the index’s event pages. Last updated October 2, 2026.
