Chronology

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1. Antebellum and Civil War · 1800–1865

2. about 1826
   Slavery and freedom · Phillips household, Chapel Hill James Phillips buys Ben and Dilsey, an enslaved married couple, soon after reaching Chapel Hill

   Soon after he arrived in Chapel Hill, professor James Phillips bought a married couple, Ben and Dilsey. They lived with the family for decades and appear throughout Spencer's letters.

3. 1865
   Violence or armed conflict · Dilsey's cabin, Chapel Hill James Phillips hides the family silver in Dilsey's cabin as Union troops arrive

   When a detachment of Sherman's army reached Chapel Hill, Professor James Phillips boxed the family silver, jewelry and watches and left the box at the cabin of Dilsey, a woman enslaved in his household, expecting the soldiers to leave her cabin alone. She buried the box for safety; it came back intact except that rainwater seeping in ruined the watches and harmed some jewelry.

4. Reconstruction and the New South · 1866–1899

5. 1866
   Slavery and freedom · Phillips household, Chapel Hill James Phillips pays Dilsey her first wages as a free woman

   Dilsey and her husband Ben stayed with the Phillips family after emancipation, and in 1866 James Phillips paid Dilsey her first wages as a freedwoman with the first five-dollar gold piece he received after the war.

6. February 1868
   Migration or settlement · Chapel Hill Ben and Dilsey leave the Phillips household to live on their own

   Ben and Dilsey, held by the Phillips family since the 1820s and kept on as servants after emancipation, left Cornelia Phillips Spencer's household in February 1868. Spencer wrote that she hoped the parting was only for a time.

7. April 15, 1878
   Property or economic transaction · Chapel Hill St. Paul AME buys a church lot from Benjamin and Dilsy Craig

   The congregation paid fifty-five dollars on April 15, 1878 for a church lot bought from Benjamin and Dilsy Craig, and was raising money in December 1879 and January 1880 to finish a church there. In 1892 it built its present church across Merritt Mill Road from the earlier one, on land the 1983 Carrboro inventory says the Hargraves and Caldwell families gave about 1890.

8. 1894
   Life event · Chapel Hill Dilsey Craig, enslaved in the household of professor James Phillips, dies

   Dilsey Craig (1802-1894) and Ben Craig were enslaved by the family of mathematics professor James Phillips and lived in the brick kitchen behind 501 East Franklin Street. Dilsey remained with the family long after freedom, and a memorial marks her in the old Chapel Hill Cemetery.

9. Early twentieth century · 1900–1944

10. 1909
    Naming or commemoration · Old Chapel Hill Cemetery, Chapel Hill June Spencer Love sets a stone on Dilsey Craig's grave in the Chapel Hill cemetery

    When June Spencer Love placed grave markers in the Chapel Hill cemetery for her mother, her grandparents, and her uncle Samuel Phillips and his wife, she also put one on the grave of Dilsey, who had been enslaved in the James Phillips household and stayed on as its cook after freedom. Love writes that both June and her mother had looked after Dilsey in her old age.

11. probably 1930s
    Naming or commemoration · Section B, Old Chapel Hill Cemetery, South Road (NC 54) and Country Club Road, Chapel Hill A Phillips grandchild sets a headstone for Dilsey Craig

    A small granite headstone was placed over the grave of Dilsey Craig, who died in 1894 after sixty years enslaved, mostly in the household of Professor James Phillips. Its inscription says a Phillips grandchild erected it, and its style suggests the 1930s.

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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 3, 2026.