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Antebellum and Civil War · 1800–1865
- 1810s
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A gunpowder bomb explodes outside tutor John Patterson's door
Apparently in revenge for the Shepard suspensions, someone filled a brass door knob with powder, lit a match fuse and left it at Patterson's door. A student picked it up and dropped it moments before it went off, and no one was hurt.
- 1820s
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Hillsborough Episcopalians organize St. Matthew's Church
After decades without a resident minister, Hillsborough's Episcopalians organized a parish again and founded the present St. Matthew's on Thomas Ruffin's gift of land, with William Mercer Green as first rector.
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St. Matthew's in Hillsborough is admitted into union with the diocesan convention
At the 1825 convention William Mercer Green asked that the newly organized St. Matthew's be received into the diocese, and it was admitted with Thomas Carney seated as its delegate. Green reported that a church building had been started in Hillsborough, and the convention assessed St. Matthew's, St. Mary's and St. Jude's together toward the bishop's salary.
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Hillsborough Female Seminary opens under Lavinia Brainerd
A female seminary opened in Hillsborough on August 1, 1825, taught by Lavinia Brainerd under the supervision of the Rev. William M. Green. DNCR says the Hillsborough Female Academy had been incorporated apart from the male academy in 1824.
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St. Matthew's Church in Hillsborough is consecrated under its first rector, William Mercer Green
William Mercer Green became first rector of the reorganized St. Matthew's parish in 1825, the year work began on its brick church; state architect William Nichols and brickmaker John Berry were among the builders. Bishop John Stark Ravenscroft consecrated the church on May 21, 1826, during the diocesan convention it hosted.
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The Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina holds its convention in Hillsborough for the first time
Bishop John Stark Ravenscroft, eight clergy and lay delegates from ten parishes met in Hillsborough in May 1826, gathering in the newly finished St. Matthew's Church, which was consecrated on the Sunday of the session. St. Matthew's sent Thomas Ruffin, William Norwood, Francis L. Hawks and James S. Smith as its delegates.
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The Rev. William Mercer Green builds the first house on the land later called Montrose
Around 1827 the Rev. William Mercer Green, rector of St. Matthew's, built the first house on land he had bought that May from William Kirkland, who had acquired it in 1821; the tract had first belonged to James Hogg. William A. Graham bought it in 1842.
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Bishop Ravenscroft consecrates Salem Chapel, built by Duncan Cameron near his home
Duncan Cameron paid for a chapel near his residence in Orange County for his household and neighbors, standing by 1825 and still unfinished when the bishop preached in it in May 1826. After Cameron executed the deeds, Bishop Ravenscroft consecrated it as Salem Chapel on Sunday, October 7, 1827, assisted by Mr. Wright of Salisbury and by William Mercer Green, who served it from Hillsborough.
- 1830s
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St. Matthew's adds a tower to its church
Rector William Mercer Green told the 1830 convention that a tower had been added to the Hillsborough church during the past year, four years after its consecration. The parish then counted 40 communicants and 61 Sunday school scholars.
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William Mercer Green delivers the literary societies' oration before commencement
On June 22, 1831, the day before commencement, William Mercer Green delivered an oration at Chapel Hill on the influence of Christianity upon the welfare of nations, under the annual appointment of the Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies. Dennis Heartt printed it in Hillsborough the same year.
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Godfrey and Isabella marry at St. Matthew's
The Rev. William Mercer Green married Godfrey and Isabella, the first couple in St. Matthew's register of people of color. Their infant son Milton Alexander was baptized there in November 1835.
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New bishop Levi S. Ives confirms thirty at St. Matthew's on his first visit to Hillsborough
Two weeks after leaving New York for his new diocese, Bishop Levi S. Ives reached Hillsborough and preached four times in St. Matthew's over a weekend, giving communion to some fifty or sixty people and confirming thirty. Eleven of those confirmed were men, seven of them University of North Carolina students.
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Job, later Rev. Job Berry, is baptized at St. Matthew's
Job, enslaved by George W. B. Burgwyn, was baptized at St. Matthew's Episcopal Church by William Mercer Green and confirmed the next April. As Job Berry he later led Hillsborough's first Black congregation.
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Samuel Iredell Johnston and William W. Spear are ordained deacons in St. Matthew's
Bishop Ives returned to Hillsborough and made Samuel Iredell Johnston and William W. Spear deacons in St. Matthew's Church, with William Mercer Green reading prayers and the Rev. Mr. Freeman preaching. Johnston had been baptized as an adult in the parish, and Spear had spent part of his boyhood in it.
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St. Matthew's adds a gallery for Black worshippers under William Mercer Green
In 1835, during William Mercer Green's rectorship, a gallery was added to St. Matthew's Church in Hillsborough to seat Black worshippers. Green also held monthly services at Duncan Cameron's Salem Chapel, where he gave instruction to enslaved people.
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The diocesan convention meets in St. Matthew's for the second and last time
The Episcopal convention met at St. Matthew's in Hillsborough in June 1835 while Bishop Ives was in Europe for his health; by 1890 it had not returned, though Hillsborough was chosen again several times. Newly ordained deacon Moses Ashley Curtis arrived on June 4 and preached that night, probably his first sermon, from the chancel he would later serve for many years as rector.
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St. Matthew's pays off the debt on its church
Rector William Mercer Green reported in 1836 that St. Matthew's was free of the debt it had carried since the church was built, that the plan of weekly offerings was still working well, and that the parish was raising money for an organ.
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The St. Matthew's vestry grants William Mercer Green's request to be buried in its churchyard
On resigning as first rector to move to Chapel Hill, William Mercer Green formally asked the vestry that he be buried in St. Matthew's churchyard when he died, and the vestry recorded a resolution granting it.
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William Mercer Green leaves St. Matthew's to become university chaplain and professor
William Mercer Green accepted a post at the University of North Carolina as chaplain and professor and gave up St. Matthew's in Hillsborough the same year. The Hillsborough congregation had grown from seventeen communicants in his first year to sixty-seven when he left.
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Maria L. Spear becomes principal of Hillsborough Female Seminary
After William M. Green's last announcement in 1838, the seminary's trustees named Maria L. Spear principal in 1839.
- 1840s
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Chapel Hill Episcopalians buy a church lot from the university
William Mercer Green told the 1842 diocesan convention that the new Chapel Hill congregation, then fifteen communicants, had bought a lot from the university for its church and had let a contract for part of the building materials.
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William Mercer Green organizes an Episcopal parish in Chapel Hill
In May 1842 William Mercer Green presided over the organization of the Church of the Atonement, an Episcopal parish in Chapel Hill with fifteen communicants, which met in members' homes for five years while its church was built. A record of subscribers for building the church, dated 1843, survives in Green's papers.
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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.
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People enslaved by William Mercer Green work on the Church of the Atonement
Green contributed to the building through the labor of several people he enslaved and a pair of his mules. He also meant to give a kiln of bricks made on his land, but had the fires put out at midnight on a Saturday to keep the Sabbath, and the half-fired bricks, worth about $250, were lost.
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Eagle Lodge Masons lay the cornerstone of the new Orange County courthouse
Masons of Eagle Lodge, with brethren from University Lodge, laid the cornerstone of the new courthouse in Hillsborough, with Dr. James S. Smith acting as deputy grand master. The Rev. William M. Green gave the oration in the old courthouse nearby.
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William Mercer Green pledges fifteen enslaved people and his Bolin Creek land for a loan
To secure 2,500 dollars borrowed from John H. Bryan, with David L. Swain and Duncan Cameron as his sureties, William Mercer Green conveyed to William H. Battle in trust his land on Bolin Creek near Chapel Hill and fifteen enslaved people: Jenny, Nancy, Lucy, Frances, Ellen, Celia, Anne, Julia, Rachel, Margaret, Peter, Sam, Aaron, Cain and Robert. If the debt went unpaid, they were to be advertised in the Hillsborough Recorder and sold at Chapel Hill to the highest bidder.
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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.
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The Chapel of the Cross is consecrated
Bishop Levi Silliman Ives consecrated the Episcopal church at Chapel Hill as the Chapel of the Holy Cross. Designed by Thomas U. Walter for the parish William Mercer Green organized in 1842, it was built of bricks fired by enslaved people at kilns on Green's farm and included a wooden gallery for enslaved worshippers.
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Trustees let student church members worship at their own churches
Petitions from several denominations reached the board in December 1849 asking to ease compulsory Sunday worship in the college chapel. On January 4, 1850 the trustees voted down a broader plan and adopted Samuel F. Patterson's rule letting communicants attend the church of their choice while all others still attended chapel, a rule that stood about ten years.
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