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Searched the full chronology of 6,171 dated events and 63 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1–10.Back to highlights
Entries
Antebellum and Civil War · 1800–1865
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Elizabeth Hobbs is brought to Hillsborough in the household of Robert and Anna Burwell
When the Reverend Robert Burwell became minister of the Presbyterian church in Hillsborough, he moved his household from Virginia, bringing the enslaved Elizabeth Hobbs, later Keckly. By her own account she was nearly eighteen.
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Schoolmaster William J. Bingham repeatedly beats Elizabeth Hobbs at Anna Burwell's urging
Anna Burwell had William J. Bingham, the Hillsborough schoolmaster, flog Elizabeth Hobbs over a period of weeks in an attempt to break her spirit. Her memoir says Robert Burwell also beat her, and that she was eighteen at the time.
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Alexander McKenzie Kirkland subjects Elizabeth Hobbs to about four years of sexual coercion
Alexander McKenzie Kirkland, a white man from a prominent Hillsborough merchant-planter family, repeatedly sexually assaulted Elizabeth Hobbs over about four years. In her memoir she did not name him and wrote that a white man pursued her for four years.
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Burwell School for young women operates
Robert and Margaret Anna Burwell operated their Hillsborough school for girls from 1837 to 1857.
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Elizabeth Hobbs gives birth to her son George in Hillsborough
Elizabeth Hobbs gave birth to her only child, George, whose father was Alexander Kirkland. George later took the surname Kirkland.
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Elizabeth Hobbs and her son are sent from Hillsborough back to Virginia
The Burwells sent Elizabeth Hobbs and her son George back to Dinwiddie County, Virginia, where she rejoined her mother in the household of Ann Burwell Garland and Hugh Garland. The Garlands later took the family to St. Louis, where she bought her freedom and George's in 1855.
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Elizabeth Keckly purchases freedom for herself and her son
Elizabeth Keckly purchased freedom for herself and her son in St. Louis, after earlier enslavement in Hillsborough.
Recent decades · 1976–2026
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A state highway marker for Elizabeth Keckly goes up on North Churton Street in Hillsborough
North Carolina highway marker G-115, cast in 2002, stands on North Churton Street at Union Street in Hillsborough. It records Keckly as a Burwell family slave who lived there in the 1830s, bought her freedom in 1855, dressed Mary Todd Lincoln and published her memoir in 1868.
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Burwell School Historic Site marks the bicentennial of Elizabeth Keckly
Through 2018 the Burwell School Historic Site in Hillsborough marked the 200th anniversary of Keckly's birth with an exhibition that included an original copy of her memoir and a replica of a purple velvet dress she made, sewn by local seamstress Karen DeSombre.
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The Burwell School is renamed the Elizabeth Keckly Center at the Burwell School
The Burwell School Historic Site in Hillsborough took the name the Elizabeth Keckly Center at the Burwell School in late August 2026, honoring the woman the Burwells held in slavery in the house from 1835. Site director Elizabeth Hays said the aim was to hold the site's histories together.
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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.
