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18 dated events match your filters.
Searched the full chronology of 6,171 dated events and 63 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1–18.Back to highlights
- Antebellum and Civil War · 1800–1865
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Professor Denison Olmsted buys the Widow Puckett house on East Franklin Street
In 1820 Denison Olmsted bought the two-story Federal house and lot at 501 East Franklin Street from the Puckett family. From 1826 it was home to the family of mathematics professor James Phillips.
People: James Phillips
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Trustees take over Denison Olmsted's house for the professors of chemistry
When Olmsted resigned in December 1825 to teach at Yale, the trustees bought at cost the house he had purchased from Mrs. Puckett for $1,300 and repaired. The lot was set apart for the professors of chemistry, and the house was later the home of James Phillips and then of President Venable.
People: James Phillips
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The Phillips family, with infant Cornelia, moves to Chapel Hill
James Phillips moved his family from New York to Chapel Hill in 1826 when he became professor of mathematics at the University of North Carolina, where he taught until his death in 1867. His daughter Cornelia, born in Harlem in March 1825, grew up in the village.
People: James Phillips
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Professor James Phillips hires David Barham from his owner as a college servant
In 1830 Professor James Phillips hired David Barham from William Barham to work as a college servant. A university account book page from the same year shows students paying a two-dollar fee to compensate the slaveholders whose people were hired as servants.
People: James Phillips
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Friends of education organize the North Carolina Institute of Education at Chapel Hill
During commencement week a meeting adopted a constitution on Benjamin M. Smith's motion, elected Simmons J. Baker president and made professors Elisha Mitchell, William Hooper and James Phillips its executive committee. The Institute met at the next few commencements and enrolled about 130 members before it lapsed.
People: Benjamin Smith · Elisha Mitchell · James Phillips
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James Phillips is licensed to preach and later serves New Hope Presbyterian Church
Mathematics professor James Phillips joined the Presbyterian church in 1832 and was licensed to preach by Orange Presbytery in 1833. He was later ordained and installed as minister of New Hope Presbyterian Church, about seven miles outside Chapel Hill, and shared the university chapel work with Elisha Mitchell.
Subject: New Hope Presbyterian Church
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James Phillips opens a female school in Chapel Hill
In 1836 mathematics professor James Phillips announced Phillips' Female School in Chapel Hill. Mrs. Phillips and a teacher from Emma Willard's seminary at Troy, New York, did most of the teaching.
People: James Phillips
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James Phillips begins nearly thirty years as stated supply at New Hope
The university professor began preaching at New Hope in August 1836 and served it until December 1865, longer than any other minister. Because Chapel Hill long had no Presbyterian church, New Hope heard him almost every Sunday for years.
Subject: New Hope Presbyterian Church
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Fresh Treat riot and a textbook rebellion bring dismissals
In the fall of 1840 a drinking feast paid for by new students turned into a riot in which tutors' windows were broken, faculty were stoned, classrooms were wrecked and professors' horses were ridden, and soon after all the blackboards were burned. Several students were dismissed, three more for defying James Phillips's rule against books in recitation, and the trustees approved a faculty resolution to prosecute serious outrages in the courts.
People: James Phillips · David L. Swain · Elisha Mitchell
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Charles Phillips returns to Chapel Hill as a tutor of mathematics
Phillips accepted a call from President David L. Swain in July 1844 to return to the University of North Carolina as his father's assistant. He held the post of tutor of mathematics until 1853.
People: David L. Swain · James Phillips
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James Phillips buys the Village Chapel lot for the Presbyterian church
Professor James Phillips, as trustee, bought for $200 the lot where the Union or Village Chapel stood, as a site for the Presbyterian church, on condition that no burials be made there. The old chapel was moved a few hundred yards north, enlarged, and long served as the village public school.
Subject: University Presbyterian Church
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The Presbyterian church on Franklin Street is finished and dedicated
Built with money and effort from James and Charles Phillips, Elisha Mitchell and President Swain, the small Presbyterian church on the old Grand Avenue ground was completed and formally dedicated.
People: James Phillips · Charles Phillips · Elisha Mitchell · David L. Swain
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James Phillips keeps weather records at Chapel Hill
From 1854 to 1862 Professor James Phillips kept weather records at Chapel Hill. They survive in the Southern Historical Collection alongside Chapel Hill records kept from December 1879 to 1882 by Professors W. B. Phillips and Francis Preston Venable.
People: Francis Preston Venable
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New Hope's 1805 church burns
The church burned on a Saturday night, most people believing it was set on purpose. The next morning James Phillips preached to the congregation under the trees, and through the summer of 1862 they worshipped under a large arbor built on the grounds.
People: James Phillips
Subject: New Hope Presbyterian Church
- Reconstruction and the New South · 1866–1899
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Charles Phillips is ordained at New Hope Church in Orange County
Phillips was ordained on 14 April 1866 at Orange County's New Hope Church, which had long been under the pastoral charge of his father James Phillips. Orange Presbytery had convened there on Wednesday, April 11, and ordained Phillips and Calvin H. Wiley during the meeting.
People: James Phillips
Subject: New Hope Presbyterian Church
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James Phillips dies in the college chapel
On the morning of March 14, 1867, James Phillips went early to the college chapel to lead morning prayers and was found dead on the rostrum as the bell rang. He had taught at the university since 1826 and was buried in the Chapel Hill Cemetery.
Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery · Gerrard Hall
- Early twentieth century · 1900–1944
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Phillips Hall opens, named for three Phillips family teachers
Phillips Hall opened on the Chapel Hill campus in 1919, honoring three members of the Phillips family who taught at the university in the nineteenth century: James Phillips, his son Charles Phillips and his grandson William Battle Phillips.
People: Charles Phillips
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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.
People: James Phillips
Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery
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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.
