Chronology

Governor Burke returns to Hillsborough and raises a company against the Loyalists

Hearing that Loyalists were plundering in southern Orange and that David Fanning was active again, Burke came to Hillsborough and formed a mixed infantry and cavalry company under a Captain Allen of New Hope to guard the area's Whigs.

People: Thomas Burke · David Fanning

Alexander Martin takes the oath as acting governor while Burke is in enemy hands

Three weeks after Fanning carried Governor Burke out of Hillsborough, Alexander Martin, Speaker of the Senate, qualified before the Council of State at Colonel Williams's in Granville County and took up the administration. He told the council that the government must be supported and the most vigorous and decisive measures taken against so daring an enemy.

People: Alexander Martin · Thomas Burke

The Assembly levies a tax on the Hillsborough District to repair the courthouse, stocks and streets

An act taxed residents of the district and the town, with the money going to repair the courthouse and stocks and the town's streets.

Subject: Orange County Courthouse, Hillsborough

A brick courthouse replaces the first one at Hillsborough

The county's second courthouse, built of brick, went up in 1782. The book says fire destroyed it seven years later and a wooden courthouse followed in 1790.

Subject: Orange County Courthouse, Hillsborough

Alfred Moore prosecutes at Hillsborough and is made attorney general

Acting as prosecutor in several major cases at Hillsborough while the state attorney general was away, Alfred Moore of Wilmington did well enough to be appointed attorney general that same year. He held the office until 1790 and built Moorefields west of Hillsborough while serving.

Hillsborough collects meat for Greene's army and holds prisoners of war

Alexander Mebane, commissioner of specific supplies for Orange, gathered more than 2,000 pounds of salt and fresh meat at Hillsborough for Greene's army in South Carolina. The town jail held British and Loyalist prisoners while exchanges were negotiated.

Subject: Orange County jail, Hillsborough

Jesse Benton's son Thomas Hart Benton is born near Hart's Mill

Thomas Hart Benton, later a U.S. senator from Missouri, was born in 1782 at Hart's Mill near Hillsborough, the son of Jesse and Ann Gooch Benton.

The General Assembly names Hillsborough its meeting place until a seat of government is fixed

An act of the April 1782 session, held at Hillsborough, directed that future General Assemblies meet there until a proper place was fixed for the seat of government. With the war over, the April 1783 session, also at Hillsborough, repealed it.

William Hooper makes the Nash house in Hillsborough his home

The house Francis Nash built in 1772 became the home of William Hooper, signer of the Declaration of Independence, in 1782. William A. Graham lived there in the 1860s.

People: Francis Nash · William A. Graham

Subject: Nash-Hooper House

Thomas Burke returns to Hillsborough and takes up the governorship again

After leaving his parole on James Island, Burke resumed his duties at Hillsborough. His breach of parole drew criticism from many constituents and a dispute between Greene and the British.

People: Thomas Burke · Nathanael Greene

Three of David Fanning's men are hanged at Hillsborough

Seven captured raiders were tried before Judge John Williams, with Alfred Moore prosecuting and William R. Davie defending in his first case. Three were hanged despite Fanning's threats, and Burke commuted the other four sentences to a year in the Continental army.

People: Thomas Burke · David Fanning · William Richardson Davie

General Assembly at Hillsborough elects Alexander Martin governor and grants western land to Continental soldiers

The Assembly met at Hillsborough, heard Governor Thomas Burke's message about his capture, and elected Alexander Martin governor on April 22. Its laws granted land in a western military reservation to officers and soldiers of the Continental line and directed the sale of confiscated Loyalist estates.

People: Alexander Martin · Thomas Benbury · Hugh Williamson · Thomas Burke

The General Assembly at Hillsborough votes its thanks to Thomas Burke

A day after choosing his successor, both houses resolved that the thanks of the General Assembly be given to Burke for his steady and constant attention to the duties of his office and his vigorous dispatch of the public business while he was governor. The resolution passes over his capture and parole in silence.

People: Thomas Burke

A false alarm of a Fanning attack turns the legislators out into Hillsborough's streets

With the General Assembly in session and General John Butler guarding it with 200 county militia, members were roused from bed and paraded in the streets before the report proved false. Fanning had in fact married and fled to South Carolina.

People: John Butler · David Fanning · Thomas Burke

William Moore is named commissioner of confiscated Loyalist estates for the Hillsborough District

The April Assembly at Hillsborough appointed commissioners to deal with estates taken from Loyalists, electing William Moore for the Hillsborough District.

Assembly at Hillsborough elects Abner Nash and Hugh Williamson delegates to Congress

On May 3, 1782, a joint ballot of the General Assembly at Hillsborough elected Abner Nash, Hugh Williamson, Benjamin Hawkins and William Blount as the state's delegates to Congress for the year. Nash had been returned to the House for Jones County, and Williamson sat for the town of Edenton.

People: Hugh Williamson · Benjamin Hawkins · William Blount

The Assembly names Thomas Davis state printer and tells him to set up his press at Hillsborough

On the last day of the session Davis was appointed public printer and directed to establish his press in Hillsborough as soon as he could, to print the state's laws and legislative journals there.

A post route is opened between Hillsborough and Richmond

The route was part of a push, gaining ground in 1783, to make Hillsborough the permanent seat of state government.

Hillsborough's count at the end of the war: forty white polls and sixty-seven enslaved people

At the close of the Revolution the town listed forty white taxable men and sixty-seven enslaved people between the ages of twelve and fifty, which Nash reads as a population of about three hundred.

General Assembly at Hillsborough opens the western land office and passes an act of pardon

Meeting at Hillsborough, the Assembly re-elected Alexander Martin governor and chose Hugh Williamson, Benjamin Hawkins, Abner Nash and Richard Dobbs Spaight as delegates to Congress. Its laws opened a land office for western lands to redeem specie certificates and pay army arrears, and an Act of Pardon and Oblivion covered wartime offenses, with exceptions.

People: Alexander Martin · Abner Nash · Hugh Williamson · Richard Dobbs Spaight · Richard Caswell · Benjamin Hawkins

Continental officers organize the North Carolina Society of the Cincinnati at James Hogg's cabin

Former officers of the North Carolina Continental line gathered near Hillsborough in a cabin owned by the merchant James Hogg and founded the state's Society of the Cincinnati. They elected Jethro Sumner president, Thomas Clark vice president and Adam Boyd secretary. Sixty-six of the roughly six hundred commissioned officers the state sent to the war joined by contributing a month's pay.

People: James Hogg · Adam Boyd

General Assembly at Hillsborough cedes the state's western lands to Congress

The spring 1784 Assembly at Hillsborough passed an act ceding to Congress the state's claim to lands west of the Appalachian Mountains and an act giving Congress power to levy import duties. The House of Commons chose Thomas Benbury as speaker and elected Hugh Williamson and Richard Dobbs Spaight as delegates to Congress.

People: Alexander Martin · Hugh Williamson · Thomas Benbury · Richard Dobbs Spaight

William Hooper divides enslaved people among his children

At Hillsborough, William Hooper gave his son Thomas Hogg Hooper a woman named Judah and her child Jack, in place of Tom, a man Robert Hogg had willed to Thomas and whom Hooper had sold to Samuel Campbell for 120 pounds. The same day, to put his children on an equal footing, he made over Pat and her son Alfred to his daughter Elizabeth and sold a girl named Molly to his son William, each transfer completed by handing a silver spoon to James Hogg as trustee.

People: William Hooper · James Hogg

A bill to make Hillsborough the state capital fails by four votes

Hillsborough's backers pressed the question from session to session, and in 1785 a bill to fix the capital there lost 41 to 37.

Alfred Moore of Wilmington builds Moorefields near Hillsborough as a summer home

Moore, whom President John Adams later appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court, built Moorefields as his summer place. Local tradition held that Senator Thomas Hart Benton and Mrs. Henry Clay were born there, but both were born before the house was built, on Hart and Benton family land somewhat to the north.

Subject: Moorefields

Hillsborough Academy opens in the old Anglican church

The school chartered as Science Hall opened as Hillsborough Academy in the old Anglican church, which an act of the 1784 Hillsborough session had ordered repaired for a school and a free meeting house. It never thrived and closed in 1790.

Subject: Hillsborough Academy

The North Carolina Gazette begins publication at Hillsborough

The North Carolina Gazette of Hillsborough, apparently the county's first regular newspaper, appeared in 1785. The only surviving copy with an imprint, dated February 16, 1786, was printed by Robert Ferguson for Thomas Davis.

Sterling Harris builds the house on East Queen Street later called Heartsease

Sterling Harris built the one-and-a-half-story core of the house about 1786. Polly Burke bought it in 1810 and added a bay, and Dennis Heartt's family named it Heartsease after 1837.

Subject: Heartsease

The William Whitted House is built facing East Queen Street

A two-story frame house with a massive stone chimney is built about 1786 for William Whitted at East Queen and North Churton streets. A five-bay Italianate wing facing Churton Street was added later, possibly designed by Jules Korner of Kernersville.

Subject: William Whitted House

The county court names a jury to lay off a road from McCauley's mill to Hillsborough

At the week-long August 1786 term, held by justices John Butler, William McCauley and William Ansley, the court named a jury to mark the best and most direct road from McCauley's mill to Hillsborough. The same term licensed three taverns and named tax collectors for all seven taxing districts.

People: John Butler

The Assembly orders the state treasurer and comptroller to move their offices to Hillsborough

Meeting at Fayetteville, the Assembly directed both officers to take their offices and records to Hillsborough so they would be convenient to most of the state's people. The comptroller was slow to comply, and a year later the order was repeated.

A one-story Federal house is built on West Queen Street, later the John Newman House

The hall-and-parlor house at 230 West Queen Street dates from about 1787; a deed of February 25, 1790 already describes the lot as improved. Its earliest recorded owner was Vincent Peter Williamson, and Governor Thomas Burke's widow Mary Burke Doherty owned it for a time before the Newman family bought it in the 1860s.

The convention appoints a committee of privileges and elections with three members from each district

The convention set up a 27-member committee of privileges and elections, three from each district, which went on to rule on the disputed returns. Alexander Mebane of Orange County sat on it with Thomas Person, William R. Davie and James Iredell.

People: Thomas Person · James Iredell · William Richardson Davie

The convention names a select committee to draft its rules of debate

On its first day the convention asked William R. Davie, Thomas Person, James Iredell, Elisha Battle, Richard Dobbs Spaight, Samuel Spencer and a member named McDonald to propose rules for its discussion of the Constitution.

People: Thomas Person · James Iredell · Richard Dobbs Spaight · William Richardson Davie

The ratification convention opens at Hillsborough and elects Governor Samuel Johnston its president

A majority of the elected delegates met at the church in Hillsborough and chose Governor Samuel Johnston president without a dissenting vote. They then named John Hunt and James Taylor clerks and appointed doorkeepers.

People: Samuel Johnston

The convention adopts eighteen rules for the conduct of its members

The rules committee reported and the convention agreed to its rules with one article left out. The rules let any two members call for a recorded yea-and-nay vote and excused Quaker members from the ban on wearing hats in the house.

William Lenoir brings a petition against the Dobbs County election before the convention

On Lenoir's motion the convention read the Dobbs County return and a petition from county residents complaining of an illegal election, and sent both to the committee of elections. Richard Dobbs Spaight and Stephen Cabarrus added depositions and the sheriff's copy of the poll.

People: William Lenoir · Richard Dobbs Spaight

The Grand Lodge of North Carolina holds its first regular meeting at Hillsborough

Seven months after Masonic delegates organized the Grand Lodge of North Carolina at Tarboro, it held its first regular meeting in Hillsborough, while the ratification convention was in session there.

The convention has the state and federal founding documents read and receives news of two states' ratifications

On James Galloway's motion, seconded by Macon, the clerks read the state Bill of Rights and constitution, the Articles of Confederation, the act naming North Carolina's deputies to Philadelphia and the resolve of Congress sending the Constitution to the states. Johnston then laid before the members official accounts of ratification by Massachusetts and South Carolina.

People: Samuel Johnston

The convention unseats the Dobbs County delegates and voids both of the county's elections

The committee of elections reported that a riot at the first Dobbs poll had carried off the ballot box before all the ballots were counted, and that a majority of the county had not approved the second election the governor recommended. The convention agreed that the sitting members vacate their seats and that both elections were void.

Willie Jones moves that the Hillsborough Convention vote on the Constitution at once

Jones moved that the question on the federal Constitution be put immediately, arguing that members had long since made up their minds and that a long sitting would waste public money. Thomas Person seconded him and James Iredell objected. The convention took up the Constitution clause by clause instead, debating it for eleven days.

Part of Hillsborough ratification convention, 1788

People: James Iredell · Thomas Person

The convention resolves itself into a committee of the whole with Elisha Battle in the chair

After David Caldwell's attempt to fix governing maxims for the debate was set aside, the delegates went into committee of the whole, Elisha Battle presiding, and began reading the proposed Constitution clause by clause. The committee sat each day through July 31 except Sunday, July 27.

People: James Iredell · Willie Jones · David Caldwell

The convention rules that Fayetteville has no right to a delegate and seats Thomas Devane for New Hanover

Adopting a second report from the committee of elections, the convention held that the town of Fayetteville had no right of representation, so John Ingram, returned for the town, could not sit. It seated Thomas Devane Sr. for New Hanover County, finding that ballots for him written two ways were meant for the same man.

Governor Johnston moves in committee that the convention ratify and propose amendments afterward

When the committee of the whole reached the seventh article, read without objection, Johnston moved that North Carolina ratify the Constitution and at the same time propose amendments to be made by one of the methods it provides. His motion put the question of ratification before the committee for the first time.

People: Samuel Johnston

Willie Jones's previous question carries 183 to 84, setting aside Johnston's ratification motion

Jones answered Johnston by moving the previous question, meaning to bring in his own resolution calling for amendments before North Carolina adopted the Constitution. After long argument the committee carried it 183 to 84, and its chairman, James Kenan, reported resolutions not yet put in form.

People: Willie Jones · Samuel Johnston

The committee of the whole adopts Willie Jones's resolution for a declaration of rights and amendments before ratification

After a day of debate on the resolution, Davie asked that the amendments be taken one at a time, but the committee approved the resolution as it stood by a large majority. Kenan reported it to the convention, which ordered it to lie on the table overnight.

People: Willie Jones · William Richardson Davie

Iredell's motion to ratify and recommend amendments afterward is defeated 184 to 84

Declaring all debate at an end and the majority irresistible, James Iredell moved that the convention ratify the Constitution and recommend amendments afterward, so that the minority's view would stand on the journal. The yeas and nays were taken and the motion lost, 84 to 184.

People: James Iredell · Willie Jones

Orange County's delegates vote against ratifying the Constitution before amendments

In the 184 to 84 roll call that defeated Iredell's amendment to ratify, Alexander Mebane, William Mebane, William McCauley, Jonathan Lindley and William Shepperd of Orange all voted no, as did A. Tatom. The next day the same members voted to concur in the declaration of rights and amendments.

The majority votes to keep Iredell's ratification motion off the journal, then agrees to let it be offered as an amendment

When Samuel Spencer moved to concur with the committee's report, Iredell moved to postpone it for his own resolution, and the house fell into confusion, with Whitmill Hill warning that the minority would secede. Willie Jones carried a motion that Iredell's motion had no right to a place on the journal, but while the yeas and nays were being taken the two sides agreed that Spencer would withdraw and Iredell would offer his resolution as an amendment.

People: James Iredell · Willie Jones

The convention adopts a declaration of rights and twenty-six amendments to be laid before Congress before ratification

On Thomas Person's motion the convention concurred with its committee of the whole, resolving that a declaration of rights of twenty articles and twenty-six amendments to the most ambiguous and exceptionable parts of the Constitution be laid before Congress and a convention of the states before North Carolina would ratify. On Willie Jones's motions it also recommended a state impost matching whatever Congress laid, urged redemption of the paper currency, and ordered the resolutions sent to Congress and the twelve other states.

People: Willie Jones · Archibald Maclaine · Thomas Person · William Richardson Davie

The convention directs its president to send its resolutions to Congress and the other twelve states

A unanimous resolution asked Samuel Johnston to forward the resolution on the Constitution, with the impost and paper money resolutions, to Congress and to the executives of the twelve other states.

People: Samuel Johnston · Willie Jones

The convention recommends that North Carolina collect an impost for the use of Congress

Having neither ratified nor rejected the Constitution, the convention adopted by a large majority Willie Jones's resolution asking the legislature to lay a duty on goods imported into North Carolina whenever Congress laid an impost in the ratifying states, and to pay the money to Congress.

People: Willie Jones

The convention unanimously urges the Assembly to redeem the state's paper currency

On Willie Jones's motion, seconded by James Galloway, the convention asked the General Assembly to retire the state's paper currency as quickly as the people's circumstances allowed.

People: Willie Jones

The convention adjourns sine die after fixing the seat of government at Isaac Hunter's in Wake County

With the Constitution neither ratified nor rejected, the convention turned to its second charge, the seat of government. A ballot on August 2 fixed it at Isaac Hunter's in Wake County, and on Monday, August 4, after approving the ordinance for it, the convention adjourned sine die.

People: Samuel Johnston

Daniel Mallett buys the West King Street lots where Twin Chimneys stands

On September 4, 1788, Daniel Mallett bought Lots 21 and 31 on West King Street, the first deed since 1768 to mention buildings or improvements on the property now called Twin Chimneys.

The House pays the men who carried the state treasury out of Hillsborough

On November 10, 1789 the House of Commons voted to pay John Armstrong of Orange County three pounds for taking the Treasury's books and papers from Hillsborough to Fayetteville, and five pounds each to nine men of the Orange Company of Horse who guarded the money on the road. The treasurer's office had been kept in the town since 1786 in the confiscated store known as the Blue House, and its records had already been carted to Tarboro and back in 1787 and 1788.

People: John Armstrong (active 1764)

A road jury reroutes the road from Hillsborough to General Person's around a hill

On Theophilus Thompson's petition, a jury of twelve laid off a new line taking the road from town to General Person's around a hill. The court ordered Thompson to open it and Richard Williams and his hands to keep it in repair.

The first federal census counts 2,060 enslaved people in Orange County

The first federal census counted 12,216 people in Orange County: 10,055 white residents, 2,060 enslaved people and 101 other free persons. No other Piedmont county held as many enslaved people, and Richard Bennehan (24) and William Hooper (22, in Hillsborough) were the largest holders.

People: Richard Bennehan · William Hooper

William Hooper dies in Hillsborough

Hooper, one of North Carolina's three signers of the Declaration of Independence, died at Hillsborough in his forty-ninth year and was buried there.

General Assembly orders a new district courthouse built at Hillsborough

Alexander Mebane of Orange brought in the bill, and the act named William Watters, Absalom Tatom and Jeduthan Harper commissioners to raise a courthouse on the lot where the burned one had stood and to sell off its brick and remains. It was paid for by a poll and land tax on Orange and by lighter taxes on Wake, Chatham, Caswell, Granville and Randolph, the counties of the Hillsborough district.

Subject: Orange County Courthouse, Hillsborough

Eagle Lodge is chartered at Hillsborough

Eagle Lodge No. 19 was chartered at Hillsborough in 1791, among the first lodges under the Grand Lodge of North Carolina, with George Doherty as its first secretary. It stayed active until 1799 and then lay dormant until the masons revived it in 1819 under a new charter and a new number.

Subject: Eagle Lodge

Catherine Lockhart's burial in 1792 is the earliest known grave in the Lockhart-Phillips family cemetery

The small walled cemetery on East Tryon Street holds seventeen marked graves; the earliest is probably that of Mrs. Catherine Lockhart, who died in 1792. Saddler James Phillips, a founder of the Presbyterian church, probably built the fieldstone wall around 1820 and was buried there in 1847.

Faucett's grist mill is working at the Eno ford northwest of Hillsborough

The county's architectural survey records the Faucett Mill in operation by at least 1792, at a place where a wagon road forded the Eno River northwest of Hillsborough, and says it may have been built as early as the 1760s by the Quaker milling family of Isaac Lowe. Mills of this kind ground the corn and wheat that Orange farmers hauled north to Petersburg or south toward the Cape Fear, and doubled as gathering places; the Faucett family later added a house that served as an inn and tavern.

Subject: Faucett Mill (Chatwood)

Hillsborough builders add a Federal-style house at Cain's Pleasant Grove

The Cains commissioned the Hillsborough builders Martin Palmer and Samuel Hopkins to build a second, Federal-style house about ten feet from the original 1775 Georgian house at Pleasant Grove.

Subject: Pleasant Grove (William Cain plantation)

James Hogg of Hillsborough gathers Orange County land and money for the university site

Hogg, a Hillsborough merchant who sat on the commission that fixed the university's place, brought in pledges of land and about 1,600 dollars from people in Orange County for the New Hope Chapel Hill site. The ground chosen lay roughly twelve miles from Hillsborough on the road running from Petersburg through the town and on south to Pittsboro.

William Kirkland opens his own store in Hillsborough

William Kirkland, who left Ayr, Scotland, to work in the mercantile trade, had married and opened his own store in Hillsborough by 1793.

Hillsborough gets the first post office in Orange County

David Ray was appointed Hillsborough's first postmaster about December 18, 1792, and the office appears in post office lists from March 20, 1793, the first in the county; Chapel Hill followed on July 1, 1795. Letters were left at the office for recipients to collect, and for decades it moved from one Churton Street or King Street business to another.

Building commissioners contract with George Daniel for 350,000 bricks for the university

Meeting at Hillsborough, the commissioners engaged Daniel, of Orange County, to make and deliver the bricks at forty shillings per thousand.

Richard Stanford begins about twenty years as congressman for the Hillsborough district

Richard Stanford, who was not born in Orange, won the Hillsborough district seat in Congress in 1796 and kept it for about twenty years. He started out a Jeffersonian Republican and later broke with Jefferson.

The Assembly orders the sale of the ruinous St. Matthew's church building

An act of 1797 authorised the sheriff to sell the old Anglican church on Lot 98, described as in a ruinous and decayed situation and not used for divine worship for a number of years. The building went soon afterwards, and around 1800 the town had no church at all.

Subject: St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church

The Haw River Circuit takes the place of the New Hope Circuit in serving Hillsborough Methodists

In 1797 the Methodists replaced the New Hope Circuit with the Haw River Circuit, whose preachers then served the Hillsborough community. The Hillsborough church organized about 1807 belonged to this circuit.

Subject: Hillsborough Methodist Church

Duncan Cameron sets up as a lawyer at Hillsborough

Cameron was admitted to the North Carolina bar in 1798 and, after a brief practice at Martinsville in Guilford County, established himself as a successful attorney at Hillsborough. A rivalry with another young Hillsborough lawyer, William Duffy, followed.

The legislature authorizes another district jail at Hillsborough

The act provided for a new jail to serve the Hillsborough district.

Subject: Orange County jail, Hillsborough

A free Black distiller works on East King Street as the county counts its Black residents

Africa Parker, a free Black man, was running a distillery on East King Street near William Courtney's house in Hillsborough in 1799. The census the next year counted 3,327 enslaved people and 100 free Black people in Orange County alongside 12,222 white residents.

Samuel Chinny buys the East Tryon Street land later called BelleVue

Samuel Chinny bought land at the east edge of town that had first belonged to James Hogg, and probably built the house that became the eastern part of the Phillips-Hill-Webb House; a deed of 1801 mentions a house on the lot.

Subject: BelleVue (Phillips-Hill-Webb House)

A saddle-notched log house is built on the Webb Farm on St. Mary's Road

The Webb Farm's one-room log house, with a fieldstone chimney, dates from the early nineteenth century; a two-story frame house was built across its front late in the century with no inside door between them.

Hillsborough counts 474 residents

The 1800 count put the county town at 474 people, small in number though it ranked with Salisbury and Salem among the region's main towns.

The one-story house later called the Nathaniel Rochester House is built on West King Street

A one-story frame house, close in detail to the Ruffin-Roulhac House, was built at 225 West King Street around 1800; tradition makes Nathaniel Rochester, founder of Rochester, New York, an early owner.

William Cain is the largest landowner in Orange County, enslaving 30 people

By 1800 William Cain owned 4,417 acres, the most of any landowner in Orange County, and enslaved 30 people at Pleasant Grove, a number he increased to 95 by 1830.

Subject: Pleasant Grove (William Cain plantation)

Duncan Cameron builds a law office on Margaret Lane, later the Nash Law Office

Lawyer Duncan Cameron built a one-story Federal-style law office on his lots on Margaret Lane. In 1807 he sold the property to Frederick Nash, who kept his practice there and taught law students in it until his death in 1858.

People: Frederick Nash

Subject: Nash Law Office

William Courtney Jr. deeds the Yellow House on East King Street to his brother Joseph

A 1801 deed from William Courtney Jr. to his brother Joseph is the first to call the property the "yellow house", the earliest evidence of a house on the lot. The two-story Georgian house still stands at 141 East King Street.

Hillsborough Academy reopens for boys and girls under Andrew Flinn

The academy's trustees announced that it had reopened on a larger plan for youth of both sexes under the Rev. Andrew Flinn, teaching Latin, Greek, English, mathematics and bookkeeping.

People: William Kirkland · Duncan Cameron · William Cain Sr. · Walter Alves

Subject: Hillsborough Academy

Edmund Strudwick is born at Long Meadow

Edmund Strudwick, later a physician and surgeon, was born on March 25, 1802, at Long Meadow, five miles north of Hillsborough. He went to Bingham School and earned his medical degree at the University of Pennsylvania.

Hatter Henry Shutt buys the West King Street lot where the Colonial Inn now stands

In 1803 Henry Shutt bought the vacant lot and built a house there, living in it and running a hatter's shop. The lot was offered at public sale in 1820, and Isaiah Spencer built his inn on it in 1838.

Subject: Colonial Inn

James Hogg sells Poplar Hill to his son-in-law William Norwood

James Hogg, who had built the house later called Poplar Hill on an 1,100-acre tract on the south bank of the Eno, sells the estate in 1803 to his son-in-law William Norwood. It later became the home of John Wall Norwood.

People: William Norwood

Hillsborough Academy trustees engage Thomas Baron after George Johnston fails to arrive

The academy trustees, Walter Alves among them, announced that George Johnston had not taken charge as promised and that they had engaged Thomas Baron, a Harvard graduate, to teach languages, arithmetic, geography and mathematics.

People: William Kirkland · Duncan Cameron · George Johnston

Subject: Hillsborough Academy

Richard Henderson becomes head of Hillsborough Academy

In 1804 Hillsborough Academy announced Richard Henderson, formerly a professor at the university, as its head.

People: Richard Henderson

Subject: Hillsborough Academy

The Hillsborough Races are run over three days

The Hillsborough Races opened on a Thursday in October 1804 with three-mile heats, followed by two-mile and one-mile heats on the next two days. A Raleigh paper printed the winners, among them General Benton's Junius and Major Strudwick's Tom Jefferson.

James Hogg dies and is buried in Hillsborough

James Hogg, the Scottish merchant who came to North Carolina in 1774 and pressed the trustees to put the university at Chapel Hill, died on November 9, 1804. He is buried in Hillsborough two blocks north of the site of his state highway marker on Churton Street.

A bill in the House would let Hillsborough's commissioners enclose the public spring

Mr. Holt brought in a bill in the House of Commons letting the commissioners of Hillsborough enclose the public spring lot and the school house lot, and also the churchyard, and improve them.

A brick house is built on West Queen Street for Rhody Berry, mother of builder John Berry

The one-and-a-half-story Federal house, the oldest surviving brick dwelling in the original town, was built about 1805 for Mrs. Rhody Berry. Tradition credits her son John Berry, but he was seven that year, and the 2014 nomination suggests neighbor Samuel Hancock, the brickmason who later became his partner.

People: Samuel Hancock

Subject: Berry Brick House

William Norwood represents the borough of Hillsborough in the House of Commons

Hillsborough lawyer William Norwood was elected to the House of Commons for the borough of Hillsborough in 1806 and reelected in 1807.

Frederick Nash moves from New Bern to Hillsborough

Nash and his wife left New Bern for Hillsborough in 1807 seeking a healthier climate. There he bought a small one-story house, an office and cabins for slave quarters from Duncan Cameron.

People: Duncan Cameron

Subject: Nash Law Office

Methodists organize a church in Hillsborough

A Methodist congregation was organized in Hillsborough about 1807. Its building in use in 1953 dated from 1867.

Subject: Hillsborough Methodist Church

Saddler James Phillips builds a brick kitchen on the school-house lot on East Tryon Street

James Phillips, a Hillsborough saddler, buys the old school-house lot at the east edge of town and builds a two-room brick kitchen beside the house, where he lives until 1847. The kitchen, with his name scratched in a window pane, still stands beside BelleVue.

Subject: BelleVue (Phillips-Hill-Webb House)

Thomas Ruffin qualifies to practice law and settles at Hillsborough

Ruffin finished his legal studies under Archibald D. Murphey in Rockingham County and qualified to practice law in 1808. He moved to Hillsborough on June 9, 1809, and built his practice there; William A. Graham later read law with him.

Mason Hall has a small inn and a post office on the Hillsborough road west

By 1809 the hamlet of Mason Hall, on the main wagon road west from Hillsborough toward Guilford, consisted of a small inn and a post office.

Grammar school under William Paisley opens west of Hillsborough

A grammar school under the Rev. William Paisley was announced to open in January 1809 about ten miles west of Hillsborough, teaching Latin, Greek, geography and philosophy for sixteen dollars a year.

Dr. James Webb serves as Hillsborough agent of the Bank of Cape Fear

In 1810 Dr. James Webb was appointed Hillsborough agent, or cashier, of the branch of the Bank of the Cape Fear, a post he held until 1846. The branch rented a small building on West King Street, and many of its stockholder lists, dividend records and at least one ledger survive.

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

Justice Alfred Moore dies and leaves Moorefields to his son

Former U.S. Supreme Court justice Alfred Moore, builder of Moorefields, died and willed the house to his son Alfred, a lawyer who went on to serve in the House of Commons and as its speaker in 1823-1824.

Subject: Moorefields

Allan Bubberly sells the future Weaver House property to Thomas Weaver

In 1811 Allan Bubberly conveyed the old homestead and tavern property on the Hillsborough road to Thomas Weaver. Weaver's descendants kept it for ninety-nine years, and the house still carries the family name.

Subject: Weaver House

The Strudwick heirs' enslaved people are hired out under Dr. James Webb's guardianship

After Col. William F. Strudwick died in 1810, Dr. James Webb managed the estate for his widow and younger sons and hired out the people it held, listing them by name year after year. In 1819 two of those assigned to young Edmund Strudwick, Jim and Nelly, were sold or leased for $533 and $500.

People: James Webb · Edmund Strudwick

William Kirkland gives four enslaved people to Thomas and Anne Ruffin

Out of affection for his son-in-law Thomas Ruffin and his daughter Anne, William Kirkland of Ayr Mount conveyed to Ruffin a woman named Juley, her two children, John and an infant, and a young girl, all of them already in the Ruffins' household. The deed was proved at the Orange County court that August.

People: William Kirkland · Thomas Ruffin · Anne Kirkland Ruffin

Subject: Ayr Mount

John H. Pickard is principal of Hawfield Academy

Hawfield Academy, about ten miles west of Hillsborough, had John H. Pickard as principal from 1812 to 1814. The school had earlier been led by William Paisley.

Professor Andrew Rhea buys the Hillsborough Street land where the log "Old Tavern" stands

In 1812 professor Andrew Rhea bought a tract a few blocks north of the campus, and he may have built the log house still standing at 419 Hillsborough Street as his own home. The house goes by the name Old Tavern, although nothing shows it was ever used as one.

Subject: Old Tavern (419 Hillsborough Street)

Rev. William Bingham takes charge of Hillsborough Academy

The trustees announced that the Rev. William Bingham had taken charge of Hillsborough Academy, with exercises to begin on February 3 and Elizabeth Russell in charge of a female department.

Subject: Hillsborough Academy

Thomas Ruffin represents Hillsborough in the House of Commons

Ruffin sat for the town of Hillsborough in the North Carolina House of Commons in 1813, 1815 and 1816, until he was elected a Superior Court judge at the age of twenty-nine.

William Cain builds Sans Souci

William Cain probably built Sans Souci, his Hillsborough town house, about 1813, soon after he bought the thirty-acre tract in 1812; a 1953 plate caption had dated it about 1760. It was the home of S. T. Latta Jr. in 1953.

Subject: Sans Souci

Hillsborough Academy is rechartered

Hillsborough Academy received a new charter from the General Assembly in 1814.

Subject: Hillsborough Academy

A Mr. Graham and Miss Farley take charge of Hillsborough Academy

After William Bingham left in 1815, Hillsborough Academy was run for a time by a teacher named Graham, with Miss Farley presumably over the female department.

Subject: Hillsborough Academy

The Hillsborough Presbyterian Church is built on the old St. Matthew's church lot with lottery money

The brick church on West Tryon Street was built in 1815 and 1816 near the site of the colonial St. Matthew's church, lost in the 1790s, with money raised by a lottery the state authorized. The brickmasons John Berry and Samuel Hancock are credited with the work.

People: John Berry · Samuel Hancock

Subject: Hillsborough Presbyterian Church

William Bingham runs his school at Mount Repose northwest of Hillsborough

After leaving Hillsborough Academy, the Rev. William Bingham kept his own academy at Mount Repose, in a house on Back Creek about ten miles northwest of Hillsborough. His son William James Bingham closed it in 1826 when he took over Hillsborough Academy.

People: William James Bingham

William Huntington opens his own silversmith business in Hillsborough

Trained by his father, the engraver Roswell Huntington, William Huntington sets up his own Hillsborough shop, selling silver along with gravestones, flour and medicine and running a blacksmith shop.

Thomas Ruffin of Hillsborough is chosen Speaker of the House of Commons

Ruffin, sitting for the borough of Hillsborough, was elected Speaker in the 1816 session, his last in the legislature before he became a superior court judge.

William Norwood becomes a trustee of Hillsborough Academy

William Norwood was a trustee of Hillsborough Academy by 1816 and chaired its board in 1826.

Subject: Hillsborough Academy

Witherspoon takes charge of the Hillsborough Academy

Returning to Hillsborough at twenty-five, Witherspoon took a double charge: the pastorate of the newly built Presbyterian church and the principalship of the closely allied Hillsborough Academy. He gave up the academy sometime after 1819.

Part of Orange County’s nineteenth-century academies · 102 events

Subject: Hillsborough Academy · Hillsborough Presbyterian Church

The Rev. John Knox Witherspoon adds the paired end chimneys to his West King Street house

While he owned the house now called Twin Chimneys, the Presbyterian minister and schoolmaster built the Flemish-bond pairs of chimneys at each gable end that gave it its name. The two-story front porch dates from about 1816.

Hillsborough physician James S. Smith serves in Congress

James Strudwick Smith, an Orange County-born physician who had studied medicine with Dr. James Webb of Hillsborough, represented the Hillsborough district in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Congresses from March 4, 1817, to March 3, 1821. He was defeated when he sought a third term.

People: James Webb

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

Archibald D. Murphey becomes a Superior Court judge

Archibald D. Murphey left the state senate, where he had represented Orange since 1812, to become a judge of the Superior Court in 1818.

Mrs. Frederick Nash plants the double row of cedars that forms Hillsborough's Cedar Walk

Mrs. Frederick Nash planted two rows of cedar trees along a path of about ten feet running north from West Margaret Lane toward West King Street, linking the Nash house with the John H. Witherspoon house. The walk survives and several houses face onto it.

Thomas Ruffin's law office is built beside his Hillsborough house

A one-room frame law office with a rubble stone chimney was built for Thomas Ruffin, later chief justice of North Carolina, near his house on what became the Burnside lawn. It still stands on its original site.

Subject: Burnside

William Woods Holden is born near Hillsborough

William Woods Holden, later editor of the North Carolina Standard and governor, was born near Hillsborough to Thomas Holden and Priscilla Woods. His grandfather had moved to Orange County to farm, and from age six he was raised by his stepmother, Sally Nichols Holden.

Hillsborough Academy publishes its rules for students

Under principal John Witherspoon, Hillsborough Academy printed its rules of conduct in the Raleigh Register. Students had to attend daily worship, stay out of stores and taverns, avoid liquor, and keep the Sabbath.

People: John Knox Witherspoon

Subject: Hillsborough Academy

A sitting-room wing and a separate kitchen are added at the Nash-Hooper House

A one-story frame sitting room, later the dining room, was built on a log base at the rear of the Nash-Hooper House, giving it an L shape. A detached frame kitchen went up just east of the house at the same time.

Subject: Nash-Hooper House

Eagle Lodge is revived at Hillsborough after twenty dormant years

Eagle Lodge, silent since 1799, was revived under a new number, 71. The Grand Lodge restored its original number, 19, in 1932.

Subject: Eagle Lodge

Elijah Graves announces Mrs. Graves' Female School at Long Meadows

In 1819 the Rev. Elijah Graves announced Mrs. Graves' Female School at Long Meadows, six miles northwest of Hillsborough.

Samuel Hancock buys lots near the Eno for a brickyard

With a $50 loan from Dr. James Webb, brickmason Samuel Hancock bought lots near the Eno River for a brickyard, which became known as the Webb-Hancock brickyard. Webb's 1842 bankruptcy papers say the two men ran it as partners.

People: James Webb

The university closes its grammar school and makes Hillsborough Academy its preparatory school

When Abner W. Clopton gave up the grammar school the university dropped it. Caldwell arranged for Hillsborough Academy, under John Witherspoon with John Rogers teaching, to prepare boys for the university, whose faculty could attend its examinations and admit its top pupils on certificate.

People: Abner Wentworth Clopton · John Knox Witherspoon · Joseph Caldwell

Subject: Hillsborough Academy · University grammar school (Preparatory School)

A Federal house is built on West Queen Street for Eliza Hasell

Eliza G. Hasell bought the lots from Archibald D. Murphey on July 27, 1819, and the two-story house with pedimented one-story wings, modeled on a plate in Robert Morris's Rural Architecture, was built for her about 1820. After her marriage to William S. Plumer she sold it to Samuel Simpson, and his daughter Mary Simpson Nash's family held it into the twentieth century.

People: Archibald D. Murphey

Subject: Hasell-Nash House

Eagle Lodge votes money toward a male academy in Hillsborough

A year after its revival, Eagle Lodge voted to put money toward building a male academy in Hillsborough.

Subject: Eagle Lodge · Hillsborough Academy

Saddler James Phillips walls in the Lockhart-Phillips family cemetery

James Phillips probably built the fieldstone wall around the small family graveyard on East Tryon Street, where Catherine Lockhart was buried in 1792 and Phillips himself in 1847.

Thomas Ruffin gives the land for St. Matthew's Church

Thomas Ruffin donated the hill on the east side of town where St. Matthew's church and churchyard stand, as a thank offering tied to his courtship of Anne Kirkland there.

Subject: St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church

William Kirkland opens a cash store in Hillsborough

Kirkland advertised in February 1820 a new cash store in his former house, stocked with cloth, blankets, guns, tools and hardware. He also sought a young clerk.

D. Yarbrough opens a grocery store in Hillsborough

Yarbrough advertised in May 1820 a cash-only grocery in Mr. Bacon's former shoe shop, selling coffee, sugar, rum, brandy, wine, tea, china, glass, nails and powder.

A Methodist camp meeting at Hillsborough adds about 38 members and starts a fund for a meeting house

A camp meeting held at Hillsborough in 1821 brought about thirty-eight people into the Methodist fold, and the converts opened a subscription to pay for a house of worship. Two years later the church bought a lot with a house on it.

A small Federal house is built on East Orange Street for Martin Hanks

The three west bays of the house later called Little Hawfields and the Ruffin-Roulhac House were built about 1821 for Martin Hanks. In the 1830s Francis L. Hawks and Frances C. P. Blount Hill bought it and added the east rooms.

People: Francis L. (Francis Lister) Hawks

Subject: Ruffin-Roulhac House (Little Hawfields)

Archibald D. Murphey offers forty enslaved people for sale

Murphey put forty people up for sale in 1821, a number the book calls unmatched in Orange sale notices, where most sales involved one or a few people.

People: Archibald D. Murphey

Eagle Lodge runs a lottery to pay for its Masonic Hall

Eagle Lodge held a lottery over eleven years and used the proceeds to build the Masonic Hall in Hillsborough, still in use in 1953.

People: James Strudwick Smith

Subject: Eagle Lodge

Elisha Mitchell is ordained by the Presbytery of Orange at Hillsborough

In 1821 the Presbytery of Orange, meeting in Hillsborough, ordained Professor Elisha Mitchell, who had been licensed to preach by the Congregational Church.

Tavern keeper William Adams builds the house that became the Burwell School

William Adams, a Hillsborough tavern keeper and businessman, builds a two-story house with two rooms on each floor facing West Union Street in 1821. Those rooms survive as the south rooms of the Burwell School.

Part of Orange County’s nineteenth-century academies · 102 events

Subject: Burwell School

The Hillsborough Recorder calls slavery a misfortune and urges colonization

Editor Dennis Heartt wrote that slavery harmed the state but argued against freeing people to remain in North Carolina. He proposed sending free Black people to Africa at public expense and asked the legislature to act.

People: Dennis Heartt

Subject: Hillsborough Recorder

The Rev. William Mercer Green builds the first house on the land later called Montrose

Around 1821 the Rev. William Mercer Green, rector of St. Matthew's, built the first house on land he had acquired from William Kirkland; the tract had first belonged to James Hogg. William A. Graham bought it in 1842.

People: William Kirkland

Subject: Montrose

Brickmason Samuel Hancock joins the Hillsborough Presbyterian Church he helped build

Samuel Hancock joined the Hillsborough Presbyterian Church on November 17, 1821, five years after his wife Susan. He rented a pew and gave toward the pastor's salary and a bell.

Subject: Hillsborough Presbyterian Church

William H. Adams buys the lots that became the Burwell School site

Hillsborough sold lots in the old North Town Commons pasture, advertising the town as a healthy place to live and to school children. In November 1821 William H. Adams took the deed for lots 152 and 153, an acre each, for $216.

Part of Orange County’s nineteenth-century academies · 102 events

Subject: Burwell School

Josiah Turner Jr. is born in Hillsborough

Josiah Turner Jr. was born in Hillsborough, the eldest son of Josiah and Eliza Evans Turner. His father was a longtime sheriff and large landowner in Orange County.

Fanny Evans, a free woman of color, receives a town lot by the Eno

A land record gave Fanny Evans and her children Henry and Jane lot 135, a town lot running down to the Eno River. She also owned three lots at West Margaret Lane and Occoneechee Street. Her sons Henry and Wilson Bruce Evans became cabinetmakers in town.

John Faddis warns the public not to trade with the men he holds in slavery

Faddis ran a notice in the Hillsborough Recorder naming Jim, Joe, Alfred and Peter and threatening to prosecute anyone who sold them liquor or traded with them without his written leave.

John Rogers runs Hillsborough Academy

John Rogers ran Hillsborough Academy from 1822 to 1826, when W. J. Bingham succeeded him.

People: William James Bingham

Subject: Hillsborough Academy

Jonathan P. Sneed builds the house on the bluff south of the Eno later called Eno Lodge

Jonathan P. Sneed built a two-story Federal house on the high ground above the Eno across from town. It was later known as Norwood, Eno Lodge and the Eagles' Nest.

Subject: Eno Lodge

The Franklin Library Society is organized in Hillsborough and chartered by the General Assembly

The Franklin Library Society was established in Hillsborough on February 7, 1822, for the promotion of learning and cultivation of virtue. The General Assembly incorporated it that December, giving it the power to hold property, sue and be sued, and make its own bylaws.

Dr. James Webb offers free smallpox vaccination in Hillsborough

The Hillsborough Recorder announced in February 1822 that Dr. James Webb had fresh vaccine matter and would vaccinate anyone who applied, free of charge, at his shop every Wednesday from noon to two o'clock. The notice cited smallpox recently brought into the Tarborough area.

A lateral-hall house is built on Margaret Lane for Caroline Mallett Walker and Carleton Walker

After Peter Mallett's heirs deeded their shares of Lot 19 to their sister Caroline Mary Mallett Walker, a one-and-a-half-story Federal house was apparently built there for her and her husband Carleton Walker. With Ayr Mount it is one of only two lateral-hall houses in Hillsborough.

Hugh Waddell begins practising law in Hillsborough

Waddell, an 1818 graduate of the university, began to practise law in Hillsborough and Orange County in 1823 and kept his practice there until 1867, when he moved to Wilmington.

John Wall Norwood builds Over-the-River across the Eno from Hillsborough

John Wall Norwood and his wife built a two-story, center-hall house south of the Eno opposite the town. It became known as Over-the-River and later as the Norwood-Webb-Cheshire House.

Subject: Over-the-River (Norwood-Webb-Cheshire House)

The Hillsborough Recorder shop prints The Discipline of Friends and A Solemn Address to Youth

Besides the weekly paper, Dennis Heartt's Recorder office printed pamphlets. Two surviving titles from 1823 are The Discipline of Friends, for Quaker use, and A Solemn Address to Youth.

People: Dennis Heartt

Subject: Hillsborough Recorder

Dr. James Webb deeds Hillsborough's Methodists a lot and house on Tryon Street

For ten shillings Dr. James Webb conveyed a 44-foot-square part of town lot 102 on Tryon (then Church) Street to trustees of the Methodist Episcopal Church, on condition that a meeting house be kept there. A house already standing on the lot became the congregation's first church.

Subject: Hillsborough Methodist Church

Martin Hanks sells his lot and house at Churton and Orange streets to William H. Phillips

Martin Hanks sold town lot 181 to William H. Phillips for $650, a price that shows a house already stood there.

Subject: Ruffin-Roulhac House (Little Hawfields)

The Presbyterian session admonishes two men for trading in enslaved people

Hillsborough Presbyterian Church charged William Adams and John Wall with the "unchristian act of negro trading." Adams said he had sold people he held to pay his debts and taken friends' slaves to market with his own; the session admonished both men and did not punish them.

Subject: Hillsborough Presbyterian Church

James S. Smith's building commission starts Hillsborough's brick Masonic Hall

In July 1823 commissioners James S. Smith, Thomas Clancy and J. P. Sneed advertised in the Hillsborough Recorder for proposals to build a brick Masonic Hall in the town. The cornerstone was laid on November 23, 1823, for the Greek Revival hall designed by William Nichols and built by local brickmasons John Berry and Samuel Hancock.

People: John Berry · William Nichols · Samuel Hancock

Subject: Eagle Lodge

The cornerstone of Eagle Lodge's Masonic hall is laid on West King Street

The cornerstone of the brick Masonic hall at 142 West King Street, designed by state architect William Nichols and believed built by brickmasons John Berry and Samuel Hancock, was laid on November 23, 1823. The lot was deeded to the lodge in 1824 after the building went up.

People: John Berry · William Nichols · Samuel Hancock

Subject: Eagle Lodge

Free Black woodworker Thomas Day advertises in Hillsborough

Thomas Day, the free Black cabinetmaker, lived in Hillsborough for a time and advertised his business in local papers in 1824.

William A. Graham settles in Hillsborough to study law with Thomas Ruffin

Fresh from the university, Graham settled in Hillsborough in 1824 to study law with Ruffin, a path many later graduates followed into the county seat's law offices.

People: Thomas Ruffin

William Norwood is elected first junior warden of the reorganized St. Matthew's Church

When St. Matthew's Episcopal Church in Hillsborough was reorganized, William Norwood was elected its first junior warden.

Subject: St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church

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.

People: William Mercer Green · Thomas Ruffin · Francis L. (Francis Lister) Hawks · William Norwood

Subject: St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church

Francis L. Hawks buys the house at Churton and Orange streets

William H. Phillips sold the house to Francis Lister Hawks, then reporter to the state supreme court. While living there Hawks left the law to study theology under William Mercer Green of St. Matthew's and was ordained deacon in 1827; he later became a noted Episcopal clergyman and historian.

Subject: Ruffin-Roulhac House (Little Hawfields)

John Berry and Samuel Hancock build St. Matthew's Episcopal Church to William Nichols's design

St. Matthew's, an early Gothic Revival church of Flemish-bond brick, was built in 1825-1826 by the local masons John Berry and Samuel Hancock to a design by William Nichols, who set its size at 35 by 45 feet. It replaced an earlier church at Churton and West Tryon streets that had burned in 1793.

People: William Nichols · Samuel Hancock

Subject: St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church

Sarah Grove buys lots 152 and 153 for $800

Adams sold the two lots to Sarah Grove for $800, a rise that suggests he had built the first four-room house and its outbuildings. About eighteen months later she sold them to the attorney Nathaniel J. Palmer for $1,200.

Part of Orange County’s nineteenth-century academies · 102 events

The Orange County Sunday School Union asks the Assembly to fund its schools

The Orange County Sunday School Union petitioned the General Assembly for 25 cents a year per pupil for its 22 Sunday schools, which taught 800 to 1,000 children, many from poor families, to read. John Scott of Hillsborough presented it in the House of Commons, which turned it down.

People: James Webb · William Kirkland · William Norwood · John Knox Witherspoon · Dennis Heartt

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.

People: William Mercer Green

The House of Commons postpones the Franklin Library Society's request for a book lottery

Hillsborough's Franklin Library Society asked the General Assembly for leave to raise up to three thousand dollars by lottery to buy useful books for its library. The petition, signed December 14, 1825 by the society's officers including librarian Thomas C. Palmer, was read in the House of Commons on December 23 and indefinitely postponed.

Dr. Edmund Strudwick begins practising medicine in Hillsborough

After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in 1824 and two years in Philadelphia's almshouse and charity hospital, Edmund Strudwick began practising medicine in Hillsborough in 1826. He practised from the town, largely as a surgeon, for more than fifty years.

Hillsborough's market house is torn down

The town clock, which had hung in the market-house tower after leaving the old Episcopal church steeple, was put in storage until the new courthouse was finished.

Subject: Orange County Courthouse, Hillsborough

John Witherspoon opens a private boarding school

The Raleigh Register announced the Rev. John Witherspoon's Private Boarding School for opening in 1826. The school seems to have run until 1830 or later.

People: John Knox Witherspoon

Rev. William Bingham dies at his Mount Repose academy

The Rev. William Bingham, who had kept an academy at Mount Repose northwest of Hillsborough for years, died after a few days' illness in his 73rd year. His son William J. Bingham carried on and in 1827 moved the school to Hillsborough.

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.

People: John Berry · John Stark Ravenscroft · William Nichols

Subject: St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church

Fire destroys Witherspoon's farmhouse and the Orange Presbytery records

The fire burned the Witherspoons' rural home a mile and a half south of Hillsborough and its contents, including all but one volume of the old records of Orange Presbytery, which Witherspoon held as stated clerk. Losses were put at about 3,000 dollars and the house was rebuilt.

Subject: Tusculum (Witherspoon farm)

William James Bingham becomes principal of Hillsborough Academy

After John Rogers resigned, the trustees engaged William James Bingham as principal of Hillsborough Academy, where he taught until he moved his school to the country in 1844.

People: William James Bingham · John Rogers

Subject: Hillsborough Academy

Frederick Nash represents the town of Hillsborough in the House of Commons

Having earlier sat for Orange County, Nash represented the town of Hillsborough itself in the House of Commons in 1828 and 1829.

Orange Superior Court tries Jim, Sherod and Harry, three enslaved men

The 1828 term convicted Jim, held by Willie P. Mangum, of manslaughter in the death of another enslaved man and ordered 39 lashes. Sherod got 15 lashes for larceny, and Harry was sentenced to death for burglary but won a new trial on appeal.

People: Willie P. Mangum

William W. Holden serves as an apprentice printer at the Hillsborough Recorder

At about age ten Holden was apprenticed as a printer's devil to Dennis Heartt, editor of the Hillsborough Recorder, who was responsible for his early education and political views. He struck out on his own at about sixteen, working first for the Milton Chronicle.

People: Dennis Heartt

Subject: Hillsborough Recorder

William A. Graham establishes a law practice in Hillsborough

Graham read law with Thomas Ruffin of Orange County and, having taken his county and superior court licences, had established a practice among the Hillsborough bar by March 1828. He kept a law practice until his death and in time owned three plantations worked by enslaved people.

People: Thomas Ruffin

Bethlehem School on Cane Creek offers college preparation under George W. Morrow

Bethlehem School, on Cane Creek twelve miles from Hillsborough, offered studies to prepare boys for college under George W. Morrow in 1829.

Elijah Graves opens a female school at Walnut Grove

In 1829 Elijah Graves advertised a school for girls that he would run at Walnut Grove, near the Pittsboro road and twelve miles from Hillsborough.

Eliza Hasell sells her West Queen Street house to Samuel Simpson for his daughter and son-in-law Henry K. Nash

In 1829 Eliza Hasell and her new husband, the Rev. William S. Plumer, sold the house to Samuel Simpson of New Bern, who bought it for his daughter Mary and her husband Henry Kollock Nash. The Nashes lived there until their deaths in 1897, and their daughter Annie Nash kept it until 1919.

Subject: Hasell-Nash House