Chronology

The Philanthropic Society adopts rules for marking its members' graves

When its minutes resumed in January 1799, after George Clarke's burial, George Long of Halifax County moved that the society honor members buried at Chapel Hill. Three weeks later a committee called for a black-painted oak or poplar railing around each grave with the name, date and society lettered in white, and a black armband worn for three months.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery · Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies

Margaretta Chapman's marble headstone becomes the oldest surviving monument in the Chapel Hill graveyard

The Baroque-style marble headstone of sixteen-year-old Margaretta Chapman, who died in 1814, was probably set soon after her death and is thought to be the oldest stone monument in the cemetery. Like other early stones it was likely shipped in, since no gravestone carvers worked in North Carolina before the 1820s.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

University trustees pay for a stone wall around the Chapel Hill graveyard

By 1835 about six more marked graves had joined George Clarke's, among them society members James Neal and James Smith, and the trustees set aside $64.41 to enclose the burying ground with a stone wall.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Fayetteville carver George Lauder makes Lewis Bowen Holt's tomb-table in the Dialectic Society plot

The marble tomb-table over Dialectic Society member Lewis Bowen Holt, who died at the university in October 1843, carries a carved desert scene of a broken fountain and cistern drawn from Ecclesiastes 12. It is unsigned but matches a signed Lauder stone in Fayetteville's Cross Creek Cemetery.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery · Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies

University trustees name the burying ground the College Graveyard

After Judge William Gaston died in 1844, faculty members asked the trustees for a separate burying ground in sight of the campus for eminent men of the university, starting with Gaston's body brought from Raleigh. The trustees let the petition lapse and in June 1845 named the existing ground the College Graveyard instead.

People: William Gaston

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Signed marble obelisks go up in the Dialectic and Philanthropic plots

George Lauder signed obelisks for Philanthropic members David White Fisher (died 1850) and Mark Bennett (died 1851) and for Dialectic member John Alexander Smith (died 1855), and the Raleigh firm of Maunder & Campbell signed the obelisk of Joshua P. Perry (died 1856). Signed stones are rare in the cemetery.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery · Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies

Ellington Burnett's grave becomes the earliest dated African American burial in the Chapel Hill graveyard

A brownstone ledger for Ellington Burnett, 1831-1853, son of Cornelius and Caroline Burnett, is the oldest inscribed stone in Section B, the burial ground used for enslaved people. The section was almost certainly in use earlier, its graves marked only by fieldstones.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

A carved brownstone headstone marks Thomas Fletcher's grave in the enslaved people's section

Thomas Fletcher, 1838-1862, received a round-topped brownstone headstone with a monogrammed footstone in Section B, as did George, son of Samuel Barbee (no dates). The rough local stone points to a mason cutting gravestones on the side; with Burnett's ledger they are among the few inscribed antebellum markers in a North Carolina slave cemetery.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Chapel Hill's Black residents begin burying their dead in Section A

Section A, beside the old slave section on the west side of the cemetery, came into general use by Chapel Hill's African American community in the mid-1880s. Its later markers include cast concrete headstones common in Black cemeteries of the period.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Thomas West Harris, first dean of UNC's medical school, is buried in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Thomas West Harris (1839-1888), the first dean of the university's medical school, was buried in the cemetery.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

The W. S. Guthrie family plot is enclosed with a cast-iron fence

The Guthrie plot in Section I has one of the most ornate iron fences in the cemetery, its gate cast with the family name, the date 1892 and a willow shading two lambs.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

A survey enlarging the graveyard is laid before the Chapel Hill aldermen

After a 1902 trustee resolution to enlarge the crowded burying ground, a survey by James O. Webb presented to the town board on December 12, 1903 added two-thirds of an acre on the west and one and one-third acres on the east. No approval is recorded, but the east addition matches Section II, where regular burials began in the early 1900s.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

George Trice, who ran an oyster restaurant and shoe shop on Franklin Street, is buried in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

George Trice (1838-1915), an African American businessman who kept an oyster restaurant and a shoe repair shop on Franklin Street, was buried in the cemetery's Black section.

People: George Trice

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Former mayor Algernon Barbee is buried in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Algernon Barbee (1840-1918), once mayor of Chapel Hill, was buried in the cemetery.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Chapel Hill aldermen order a cemetery survey, burial permits and a deed from the university

After noting in December 1922 that the cemetery needed more room, the town board on May 10, 1923 told the town manager to survey the grounds, begin burial permits and obtain a deed from the university showing that the town owned the cemetery. Nothing is recorded to have come of it.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

University trustees give Chapel Hill three more acres for the cemetery

Answering an aldermen's petition of June 11, 1928 about crowding, the trustees granted two acres on the east, laid out as Sections III and IV, and an acre on the south that extended the Black Sections A and B. Lot sales went into a maintenance fund overseen by a joint town and faculty committee.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Mary Bayley Pratt, namesake of Chapel Hill's public library, is buried in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Mary Bayley Pratt (1874-1929), for whom the Chapel Hill public library of the time was named, was buried in the family plot she shares with Joseph Hyde Pratt.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Sophia MacNider, who kept a boarding house and preparatory school on Franklin Street, is buried in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Sophia MacNider (1846-1929), who ran a boarding house and a preparatory school in her Franklin Street home, was buried in the cemetery.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

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 · Dilsey Craig

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Postmaster, mayor and state senator William Pritchard is buried in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

William Pritchard (1850-1930), Chapel Hill postmaster and mayor and a state senator, was buried in the cemetery.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

University physician Eric Abernethy is buried in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Eric Abernethy (1876-1933), the university physician for whom Abernethy Hall is named, was buried in the cemetery.

People: Eric A. Abernethy

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Former university president Francis Preston Venable is buried in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Francis Preston Venable (1856-1934), the chemist and university president under whom UNC gained national standing, was buried in the cemetery.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Geologist Collier Cobb is buried in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Collier Cobb Sr. (1862-1934), professor of geology at the university for forty-two years, was buried in the cemetery.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Attorney and three-time mayor William Roberson is buried in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

William Roberson (1869-1935), a lawyer who served three times as mayor of Chapel Hill, was buried in the cemetery.

People: W. S. Roberson

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Good-roads advocate Harriet Morehead Berry is buried in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Harriet Morehead Berry (1877-1940), who campaigned for North Carolina road improvements in the 1920s, was buried in the cemetery.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Geologist Joseph Hyde Pratt, first chairman of the Chapel Hill Planning Board, is buried in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Joseph Hyde Pratt (1870-1942), professor of geology and the first chairman of the Chapel Hill Planning Board, was buried in the cemetery.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Medical dean Isaac Hall Manning is buried in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Isaac Hall Manning (1866-1946), the physician and medical school administrator who started Hospital Savings of North Carolina, the state's first medical insurance plan, was buried in the cemetery.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

George Kirkland, Chapel Hill's first African American dentist, is buried in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

George Kirkland (1899-1948), the first Black dentist in Chapel Hill, was buried in the cemetery.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Chapel Hill builds a brick tool shed in the wall between the white and Black sections of the cemetery

In October 1949 the cemetery committee found the old tool shed past repair and asked for a brick one at a gap in the wall dividing the white and Black burial grounds. The small shed stands in the rubblestone wall that separates Section B from Section I.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Nellie Stroud Strayhorn, who learned of her freedom in 1865 as a girl, is buried in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Nellie Stroud Strayhorn (1850-1950) was buried in the cemetery at about one hundred; as a teenager in 1865 she was said to have been told by passing soldiers, while sitting on a cabin porch, that she was free.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

The university's attorney finds the trustees never deeded the cemetery to the town

In a letter of November 11, 1960 to J. A. Branch of the university business office, university attorney J. A. Williams reported no sign that the trustees had ever conveyed title to the cemetery land to Chapel Hill.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Historian J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton is buried in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton (1878-1961), the historian who built the Southern Historical Collection in the university library, was buried in the cemetery.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Fanny McDade, laundress to generations of students, is buried at 103 in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Fanny McDade (1861-1964), an African American woman who did students' laundry for many years, died at 103 and is thought to be the oldest person buried in the cemetery.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Chapel Hill Weekly founder Louis Graves is buried in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Louis Graves (1883-1965), founder, publisher and editor of the Chapel Hill Weekly, was buried in the cemetery.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Frank Porter Graham is buried in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Frank Porter Graham (1886-1972), first president of the consolidated University of North Carolina and later a United States senator, was buried in the cemetery.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Restaurateur Edward "Papa D" Danziger is buried in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Edward "Papa D" Danziger (1893-1972), whose Chapel Hill restaurants fed generations of students, was buried in the cemetery.

People: Edward G. Danziger

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Vandals break or topple forty to fifty monuments in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

On the night of November 27, 1974, vandals broke or pushed over forty or fifty gravestones, and police patrolled for a week. Cemetery committee chair Shirley Marshall then faulted the town for ignoring earlier requests about ownership and repairs.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Playwright Paul Green is buried in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Paul Green (1894-1981), the dramatist who wrote the outdoor drama The Lost Colony, was buried in the cemetery.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

The university drops a plan to take over the cemetery and extend it into the east grove

In 1982 the university proposed taking control of the cemetery from the town and extending it into the wooded grove on its east side for about 185 new graves, citing poor upkeep. Opposition in the neighborhoods east of the campus led it to abandon the plan.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Bandleader Kay Kyser is buried in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

James Kern "Kay" Kyser (1905-1985), the bandleader, was buried in the cemetery.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Rebecca Clark shows the Town Council the neglect of the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Rebecca Clark of Chapel Hill's Black community gave the Town Council a slide show of sunken graves, broken walls, trash and overturned markers on April 22, 1985. The council named a task force, which called for a phased master plan.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

A master plan for the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery is completed

The master plan, finished in 1987 and revised by landscape architect David Swanson, set goals, service levels and management for the cemetery and first called for settling its ownership. A new gazebo and lawn followed.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Albert Coates, founder of the Institute of Government, is buried in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Albert Coates (1896-1989), who founded the Institute of Government at the university, was buried in the cemetery.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

The university and the state quitclaim the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery to the town

A quitclaim deed dated February 22, 1989 released the university's and the state's rights in the cemetery to the Town of Chapel Hill, settling a question of ownership open since the 1920s.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery