Chronology

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1. Antebellum and Civil War · 1800–1865

2. 1850
   Slavery and freedom · Hillsborough Builder John Berry holds 44 enslaved people, most working in his building trade

   By 1850 the Hillsborough brick mason and builder John Berry held 44 enslaved people, most of them working with him in masonry and construction. Some, including his head carpenter Joseph Nichols, stayed with him after emancipation, and much of the carpentry in Berry's buildings after 1840 was likely Nichols's.

3. Early twentieth century · 1900–1944

4. September 13, 1944
   Property or economic transaction · Jeter and Ethel Neville House, 107 Cobb Street, Carrboro Jeter and Ethel Neville buy a corner lot at Cobb and Broad streets in Carrboro

   On September 13, 1944, Jeter and Ethel Neville bought a small lot at the northwest corner of Cobb and Broad streets, in the Lloyd-Broad section of the Black Northside neighborhood, from Guilford Realty and Insurance Company. Jeter Neville was a janitor at Northside Elementary School.

5. Civil rights era · 1945–1975

6. 1945
   Construction or physical change · Jeter and Ethel Neville House, 107 Cobb Street, Carrboro Black mason John Wesley Campbell and his sons build the stone Neville House in Carrboro

   John Wesley Campbell and his sons, with Jeter Neville and mason Earnest Farrar, built the Nevilles' one-and-a-half-story bungalow of granite fieldstone trimmed in red brick, with an arcaded porch and a star and crescent moon set in stone beside the front windows. Campbell's son Handy said the stones came by army truck from Chatham County; the house is the least altered of Campbell's five 1940s stone buildings in Northside.

7. 1945
   Construction or physical change · 214 North Graham Street, Northside, Chapel Hill John Wesley Campbell builds a fieldstone house for a pastor on North Graham Street

   John Wesley Campbell designed and built a large fieldstone house at 214 North Graham Street in Northside for a local pastor, finished in 1945 and one of the first houses on the street. It is the largest of his four stone houses in the neighborhood, with a broad arched corner porch and a stone end chimney.

8. 1946-1947
   Construction or physical change · 201 Broad Street, Carrboro The Campbells build a stone bungalow for carpenter Vance Thompson on Broad Street

   Next door to the Neville House, John Wesley Campbell and his sons designed and built a fieldstone Craftsman bungalow at 201 Broad Street for carpenter Vance Thompson and his family just after World War II. Land records show it finished by 1947; a Thompson son recalls moving in in 1946, and the family kept it until 2013.

9. 1948
   Construction or physical change · 203 North Graham Street, Northside, Chapel Hill George Campbell and his father build a stone house on North Graham Street

   On a lot owned by George Campbell, he and his father John Wesley Campbell, helped by the other Campbell sons, designed and built a small one-story fieldstone house at 203 North Graham Street, finished in 1948. It is the only one of the family's Northside stone houses whose stonework runs up into the gable.

10. 1950
    Statistic or record · Chapel Hill The census counts 37 masons in Chapel Hill, up from five in

    Federal census returns show the number of masons living in Chapel Hill rising from seven in 1930 and five in 1940 to 37 in 1950, growth the nomination ties to the town's Black masonry trade.

11. 1959
    Statistic or record · Chapel Hill Chapel Hill's city directory lists sixteen bricklayers, twelve in Black neighborhoods

    The 1959 Hill's Chapel Hill directory named sixteen bricklayers, twelve of them living in Northside and other historically Black neighborhoods. By 1962 the list had grown to eighteen, including John, Handy and Leo Campbell.

12. 1968
    Life event · Northside, Chapel Hill and Carrboro Stonemason John Wesley Campbell, builder of Northside stone houses, dies

    John Wesley Campbell, born about 1888 to a white father and a Black mother and trained in masonry from age seven, died in 1968. He worked on UNC buildings, Memorial Hospital and Franklin Street stores, built stone houses and the Hargraves Center in Northside, and taught the trade to his five sons and other Black masons.

13. 1971 or 1972
    Life event · Carolina Inn, Pittsboro Street, Chapel Hill Brick mason William "Smitty" Smith does his first stone repair, at the Carolina Inn

    Trained on brick, William E. Smith did his first rock work in 1971 or 1972 on the Pittsboro Street side of the Carolina Inn after watching an older mason on Cameron Avenue for an hour. He went on to run his own masonry business for more than fifty years.

14. Recent decades · 1976–2026

15. 1980
    Construction or physical change · Hargraves Community Center, 216 North Roberson Street, Chapel Hill A second story is added to the Hargraves Center's lower stone wing

    In 1980 the one-story stone wing at the lower east side of the Hargraves Community Center on North Roberson Street was enlarged with a frame second story clad in horizontal siding.

16. 2013
    Life event · Jeter and Ethel Neville House, 107 Cobb Street, Carrboro Ethel Fuller Neville dies at 99 in the stone house on Cobb Street

    Ethel Fuller Neville, widowed in 1960, lived at 107 Cobb Street until her death in 2013 at 99. Her five children all took part in the local civil rights movement, and son Calvin became a stonemason trained by the Campbells. The house stood mostly empty afterward.

17. November 8, 2018
    Property or economic transaction · Jeter and Ethel Neville House, 107 Cobb Street, Carrboro Self-Help buys the Neville House for the Northside land bank

    On November 8, 2018, Self-Help Ventures Fund bought the vacant Neville House through the Northside Neighborhood Initiative land bank, which uses a $3 million no-interest UNC loan to keep homes in Northside, Tin Top and Pine Knolls from becoming student rentals.

18. 2022
    Construction or physical change · Jeter and Ethel Neville House, 107 Cobb Street, Carrboro Self-Help begins rehabilitating the Neville House for sale to a homeowner

    In 2022 Self-Help began a full rehabilitation of the Neville House, to be sold with a deed restriction keeping it owner-occupied. Code work meant gutting the interior, and the stone mantel, the one original inside piece of the masons' work, was lost when the fireplace was removed.

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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 4, 2026.