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Act of the General Assembly for the Better Regulation of Chapel Hill, and the Ordinances of the Commissioners (1859).Open the sourceAll sources
Searched the full chronology of 9,006 dated events and 77 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1–14.Back to highlights
Entries
Antebellum and Civil War · 1800–1865
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Chapel Hill bans carts, wagons and horseback riders from its sidewalks
The commissioners barred hand carts, wheelbarrows, wagons and other vehicles from the sidewalks of the village and forbade riding on them on horseback. Rolling a vehicle on the walk cost fifty cents and riding there a dollar.
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Chapel Hill makes it a crime to cut or damage sidewalk shade trees
A town ordinance set a twenty-five-dollar fine for cutting down, digging up or otherwise harming any shade tree on the sidewalk of a Chapel Hill street.
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Chapel Hill forbids filling in or blocking ditches and drains
The commissioners set a ten-dollar fine for anyone who filled up or otherwise ruined a ditch, drain or water passage in the village.
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James B. McDade serves as Chapel Hill's magistrate of police
The 1859 town pamphlet lists the corporation's officers: James B. McDade as magistrate of police; Andrew Mickle, Calvin Scott, John Ward, John H. Watson and Foster Utley as commissioners; Mickle as town treasurer; Wayne H. McDade as town constable; and John M. Blackwood as town clerk.
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Chapel Hill bans peddlers of liquor from the village
The 1859 code fined any traveling seller five dollars each time he offered spirituous liquor or other prohibited goods for sale in any amount within the village limits. The constable was told to arrest such sellers found on the streets by day or night.
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Chapel Hill bars Black people from the countryside from gathering in town on tax and election days
An ordinance made it unlawful for Black people from the country to gather or linger in the streets of Chapel Hill after 4 p.m. on tax-collecting or election days, and let the town constable whip those who did.
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Chapel Hill fixes its village limits as a rectangle of 839 acres
The first ordinance of the 1859 code set the town limits from Franklin Street, which ran 2,622 yards from the road to Purefoy's Mill on John Craig's land to the university's land line, with Raleigh and Hillsborough streets marking the north-south reach. Lines through these points formed a rectangle of about 839 acres.
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Chapel Hill forbids enslaved and free Black people to gather and dance without a license
Under the 1859 code no one could allow enslaved people or free people of color to meet and dance in a kitchen or other house without a license from the magistrate of police or two commissioners. The fine was five dollars for each offense.
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Chapel Hill keeps lumber kilns and blacksmith shops away from houses
To guard against fire, the town barred kilns for drying lumber within 200 feet of a dwelling or 40 feet of any shop or outbuilding. New blacksmith shops had to stand 200 feet from dwellings and 50 feet from other buildings unless built with brick walls and a metal roof, on pain of removal and a twenty-five-dollar fine.
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Chapel Hill orders its officers to check the status of Black residents who claim to be free
The 1859 code made it the duty of the magistrate of police and the town constable to find out the true condition of every person of color living in the village who claimed to be free.
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Chapel Hill requires hay and feed sold in town to be weighed at the public scales
All oats, hay, fodder and other feed sold in the village had to be weighed by the Weigh Master at the public scales, who certified the load and the empty vehicle and kept a record of each sale. Fees ran from ten to twenty cents a load, paid by the seller, and buying or selling unweighed feed cost five dollars.
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Chapel Hill sets rent and bond terms for teachers using the Village School House
The town code required any teacher who wanted to use the Village School House to post a bond with sureties, pay the commissioners rent of twenty-five dollars a year and return the building in good order at the end of the term.
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Chapel Hill's commissioners adopt a revised code of ordinances
The commissioners of Chapel Hill revised and adopted the village ordinances and printed them with the 1851 act of incorporation in a pamphlet published at Chapel Hill by James M. Henderson.
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Chapel Hill's constable is told to arrest drunks, with university students excepted
The 1859 code made the town constable report every violation at each board meeting and arrest anyone drunk and disorderly, except university students, along with traveling liquor sellers. He was paid twenty percent of the fines collected.
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