Chronology

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1. Revolution and early republic · 1775–1799

2. 1792 to 1793
   Naming or commemoration · Chapel Hill The university village takes the name Chapel Hill from New Hope Chapel

   Before the Revolution a small Church of England chapel of ease in St. Matthew's Parish, New Hope Chapel, stood near the later site of the Carolina Inn, and the rise it stood on was called New Hope Chapel Hill. The university's site commissioners wrote that name on November 5, 1792 and the short form Chapel Hill the next day, and the village laid out and sold in lots in 1793 kept the shorter name.

3. Antebellum and Civil War · 1800–1865

4. 1843 to 1848
   Slavery and freedom · Church of the Atonement (Chapel of the Cross), Chapel Hill People enslaved by William Mercer Green work on the Church of the Atonement

   Green contributed to the building through the labor of several people he enslaved and a pair of his mules. He also meant to give a kiln of bricks made on his land, but had the fires put out at midnight on a Saturday to keep the Sabbath, and the half-fired bricks, worth about $250, were lost.

5. January 1848
   Appointment, election or service · Church of the Atonement (Chapel of the Cross), Chapel Hill Aaron F. Olmsted takes charge as rector of the Church of the Atonement

   Olmsted, born at Hartford, Connecticut, took charge while the church was being finished and announced a $1,000 loan from a parishioner for the last push. The salary was too small for a married man, and he left later in 1848 for St. Bartholomew's, Pittsboro.

6. May 14 to 17, 1862
   Appointment, election or service · Chapel of the Cross, East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill The Episcopal diocesan convention meets at the Chapel of the Cross

   The forty-sixth annual convention of the Episcopal Church in North Carolina met in the Chapel Hill church during the war. The rector, Francis W. Hilliard, and the parish's lay delegates William H. Battle, W. P. Mallett, A. Mickle and Manuel Fetter all attended.

7. 1863
   Migration or settlement · Chapel of the Cross, East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill Wartime refugees from the coast swell the Chapel of the Cross congregation

   Rector Francis W. Hilliard reported 59 communicants to the diocesan convention in 1861. By 1863 there were 92, the newcomers being refugees from coastal counties that Union forces held or threatened.

8. Reconstruction and the New South · 1866–1899

9. 1868
   Property or economic transaction · Chapel of the Cross, East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill Judge William H. Battle pays off the Chapel of the Cross rectory lot

   Largely through Battle's efforts the parish had bought property for a rectory sometime between 1851 and 1868. In 1868 he paid the $500 still owed on it with interest, and in October 1878 the vestry agreed to repay him $600 at six percent from the start of 1879.

10. 1868 to 1878
    Statistic or record · Chapel of the Cross, East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill The Chapel of the Cross nearly empties while the university is closed

    When the university shut in 1868 most parishioners left Chapel Hill, and for a time the parish had too few men to form a vestry. Lay readers and a monthly visit from R. B. Sutton kept services going until Joseph Blount Cheshire came as rector in 1878.

11. April 10, 1880
    Property or economic transaction · Chapel of the Cross, East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill Mary R. Smith gives the Chapel of the Cross an organ

    The parish formally thanked Miss Mary R. Smith for her gift to the Chapel of the Cross of a fine and costly organ.

12. Early twentieth century · 1900–1944

13. January 30, 1913
    Naming or commemoration · Chapel of the Cross, East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill The vestry makes the new Chapel of the Cross parish house a memorial to Dr. and Mrs. Kemp P. Battle

    Parishioners petitioned that the parish house planned under rector Homer W. Starr honor the Battles, and the vestry agreed unanimously. Battle, who counted sixty-nine years in the parish, accepted, and the vestry also asked him that day to write a fuller parish history.

14. 1921
    Property or economic transaction · Chapel of the Cross, East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill Lawrence S. Holt sets up a trust fund for Episcopal work at the university

    The Holt fund paid $900 a year toward the Chapel of the Cross's work with students, and the vestry cited it in 1922 when it joined the Holt name to the new church.

15. July 6, 1922
    Property or economic transaction · Chapel of the Cross, East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill William A. Erwin gives $50,000 for a new Chapel of the Cross

    The vestry thanked the Durham textile manufacturer for $50,000 toward an addition, offered on condition that $25,000 more be raised for repairs, and chose to build a second church on the lot east of the old one under the same name. At Erwin's wish the new church was made a memorial to his grandfather William Rainey Holt, an 1817 graduate of the university.

16. October 21, 1923
    Naming or commemoration · Chapel of the Cross, East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill Alfred S. Lawrence preaches on the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Chapel of the Cross

    The rector preached a sermon marking seventy-five years since the church's consecration in October 1848. Archibald Henderson cited it in his 1938 history of the parish.

17. February 20, 1924
    Construction or physical change · Chapel of the Cross, East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill The cornerstone of the new Chapel of the Cross is laid

    Bishop Edwin A. Penick spoke at the laying of the stone for the Holt memorial church, praising a design that joined the old building to the new and urging a pulpit friendly to science and honest doubt.

18. April 2, 1925
    Naming or commemoration · Chapel of the Cross, East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill The vestry makes the Chapel of the Cross cloister a memorial to William Hopkins Meade

    The covered walk linking the old and new churches was dedicated to Meade, rector from 1898 to 1908, with $500 toward its cost from William Meade Prince.

19. 1926
    Property or economic transaction · Chapel of the Cross, East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill William A. Erwin sets up a trust fund for the Chapel of the Cross

    Erwin's deed of trust directs that the income first keep the church fully insured, with the rest going to upkeep subject to the bishop's approval.

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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.