Chronology

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1. Antebellum and Civil War · 1800–1865

2. 1854
   Founding or opening · Chapel Hill Baptist Church, Chapel Hill The Chapel Hill Baptist Church is received into the Sandy Creek Association

   At its constitution on September 15, 1854 the church voted to apply to the Sandy Creek Association and named delegates, and the Association received it at that year's meeting.

3. March 6, 1854
   Construction or physical change · Chapel Hill Baptist Church, Chapel Hill Chapel Hill Baptists contract for a brick church

   Before the church was formally organized, a building committee let a contract for a brick church 60 by 35 feet with a tower 45 feet high, at a total cost of $3,425. William Henry Merritt had given the site and left $1,200 toward it in his will.

4. March 11, 1854
   Founding or opening · Mount Carmel Baptist Church, south of Chapel Hill Mount Carmel Baptist Church authorizes a branch church at Chapel Hill

   A conference of the Mount Carmel church, a country congregation south of the village, voted to set up a branch in Chapel Hill. Howell treats this as the formal start of the Chapel Hill Baptist Church.

5. April 14, 1854
   Founding or opening · Home of W. G. Weaver, Chapel Hill The Chapel Hill Baptist branch holds its first meeting and receives James P. Mason

   The new branch met for the first time at the home of W. G. Weaver, with Mount Carmel's pastor Brantley J. Hackney presiding, and took in its first member, Elder James P. Mason. Services then met in a room John R. Hutchins built for the church.

6. December 30, 1854
   Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill Baptist Church, Chapel Hill Brantley J. Hackney is elected the first pastor of the Chapel Hill Baptist Church

   The church elected Brantley James Hackney to preach four times a month at $200 a year, making him its first regularly elected pastor.

7. February 15, 1855
   Construction or physical change · Chapel Hill Baptist Church, Chapel Hill The Chapel Hill Baptist Church hangs its first bell

   The bell cost $210.10. The women of the church raised $140 and a local merchant collected the rest from wholesale firms he dealt with. It was still rung for Masonic meetings in the old building in 1944.

8. March 1855
   Founding or opening · Chapel Hill Baptist Church, Chapel Hill The Chapel Hill Baptist Church starts its Sunday school

   The Sunday school opened with P. H. McDade, the church's first clerk, as superintendent. It soon had a library of about three hundred books, and in 1861 its pupils memorized 20,000 Bible verses.

9. June 17, 1855
   Slavery and freedom · Outdoor baptistry on the McDade place, Chapel Hill Five enslaved people are the first baptized into the Chapel Hill Baptist Church

   The church's first baptisms took place at a new outdoor baptistry by a spring on the McDade place. The candidates were five people enslaved by William Barbee, so the first people immersed into the church in the village were Black. Black members made up about a third of the early church.

10. April 26, 1861
    Violence or armed conflict · Chapel Hill Baptist Church, Chapel Hill Chapel Hill churches hold a farewell service for the Orange Light Infantry

    A large meeting was held in the Baptist church the night before the Orange Light Infantry left Chapel Hill. The Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian and Episcopal pastors all took part, and a similar service was held in September when another company left.

11. Reconstruction and the New South · 1866–1899

12. July 1867 to January 1869
    Closing or ending · Chapel Hill Baptist Church, Chapel Hill The Chapel Hill Baptist Church goes without regular services

    When the mission board could no longer help pay him, N. W. Wilson preached his last sermon on July 28, 1867, ending a six-and-a-half-year pastorate. The church then had about a hundred members, down from over two hundred, and its doors stayed practically shut until W. R. Gwaltney was called in 1869.

13. 1871
    Law, policy or court · Chapel Hill Baptist Church, Chapel Hill The Chapel Hill Baptist Church bars the Black congregation from its building

    The Black members who left in 1865 had been allowed to keep using the church building for a small fee. In 1871 the white church passed a long resolution ending that use.

14. 1875
    Law, policy or court · Chapel Hill Baptist Church, Chapel Hill The Chapel Hill Baptist Church turns down the Black Baptist church's request to reunite

    The Black Baptist congregation asked to join the white church again. The church declined and sent a deacon to tell them as gently as he could.

15. June 1876 to January 1880
    Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill Baptist Church, Chapel Hill Amzi Clarence Dixon serves as pastor of the Chapel Hill Baptist Church

    Dixon came straight from seminary and drew in students and townspeople through revivals. The university asked him in 1878 to live in a dormitory and take charge of chapel services, which Howell calls the first official tie between a Baptist pastor and the university. He went on to pulpits in Chicago and London.

16. 1877
    Construction or physical change · Chapel Hill Baptist Church, Chapel Hill The Chapel Hill Baptist Church builds an addition for its Sunday school

    During A. C. Dixon's pastorate the church built an addition that housed the infant class of the Sunday school.

17. December 1878
    Law, policy or court · Chapel Hill Baptist Church, Chapel Hill The Chapel Hill Baptist Church resolves to admit no Black members

    After granting a letter of dismissal to one of the last Black members left on its books, the church resolved that it would admit no Black persons.

18. April 1879
    Life event · Morgan Creek near Purefoy's Mill, Chapel Hill A. C. Dixon baptizes twenty converts in Morgan Creek, among them Charles B. Aycock

    At the close of a spring revival Dixon baptized twenty people in Morgan Creek near the Purefoy mill. Among them were the student Charles B. Aycock, later governor, and James Y. Joyner, later state superintendent of public instruction.

19. the 1880s
    Construction or physical change · Academy building behind the Baptist church, Chapel Hill The Chapel Hill Baptist Church rebuilds the old academy as its parsonage

    The academy building behind the old church, where the Craig family had kept a school, was rebuilt and made into the church's parsonage. In the same decade the church bought its first hymnbooks and a small reed organ.

20. December 1880
    Protest or organizing · Chapel Hill Baptist Church, Chapel Hill The Chapel Hill Baptist Church petitions the legislature against liquor

    The church sent the General Assembly a memorial condemning the making and selling of liquor in North Carolina. Howell suggests the new pastor, Needham Bryan Cobb, was behind it.

21. between June 1895 and September 1897
    Founding or opening · Gore's Chapel, about two miles south of Chapel Hill Dr. Joshua Gore and his wife leave the Chapel Hill Baptist Church for Mount Carmel

    While the church had no pastor, from June 1895 to September 1897, its minutes record that Dr. Joshua Gore and his wife moved their membership to Mount Carmel Baptist Church. The Gores went on to build Gore's Chapel on a hilltop about two miles south of Chapel Hill and held services there for years; Mrs. Gore and her sister kept a Sunday school there into the 1920s, and the building later burned.

22. 1898
    Construction or physical change · Chapel Hill Baptist Church, Chapel Hill The Chapel Hill Baptist Church removes the gallery where Black worshippers sat

    Black people had still attended services from a small gallery. After some agitation the gallery was torn out, and by 1900 the church had no place left for Black worshippers.

23. Early twentieth century · 1900–1944

24. 1900 to 1903
    Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill Baptist Church, Chapel Hill Confederate chaplain J. William Jones becomes pastor of the Chapel Hill Baptist Church

    John William Jones, chaplain-general of the Confederate veterans and a biographer of Robert E. Lee, served as pastor and often spoke on university programs. Howell says he carried the Lost Cause into his sermons and even his prayers.

25. 1921
    Property or economic transaction · Chapel Hill Baptist Church, Chapel Hill The Chapel Hill Baptist Church accepts the site for its new church

    After Charles E. Maddry, secretary of the state Baptist board, won approval to buy a site, the church in conference accepted the lot and agreed to pay $1,000 at once. Over the next year members pledged more than $25,000 and the Home Board and state board gave about $100,000.

26. April 6, 1924
    Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill Baptist Church, Chapel Hill Eugene I. Olive begins his pastorate at the Chapel Hill Baptist Church

    Olive was welcomed at a service that drew the town's other ministers and the university president. One of his first changes gave deacons three-year terms with a year off before reelection, and his nine years were the church's longest pastorate up to then.

27. July 30, 1944
    Naming or commemoration · Chapel Hill Baptist Church, Chapel Hill The Chapel Hill Baptist Church dedicates its paid-off building

    Twenty years after moving in, the congregation held a dedication service for its church, now fully paid for and redecorated. Howell read a short form of his history at the service; the church then had over six hundred members and no debt.

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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.