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Almonte Charles Howell, A History of the Chapel Hill Baptist Church, 1854-1924 (1945).Open the sourceAll sources
Searched the full chronology of 9,006 dated events and 77 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1–24.Back to highlights
- Antebellum and Civil War · 1800–1865
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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.
Subject: University Baptist Church
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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.
Subject: University Baptist Church
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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.
Subject: University Baptist Church
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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.
Subject: University Baptist Church
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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.
Subject: University Baptist Church
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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.
Subject: University Baptist Church
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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.
People: Patterson H. McDade
Subject: University Baptist Church
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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.
Subject: University Baptist Church
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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.
Subject: University Baptist Church
- Reconstruction and the New South · 1866–1899
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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.
Subject: University Baptist Church
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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.
Part of Freedom, schools, and Black community-building after emancipation · 143 events
Subject: University Baptist Church
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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.
Part of Freedom, schools, and Black community-building after emancipation · 143 events
Subject: University Baptist Church
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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.
Subject: University Baptist Church
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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.
People: A. C. (Amzi Clarence) Dixon
Subject: University Baptist Church
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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.
Subject: University Baptist Church
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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.
People: Charles B. Aycock
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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.
Subject: University Baptist Church
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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.
Subject: University Baptist Church
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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.
Subject: University Baptist Church
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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.
Subject: University Baptist Church
- Early twentieth century · 1900–1944
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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.
Subject: University Baptist Church
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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.
People: Charles Edward Maddry
Subject: University Baptist Church
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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.
People: Charles Edward Maddry · William Dygnum Moss
Subject: University Baptist Church
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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.
People: A. C. Howell
Subject: University Baptist Church
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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.
