Chronology

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1. Revolution and early republic · 1775–1799

2. 1799
   Property or economic transaction · Phillips-Hill-Webb House (BelleVue), 209 East Tryon Street, Hillsborough Samuel Chinny buys the East Tryon Street land later called BelleVue

   Samuel Chinny bought land at the east edge of town that had first belonged to James Hogg, and probably built the house that became the eastern part of the Phillips-Hill-Webb House; a deed of 1801 mentions a house on the lot.

3. Antebellum and Civil War · 1800–1865

4. about 1807
   Construction or physical change · 209 East Tryon Street, Hillsborough Saddler James Phillips builds a brick kitchen on the school-house lot on East Tryon Street

   James Phillips, a Hillsborough saddler, buys the old school-house lot at the east edge of town and builds a two-room brick kitchen beside the house, where he lives until 1847. The kitchen, with his name scratched in a window pane, still stands beside BelleVue.

5. 1853
   Construction or physical change · BelleVue (Phillips-Hill-Webb House), 209 East Tryon Street, Hillsborough Thomas Blount Hill buys the Phillips place and makes it the BelleVue villa

   Thomas Blount Hill of Halifax County buys the East Tryon Street estate and adds a west wing, a three-story central tower and wide porches, turning the old house into an Italianate villa he names BelleVue. It passed to his daughter Mary Alice and her husband Joseph Cheshire Webb, and in the 1980s opened as the Hillsborough House Inn.

6. Recent decades · 1976–2026

7. 1980s
   Founding or opening · Phillips-Hill-Webb House (BelleVue), 209 East Tryon Street, Hillsborough The Phillips-Hill-Webb House opens as the Hillsborough House Inn

   BelleVue, the Phillips-Hill-Webb House on East Tryon Street, began operating as a bed-and-breakfast called the Hillsborough House Inn.

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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 1, 2026.