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13 dated events match your filters.
Searched the full chronology of 6,171 dated events and 63 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1–13.Back to highlights
- Revolution and early republic · 1775–1799
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John Taylor Sr. opens a tavern on Franklin Street
By 1799 the former steward had put up a tavern on Lot #13, which he had bought in 1796. The lot stayed in the hotel trade for decades: Alsobrook's hotel, the Watts Hotel, the Eagle Hotel and the Union Hotel all stood on it.
Subject: Eagle Hotel (Chapel Hill)
- Antebellum and Civil War · 1800–1865
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Nancy Hilliard buys the Watts Hotel from Lucy Watts
Lucy Watts sold the hotel and the land beside it to Nancy Hilliard, already known as a Chapel Hill hotel keeper. A year later Hilliard enlarged it for President Polk's commencement visit.
People: Nancy Hilliard
Subject: Eagle Hotel (Chapel Hill)
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Nancy Hilliard adds a castellated annex to the Eagle Hotel for President Polk's visit
For President James K. Polk's visit to the 1847 commencement, Nancy Hilliard, who kept the Eagle Hotel, added a stuccoed two-story wing with a battlemented porch in a medieval manner. The annex stood on the site of today's Graham Memorial; Dabney Cosby likely built it, perhaps to his own design or one by A. J. Davis.
People: Dabney Cosby · Nancy Hilliard
Subject: Eagle Hotel (Chapel Hill)
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Nancy Hilliard sells the Eagle Hotel, renamed the Union Hotel
In the early 1850s Miss Nancy Hilliard, long the students' and travelers' landlady, sold her hotel interest for $10,000 to Hugh B. Guthrie, who renamed the Eagle the Union Hotel. She went on to run the North Carolina Railroad eating house at Company Shops.
People: Nancy Hilliard
Subject: North Carolina Railroad · Eagle Hotel (Chapel Hill)
- Reconstruction and the New South · 1866–1899
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David McCauley buys the Union Hotel and renames it the Chapel Hill Hotel
McCauley bought the Union Hotel, the house Nancy Hilliard had once kept as the Eagle Hotel, and gave it the name Chapel Hill Hotel. He also bought the building at the northeast corner of Franklin and Henderson streets where Richard Benbury Saunders had kept his drugstore.
People: Nancy Hilliard · David McCauley
Subject: Eagle Hotel (Chapel Hill)
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David McCauley lets Nancy Hilliard live rent free in her old hotel
After losing her house and failing at hotel work in Raleigh, Nancy Hilliard came back to Chapel Hill destitute, and David McCauley, who now owned her former Eagle Hotel, let her live rent free in a room there. Former students sent her money until her death in 1873.
People: David McCauley
Subject: Eagle Hotel (Chapel Hill)
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John H. Watson buys the Chapel Hill Hotel from David McCauley
John H. Watson, a brother of Jones Watson, bought the Chapel Hill Hotel from McCauley. By 1891 he had taken W. W. Pickard as a partner.
People: David McCauley
Subject: Eagle Hotel (Chapel Hill)
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Watson and Pickard rebuild the Chapel Hill Hotel and add the University Inn Annex
With money from W. G. Peckham, a New York lawyer, John H. Watson and his partner W. W. Pickard tore down the old hotel except for the Polk apartment, rebuilt it, and added a large new section called the University Inn Annex.
Subject: Eagle Hotel (Chapel Hill)
- Early twentieth century · 1900–1944
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The trustees agree to buy the old hotel near the campus
At their June 1906 meeting the trustees agreed to buy the old Eagle Hotel, later the Chapel Hill Hotel and then the University Inn, for $19,700 to use for dormitories. The two-acre lot had sold for $200 in 1792. W. W. Pickard kept the hotel until early 1908, when the University put Addison Lambeth in charge.
Subject: Eagle Hotel (Chapel Hill)
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The Chapel Hill Red Cross moves its workroom to the University Inn
After the armistice of November 11, 1918, the chapter left the Zeta Psi fraternity hall for roomy quarters in the University Inn that the University provided.
Subject: Eagle Hotel (Chapel Hill)
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Fire destroys the main building of the old University Inn
Fire on November 30, 1921 destroyed the main building of the old University Inn, the former Eagle Hotel, and left 42 student roomers without quarters; students on the roof with a hose saved the annex Nancy Hilliard had built for President Polk's 1847 visit. The annex stood until it was razed in January 1924 to clear the site for Graham Memorial.
People: Nancy Hilliard
Subject: Eagle Hotel (Chapel Hill)
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Trustees put Graham Memorial on the site of the burned University Inn
After other sites were floated, the trustees settled on the University Inn lot, set back from Franklin Street. Alumni pledges then stood near $120,000, only half of it paid.
People: Harry Woodburn Chase
Subject: Eagle Hotel (Chapel Hill) · Graham Memorial
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Work begins on Graham Memorial on the site of the burned University Inn
Construction of Graham Memorial started where the University Inn had stood until the 1921 fire. By 1928 only its social room was in use.
Subject: Eagle Hotel (Chapel Hill) · Graham Memorial
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A dated event is a fact, filed on the page of the subject it belongs to: a person, a place, a theme, or a named event or history. Pages are subjects, with their own works and sources; the Place, community, or institution filter also gathers the institutions that recur in the entries without a page of their own. The page opens on the highlights; a search or any filter looks through every dated event and storyline, and each filter’s counts say how many entries choosing it would show alongside the others. A storyline is a longer history that gathers related dated events, and each storyline’s page lists its own. Counts give dated events and storylines separately. Dates come from the sources named on the cards and from the index’s event pages; where sources disagree, the card follows the county records. Entries marked approximate or needing research say so on the card; the rest were checked against the source named on it. The correction link under the entries opens the contact form; name the entry and its date and the Friends will check the source. Suggest an event →
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.
