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Colonial and Regulator years · 1680–1774
- 1750s
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St. Matthew’s Parish is established
The act of the spring 1752 General Assembly session that created Orange County also made it the Anglican Parish of St. Matthew, with its own vestry. The parish's first church stood in Hillsborough by about 1768, but today's St. Matthew's Episcopal Church descends from a congregation reorganized in 1824.
- 1760s
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George Micklejohn is sent to St. Matthew's Parish in Hillsborough
Governor William Tryon sent the Rev. George Micklejohn, a Society for the Propagation of the Gospel missionary first assigned to Rowan County, to St. Matthew's Parish in Orange County.
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Nathaniel Rochester goes to work for a Hillsborough merchant
At sixteen Rochester took employment with James Monroe, a Scottish merchant in Hillsborough, the seat of Orange County. Within two years he was made clerk of the vestry of St. Matthew's Parish.
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Episcopalians build Hillsborough's first church
Members of the Church of England put up the town's first church at the corner of Churton and Tryon streets, under George Micklejohn, the parish minister Governor Tryon had appointed. It later held the 1788 convention and its lot passed to the Presbyterians.
Revolution and early republic · 1775–1799
- 1770s
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Loyalist rector George Micklejohn is taken into custody
With the outbreak of the Revolution Micklejohn remained loyal to the Crown and was taken into custody. St. Matthew's Parish had no Episcopal rector again until 1825.
- 1780s
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Hillsborough Convention declines to ratify the Constitution
Meeting at St. Matthew's Church in Hillsborough, delegates defeated a motion to ratify the Constitution 184 to 84 on August 1, 1788. On August 2 they voted to neither ratify nor reject it until a declaration of rights and amendments went before Congress.
- 1790s
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The Assembly orders the sale of the ruinous St. Matthew's church building
An act of 1797 authorised the sheriff to sell the old Anglican church on Lot 98, described as in a ruinous and decayed situation and not used for divine worship for a number of years. The building went soon afterwards, and around 1800 the town had no church at all.
Antebellum and Civil War · 1800–1865
- 1820s
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Thomas Ruffin gives the land for St. Matthew's Church
Thomas Ruffin donated the hill on the east side of town where St. Matthew's church and churchyard stand, as a thank offering tied to his courtship of Anne Kirkland there.
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William Norwood is elected first junior warden of the reorganized St. Matthew's Church
When St. Matthew's Episcopal Church in Hillsborough was reorganized, William Norwood was elected its first junior warden.
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Hillsborough Episcopalians organize St. Matthew's Church
After decades without a resident minister, Hillsborough's Episcopalians organized a parish again and founded the present St. Matthew's on Thomas Ruffin's gift of land, with William Mercer Green as first rector.
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John Berry and Samuel Hancock build St. Matthew's Episcopal Church to William Nichols's design
St. Matthew's, an early Gothic Revival church of Flemish-bond brick, was built in 1825-1826 by the local masons John Berry and Samuel Hancock to a design by William Nichols, who set its size at 35 by 45 feet. It replaced an earlier church at Churton and West Tryon streets that had burned in 1793.
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St. Matthew's Church in Hillsborough is consecrated under its first rector, William Mercer Green
William Mercer Green became first rector of the reorganized St. Matthew's parish in 1825, the year work began on its brick church; state architect William Nichols and brickmaker John Berry were among the builders. Bishop John Stark Ravenscroft consecrated the church on May 21, 1826, during the diocesan convention it hosted.
- 1830s
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Godfrey and Isabella marry at St. Matthew's
The Rev. William Mercer Green married Godfrey and Isabella, the first couple in St. Matthew's register of people of color. Their infant son Milton Alexander was baptized there in November 1835.
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Job, later Rev. Job Berry, is baptized at St. Matthew's
Job, enslaved by George W. B. Burgwyn, was baptized at St. Matthew's Episcopal Church by William Mercer Green and confirmed the next April. As Job Berry he later led Hillsborough's first Black congregation.
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St. Matthew's adds a gallery for Black worshippers under William Mercer Green
In 1835, during William Mercer Green's rectorship, a gallery was added to St. Matthew's Church in Hillsborough to seat Black worshippers. Green also held monthly services at Duncan Cameron's Salem Chapel, where he gave instruction to enslaved people.
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William Mercer Green leaves St. Matthew's to become university chaplain and professor
William Mercer Green accepted a post at the University of North Carolina as chaplain and professor of belles lettres and resigned from St. Matthew's in Hillsborough the following year. The Hillsborough congregation had grown from seventeen communicants in his first year to sixty-seven when he left.
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Henry H. Prout becomes minister at St. Matthew's
Henry H. Prout took charge at St. Matthew's after William Mercer Green left for Chapel Hill. The parish's unbroken run of vestry records begins the same year.
- 1840s
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Henry Evans, a free cabinetmaker of color, buys a shop lot on Churton Street
Evans paid $265 for old lot 6 on Churton Street, across from the courthouse then being built, and made furniture there, including chancel pieces for St. Matthew's, where he was baptized in 1842. The Bailey map marks his workshop.
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Moses Ashley Curtis becomes rector of St. Matthew's Church in Hillsborough
Curtis, an Episcopal priest who had taught at the church school in Raleigh, accepted a call to St. Matthew's Church in Hillsborough in June 1841. He did his botanical and fungus research from the town while serving the parish.
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Moses Ashley Curtis leaves St. Matthew's for Society Hill, South Carolina
Rector and botanist Moses Ashley Curtis moved from Hillsborough to Society Hill, South Carolina, ending his first period at St. Matthew's.
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James B. Connelly serves as rector of St. Matthew's
James B. Connelly took charge of the parish in 1848 and served until his death late in 1855.
- 1850s
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Thomas Ruffin deeds St. Matthew's Church the land he had given by word around
Thomas Ruffin's deed of April 10, 1854 formally conveyed 1 1/3 acres to St. Matthew's Church, land he had given verbally around 1820. The tract was later enlarged for the church, parish house and walled cemetery.
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Moses Ashley Curtis returns to St. Matthew's in Hillsborough
After about ten years at Society Hill, S.C., Curtis came back to St. Matthew's Church in Hillsborough in February 1857, and stayed until his death in 1872; he was buried in the churchyard.
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Alves, an enslaved man sentenced to death, is baptized at St. Matthew's
St. Matthew's register records the baptism of Alves, "a slave under sentence of death," with James Waddell as witness.
Reconstruction and the New South · 1866–1899
- 1870s
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Thomas Ruffin dies at his Hillsborough home
Ruffin died in the northeast room of the house on January 15, 1870, and his widow Anne inherited the estate. He was buried at St. Matthew's Church in Hillsborough, on ground he had given for the church, where he had served on the vestry.
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Mary Pauline Fitzgerald is baptized at St. Matthew's
The seven-month-old daughter of the freedmen's teacher Robert G. Fitzgerald and his wife Cornelia was baptized at St. Matthew's, her mother standing as sponsor. As Pauline Fitzgerald Dame she later raised her niece, Pauli Murray.
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St. Matthew's rector Moses Ashley Curtis dies
Moses Ashley Curtis, rector of St. Matthew's for twenty-one years and a botanist of international standing, died at 64. The font and a south window in the church are his memorials.
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Charles Jones Curtis succeeds his father as rector of St. Matthew's
After his ordination to the priesthood, Charles Jones Curtis followed his father, Moses Ashley Curtis, as rector and served until he resigned in 1880.
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Joseph Blount Cheshire marries Annie Huske Webb at St. Matthew's
Joseph Blount Cheshire Jr., later Episcopal bishop of North Carolina, married Annie Huske Webb of Hillsborough at St. Matthew's Church.
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St. Matthew's Episcopal Church reworks its entrance tower and adds the spire
In 1875 the west entrance tower of St. Matthew's was reworked and given its slate-covered spire.
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St. Matthew's rings its new bell, a memorial to Confederate dead
A steeple bell given by Mrs. Mary Curtis was rung for the first time for the Easter service. Its inscription remembers John Henry Curtis and the other men of the Orange Light Artillery who died in Confederate service.
- 1880s
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Joseph W. Murphy serves as rector of St. Matthew's
Joseph W. Murphy was rector of the parish for eleven years. His family later gave the brass alms basin in his memory.
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St. Matthew's vestry asks Joseph Blount Cheshire to be its rector
The vestries of St. Matthew's and the Burlington church asked Joseph Blount Cheshire to take charge of their parishes. He would have come to his wife's home town, but Bishop Lyman wanted him to stay in Chapel Hill.
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Mrs. William L. DeRosset and others give St. Matthew's a Bible
Mrs. William L. DeRosset, with family and friends, presented the church's Bible as an Easter offering.
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A rector's chair is given to St. Matthew's in memory of Sarah Mary Matthews Murphy
Her husband and children gave the rector's chair on the south side of the altar in memory of Sarah Mary Matthews Murphy.
- 1890s
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Mildred C. Cameron gives St. Matthew's a new altar and reredos
Miss Mildred C. Cameron gave the altar and reredos in memory of Paul C. Cameron, Rebecca Graham and Pauline Sheppard.
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A brass altar rail is given to St. Matthew's in memory of Mildred Cameron
At Christmas Miss Margaret Mordecai gave a brass altar rail in memory of Miss Mildred Cameron, who had given the altar earlier that year.
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Anne Roulhac gives St. Matthew's an oak litany desk
Miss Anne Roulhac gave an oak litany desk in memory of her niece Katherine R. Hamilton.
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Samuel Paxon Watters serves fifteen years as rector of St. Matthew's
Samuel Paxon Watters led the parish from 1897 to 1912. His wife, an invalid through most of those years, was counted among the most useful women in the diocese.
Early twentieth century · 1900–1944
- 1900s
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St. Matthew's receives a brass alms basin in memory of Rev. Joseph W. Murphy
Dr. Samuel W. Murphy and Mrs. Walter E. Stumph, the former rector's brother and daughter, gave a brass alms basin in his memory.
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Josiah Turner Jr. dies at his Hillsborough home
Josiah Turner Jr., former Confederate congressman and editor of the Raleigh Sentinel, died at his home in Hillsborough and was buried in the churchyard of St. Matthew's Church.
- 1910s
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St. Matthew's Episcopal Church builds its present rectory across St. Mary's Road
St. Matthew's built a one-and-a-half-story frame rectory on the triangular lot across St. Mary's Road from the church around 1910. The parish had owned the lot since 1869, and rectors have lived there since then.
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William D. Benton serves sixteen years as rector of St. Matthew's
William D. Benton was rector for sixteen years, the longest single tenure the book records after Moses Ashley Curtis. His wife directed the choir at the 1924 centennial.
- 1920s
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St. Matthew's Church celebrates the hundredth anniversary of its organization
The parish marked a century since its 1824 founding with an evening service. Speakers included Samuel S. Nash of Tarboro, and two great-great-granddaughters of Thomas Ruffin, who gave the site, attended.
Civil rights era · 1945–1975
- 1950s
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Orange County pastors form a ministerial association
Pastors of 18 churches in northern and central Orange County met at the Hillsboro Presbyterian Church and formed an Orange County Ministerial Association, electing the Rev. C. H. Reckard president and the Rev. Lawton Pettit of St. Matthew's Episcopal secretary.
- 1970s
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Saint Matthew's Episcopal Church and Churchyard is listed in the National Register
On June 24, 1971 the National Park Service listed Saint Matthew's Episcopal Church and Churchyard in Hillsborough in the National Register of Historic Places.
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