William James Bingham

Life and Orange County connections

Storylines this person is part of, in date order. Each opens its own page, with its events date by date.

Dated events connected with this person, in date order. See these 15 dated events in the chronology →

During their lifetime

1. about 1815 to 1826 William Bingham runs his school at Mount Repose northwest of Hillsborough After leaving Hillsborough Academy, the Rev. William Bingham kept his own academy at Mount Repose, in a house on Back Creek about ten miles northwest of Hillsborough. His son William James Bingham closed it in 1826 when he took over Hillsborough Academy. People: William James Bingham Place: Mount Repose, Orange County · Also named: William Bingham · Also mentions: Hillsborough AcademyInternet Archive: Charles L. Coon, North Carolina Schools and Academies, 1790-1840: A Documentary History (1915)
2. 1822 to 1826 John Rogers runs Hillsborough Academy John Rogers ran Hillsborough Academy from 1822 to 1826, when W. J. Bingham succeeded him. People: William James Bingham, John Rogers Place: Hillsborough · Also mentions: Hillsborough AcademyLefler and Wager, Orange County, 1752-1952 (1953), p. 133
3. 1827–1844 William James Bingham becomes principal of Hillsborough Academy After John Rogers resigned, the trustees engaged William James Bingham as principal of Hillsborough Academy, where he taught until he moved his school to the country in 1844. He had carried on his father's Mount Repose school since February 1826. People: William James Bingham, John Rogers Place: Hillsborough · Also mentions: Hillsborough AcademyInternet Archive: Charles L. Coon, North Carolina Schools and Academies, 1790-1840: A Documentary History (1915)
4. about 1831 Schoolmaster William J. Bingham builds a house at Churton and Union streets William James Bingham, then head of the Hillsborough Academy, builds a one-and-a-half-story house at the southeast corner of North Churton and East Union streets and lives there until 1845. Later owners included the Methodist church, which used it for a time as a parsonage. Place: Southeast corner of North Churton and East Union streets (house now at 123 East Union Street), Hillsborough · Also mentions: Hillsborough AcademySearch the index · Hillsborough Historic District National Register Additional Documentation (2014), pdf p. 188
5. June 22, 1831 Friends of education organize the North Carolina Institute of Education at Chapel Hill During commencement week a meeting adopted a constitution on Benjamin M. Smith's motion, elected Simmons J. Baker president and made professors Elisha Mitchell, William Hooper and James Phillips its executive committee. The Institute met at the next few commencements and enrolled about 130 members before it lapsed. People: Elisha Mitchell, James Phillips, Walter A. Norwood, William James Bingham Place: Chapel Hill · Also named: Benjamin M. Smith, Simmons J. Baker, William HooperSearch the index · Documenting the American South: Kemp P. Battle, History of the University of North Carolina, vol. I (1907), p. 339
6. November 18, 1832 William H. Polk, brother of James K. Polk, arrives to attend Hillsborough Academy Sent by his brother, then a congressman from Tennessee, to prepare for the university, William H. Polk reached Hillsborough on Sunday, November 18, 1832, and began school under William J. Bingham. Bingham's rooms were full, so he boarded at Mrs. Burgwin's with his cousin and classmate George Polk; Bingham charged $10 a month for board with lodging, fuel, candles and washing. Polk later attended university classes in the August 1833 and January 1834 terms but never matriculated. People: James K. Polk, William James Bingham Place: Hillsborough Academy, Hillsborough · Also named: William H. Polk, George W. Polk, William PolkInternet Archive: North Carolina Historical Review 44 (1967), p. 192
7. May 10, 1834 Six enslaved women are baptized into Hillsborough Presbyterian Church The Rev. S. J. Price baptized six women held by the Nash, Watters, Scott and Waddell households, and Frederick Nash and William J. Bingham received them as members. In the twenty years that followed under Robert Burwell, the church took in only one communicant of color. People: Frederick Nash, William James Bingham, Hugh Waddell, Robert Armistead Burwell Place: Hillsborough · Also named: Robert BurwellBurwell School Historic Site Task Force: Antebellum Hillsborough, Slavery, and Enslaved and Free People of Color who Worked at the Burwell School, 1837-1857 (2019), p. 56
8. from 1836 James Johnston Pettigrew begins his schooling in Hillsborough Pettigrew was sent from New Bern to Orange County and attended Hillsborough schools from 1836, studying under Mr. Bingham for about four years before he entered the university. At fourteen he lived in the family of a Hillsborough physician and read in his medical books. People: James Johnston Pettigrew, William James Bingham Place: HillsboroughCornelia Phillips Spencer, The Last Ninety Days of the War in North-Carolina (1866), scan p. 287
9. About 1836 Schoolmaster William J. Bingham repeatedly beats Elizabeth Hobbs at Anna Burwell's urging Anna Burwell had William J. Bingham, the Hillsborough schoolmaster, flog Elizabeth Hobbs over a period of weeks in an attempt to break her spirit. Her memoir says Robert Burwell also beat her, and that she was eighteen at the time. People: Elizabeth Hobbs Keckly, Robert Armistead Burwell, William James Bingham, Margaret Anna Burwell Place: Hillsborough · Also named: William J. Bingham, Anna Burwell, Robert Burwell, Elizabeth HobbsDocumenting the American South: Behind the Scenes, or, Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House (Keckley, 1868)
10. November 1844 William James Bingham opens his school at the Oaks William James Bingham gave up Hillsborough Academy after its spring 1844 session and in May announced a select classical and mathematical school twelve miles southwest of Hillsborough, to open that November on the Oaks tract he bought the same year. It became known as the Bingham School and stayed at the Oaks until December 1864. People: William James Bingham Place: The Oaks, Orange County · Also mentions: Bingham School, Hillsborough AcademyNational Register of Historic Places nomination: Bingham School, Oaks (OR0003) · Also: NC Department of Natural and Cultural Resources: Bingham School; Hillsborough Recorder, May 30, 1844, p. 3
11. 1856-1873 William Bingham begins teaching in his father's school Fresh from the university, William Bingham joins the Bingham School as a teacher in 1856 and stays until his death in 1873, the last years as its head. People: William Bingham (1835-1873), William James Bingham Place: Bingham School, at the Oaks and from late 1864 near MebaneThe Bingham School Catalogue, 1905-1906, scan p. 15 · Also: NCpedia (Dictionary of North Carolina Biography): Bingham, Robert
12. July 1857 Robert Bingham becomes a partner in his father's school at the Oaks After graduating from the University of North Carolina in 1857, Robert Bingham was admitted in July as junior partner in his father's school at the Oaks, which took the firm name W. J. Bingham and Sons. His brother William was also a partner. People: Robert Bingham, William Bingham (1835-1873), William James Bingham Place: Orange County, the OaksSearch the index · NCpedia (Dictionary of North Carolina Biography): Bingham, Robert

After their death in 1866

Later events: estates and burials, and the buildings, honors and histories that remember them.

1. 1903 The Bingham house is moved down East Union Street to clear the corner for Shepperd Strudwick's house The 1831 William J. Bingham House is moved half a block east on East Union Street so that Shepperd Strudwick can build on its lot at the corner of Churton and Union. Much of the old house's outside dates from the move. People: Shepperd Strudwick (1868-1961), William James Bingham Place: 123 East Union Street (moved from the southeast corner of North Churton and East Union streets), HillsboroughSearch the index · Hillsborough Historic District National Register Additional Documentation (2014), pdf p. 9