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Local figure

Elias Dodson

Elias Dodson was a Baptist preacher from Virginia who traveled North Carolina as a missionary and colporteur in the mid-1840s. Around 1844 he held the first Baptist services known in Hillsborough, in the county courthouse. When the county replaced that building in 1845 he bought the old courthouse, and by 1847 it stood at the corner of Churton and Queen streets as a Baptist meeting house.

Source: NC State Historic Preservation Office: National Register file OR0077ad

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Life and Orange County connections

Storylines this person is part of, in date order. Each has its own page.

StorylineBuilding the Orange County courthouse, 1842–18461842–1846 · 7 events · Orange County's new courthouse at Hillsborough was disputed from the start, because western voters saw it as a move to fix the county seat and block a division of Orange. In February 1844 the county court voted to build instead of repairing the old courthouse and laid a tax of $8,000. The building commissioners let the contract privately to John Berry of Hillsborough without public notice, and western critics attacked the bargain. Masons laid the cornerstone that September, and Berry's Greek Revival temple-form building was standing by May 1845. The old wooden courthouse became a church, and by mid-July 1846 the repaired town clock was striking the hours from the new cupola.

Dated events connected with this person, in date order. See these 4 dated events in the chronology →

  1. Elias Dodson holds Hillsborough's first known Baptist services in the courthouse Elias Dodson, a Virginia-born graduate of William and Mary, preached in the courthouse and is the first Baptist minister the authors could find holding services in town. When the county built a new courthouse he bought the old one for the Baptists. People: Elias Dodson Place: Orange County courthouse, HillsboroughSearch the index · Pauline O. Lloyd and Allen A. Lloyd, History of the Churches of Hillsborough, N.C., ca. 1766-1962 (1963), scan p. 26
  2. The Old Orange County Courthouse is moved up Churton Street to Queen Street After the county built a new courthouse, its commissioners advertised the old wooden courthouse for sale at the November 1845 county court, to be removed from the court square. The Baptist missionary Elias Dodson bought it, and by about 1847 it stood at the corner of Churton and Queen streets as a church. The building later became the freedmen's school and then the home of Dickerson Chapel AME Church. People: Elias Dodson Place: Corner of North Churton and East Queen streets, HillsboroughSearch the index · North Carolina State Historic Preservation Office: Hillsborough Historic District Additional Documentation (National Register documentation, about 2013) · Also: Hillsborough Recorder, September 18, 1845, p. 3
  3. First Baptist Church of Hillsborough is organized in the old courthouse The First Baptist Church was organized in Hillsborough and met in the former 1790 courthouse building, now Dickerson Chapel, until 1862, while it raised its own church building on a lot acquired between 1854 and 1860. The historic district survey gives the organizing date as November 19, 1853; in 1952 the church itself told the News of Orange it had been organized on November 3, 1852, and held its centennial in 1953. People: Elias Dodson Place: Corner of North Churton and East Queen streets, HillsboroughSearch the index · North Carolina State Historic Preservation Office: Hillsborough Historic District Additional Documentation (National Register documentation, about 2013) · Also: The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), July 24, 1952, p. 1
  4. The Baptist State Convention meets with the Hillsborough church The Baptist State Convention of North Carolina held its session with the Hillsborough Baptist church, and townspeople of every denomination boarded the delegates. Thomas Ruffin asked in particular to host the evangelist Elias Dodson. People: Elias Dodson Place: First Baptist Church, Hillsborough, Hillsborough · Also named: Thomas RuffinSearch the index · Charles E. Maddry, History of the First Baptist Church of Hillsboro, North Carolina (1953), scan p. 14 · Also: Hillsborough Recorder, November 4, 1868, p. 2

Places in this person’s story

Buildings, schools, churches and other sites named in the dated events on this page, the most often named first. The map shows them all.

Map tiles © OpenStreetMap contributors. Site locations from the N.C. State Historic Preservation Office survey, Open Orange, Orange County GIS, OpenStreetMap and a few other published sources named on each site’s page; town and community pins show approximate locations.

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