Skip to content
Orange County Public Library (opens the library’s website in a new tab)

Local figure

Hugh B. Guthrie

Hugh B. Guthrie was a Chapel Hill hotel keeper and Orange County officeholder of the Civil War era. He paid $10,000 for Nancy Hilliard's interest in the old Eagle Hotel and renamed it the Union Hotel, and in 1857 he sat on the town's board of commissioners. As sheriff of Orange County, he warned taxpayers in 1866 that no county tax had been collected for 1865 and the treasury held not a dollar.

Source: Documenting the American South: Kemp P. Battle (Kemp Plummer), 1831-1919. History of the University of North Carolina. Volume…

Orange County Indexed has not yet linked an indexed work directly to Hugh B. Guthrie. The biography and the dated events on this page provide sources about Hugh B. Guthrie’s life and work. If you know a useful source, tell us.

Research sources

Life and Orange County connections

Dated events connected with this person, earliest first. See these 3 dated events in the chronology →

  1. John H. Watson sits on Chapel Hill's board of town commissioners A business directory of Chapel Hill dated Christmas 1857 listed John H. Watson among the town's commissioners, with H. B. Guthrie, P. H. McDade and Calvin Scott. People: Hugh B. GuthrieSearch the index · DigitalNC: Chapel Hill Literary Gazette, January 23, 1858, p. 4 (Business Directory of the Town of Chapel Hill, December 25, 1857)
  2. Sheriff H. B. Guthrie announces that the county treasury is empty His notice to taxpayers said no county tax had been levied or collected for 1865, the treasury held not a dollar and the wardens of the poor were deep in debt. He set fifteen collection days in July. People: Hugh B. GuthrieSearch the index · Lefler and Wager, Orange County, 1752-1952 (1953), p. 190
  3. Rival claimants to Chapel Hill's town offices are told to stand down On March 30, 1870, the Chapel Hill commissioners recorded that a group of residents claimed to be the village's officers, had taken some of the town's books and papers and had named A. Mickle magistrate of police. On April 1, Solomon Pool reported that their election had been held without any law authorizing it, on informal notice from T. M. Argo, and the board adopted his advice to take no action if they gave up the books. People: Solomon Pool, John H. Watson, Andrew Mickle, Hugh B. GuthrieSearch the index · Town of Chapel Hill: Board of Commissioners minutes, March 30 and April 1, 1870

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 and OpenStreetMap; town and community pins mark the middle of their mapped buildings.

All places and the county map →

Named with them in the chronology

People named in the same dated entries as Hugh B. Guthrie, those sharing the most entries first. Each line links one of the shared entries in the chronology, where its source is cited. A shared entry shows these people in the same event, not how well they knew each other.

Research sources

Resources picked for this person, each with a note on what it holds. For ready-made searches of other catalogs, see Search further.

Collections and databases

  • NC LIVE: prepared search for Hugh B. Guthrie Library card An advanced search of the state’s shared databases already scoped to Orange County’s places and this subject; edit it freely, and sign in through your North Carolina library to read
  • Ancestry Library Edition In the libraryOrange County Public Library Census, birth, death and marriage records, and more, free on the public computers at OCPL libraries

Local help

Search further

Ready-made searches in other catalogs and collections. Results are not checked against this person.

Books about Hugh B. Guthrie

More catalogs that show where copies are

Photographs, papers, and newspapers

Historical records and collections

Searched by name. The catalogs give no dates for this person, so results may include other people with the same name. The historical records searches look for the name as written, so they can turn up other people with the same name. Each link opens that catalog’s own results in a new tab. The Friends have not reviewed what they return.

Found a book OCPL doesn’t own? You can often borrow it through interlibrary loan at OCPL.

More to discover

Keep Reading Local

The Friends connect people with new library materials, local writers and publishers, and resources documenting Orange County.

Browse New Arrivals → Meet Local Authors → Explore Local Publishers →
Two mice reading back to back against a leaf, with the hand-lettered words Friends of the Orange County Public Library
Illustration by Caldecott Medalist Matthew Cordell, gifted to the Friends 2026