Hugh B. Guthrie

Life and Orange County connections

Dated events connected with this person, in date order. See these 20 dated events in the chronology →

1. early 1850s 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: Hugh B. Guthrie, Nancy Hilliard Place: Chapel Hill · Also mentions: North Carolina Railroad, Union HotelSearch the index · NCpedia: Hilliard, Nancy Ann Segur (John Macfie) · Also: Documenting the American South: Kemp P. Battle, History of the University of North Carolina, vol. I
2. July 13, 1857 Chapel Hill's commissioners enter resolutions on the death of their fellow commissioner Elisha Mitchell The village board recorded its loss of Mitchell, who sat with them as a commissioner, and ordered the resolutions entered in the village journals. Copies went to his family and the Chapel Hill Gazette. People: Elisha Mitchell, Patterson H. McDade, Hugh B. Guthrie, John H. Watson Place: Board of Commissioners, Chapel HillSearch the index · A Memoir of the Rev. Elisha Mitchell (1858), scan p. 47
3. December 1857 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: John H. Watson, Hugh B. Guthrie, Patterson H. McDade Place: Chapel Hill · Also named: Calvin ScottSearch the index · DigitalNC: Chapel Hill Literary Gazette, January 23, 1858, p. 4 (Business Directory of the Town of Chapel Hill, December 25, 1857)
4. August 2, 1860 Orange County elects Josiah Turner Jr. to the Senate and William N. Patterson and Hugh B. Guthrie to the Commons In the state election of August 2, Orange County returned the Whigs Josiah Turner Jr. to the state Senate and William N. Patterson and Hugh B. Guthrie to the House of Commons. People: Josiah Turner Jr., William N. Patterson, Hugh B. Guthrie Place: Orange CountySearch the index · Hillsborough Recorder, August 22, 1860, p. 3
5. August 7, 1862 Orange elects William A. Graham to the state senate and H. B. Guthrie sheriff Orange County voters sent William A. Graham to the state senate, chose John Berry and William N. Patterson for the House of Commons over J. L. Stewart and William F. Strayhorn, and elected H. B. Guthrie sheriff over the incumbent R. M. Jones. At home the county gave Zebulon B. Vance 1,051 votes for governor to 308 for William Johnston. People: William A. Graham, John Berry, William N. Patterson, Hugh B. Guthrie, Zebulon B. Vance Place: Orange County · Also named: R. M. Jones, William F. StrayhornSearch the index · Hillsborough Recorder, August 27, 1862, p. 3
6. May 8, 1863 Three Black prisoners break out of the Hillsborough jail On the night of May 8 three Black prisoners broke out of the county jail at Hillsborough: Solomon, an enslaved man convicted of murdering his owner, John Lockhart of Flat River, and held for a new trial; a man enslaved by Capt. J. W. Latta; and a free young man who had been living near Raleigh. Sheriff H. B. Guthrie offered $200 for Solomon and $50 for each of the others. People: Hugh B. Guthrie Place: County jail, Hillsborough · Also named: J. W. Latta, SolomonHillsborough Recorder, May 13, 1863, p. 3
7. January 1866 The legislature names a new bench of Orange County magistrates The General Assembly, called back in January to restore civil government, appointed a new body of justices of the peace for Orange County. Sheriff H. B. Guthrie summoned the long list of appointees to take their oaths at the Hillsborough court house on February 3, 1866. People: Hugh B. Guthrie Place: Court house, HillsboroughSearch the index · Hillsborough Recorder, January 24, 1866, p. 3
8. June 25, 1866 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. Guthrie Place: Orange CountySearch the index · Lefler and Wager, Orange County, 1752-1952 (1953), p. 190
9. 19 August 1866 John W. Graham asks H. B. Guthrie to keep Pattie Ruffin from naming a young friend as her child's father In a letter from Hillsboro, John W. Graham asked Col. H. B. Guthrie of Chapel Hill to stop a magistrate from making Pattie, a pregnant young Black woman living at Dr. Closs's and the daughter of Peter, once enslaved by Judge Ruffin, name the father of her child. Graham wrote that she had been paid not to name the man, a young friend of his; that she could refuse by paying $5 and giving bond; and that he had promised the case would not come to court. The letter is kept with the county's bastardy papers. People: Hugh B. Guthrie, John W. Graham Place: Hillsborough; Chapel HillSearch the index · Mark Chilton, Natural Child: Legitimacy, Sexuality and Shame in the Court Records of Orange County, North Carolina 1777 to 1868 (Wandering through the NC Piedmont)
10. July 1-6, 1868 A Chapel Hill magistrate and his son beat Mills Saunders while he is held on a civil warrant On July 1, 1868, constable Judd McDade brought Mills Saunders, a Black farm worker, to magistrate Jones Watson's store at Chapel Hill on a civil warrant from his employer; when Saunders said he had business to attend to on the Bureau's advice, Watson and his son Charles went at him with chairs, Saunders struck the son with his stick, and Watson, by his own account, hit Saunders with the stick near the post office. McDade tied Saunders's hands and led him back to the store, and the next day Hay summoned the Watsons, McDade and the employer to answer a charge of cruel and unjustifiable assault and battery. On July 6 Lt. Thomas H. Hay heard Saunders's charge at Hillsborough, with witnesses who included former sheriff H. B. Guthrie, who had seen the magistrate strike him, and Black neighbors who called the magistrate fair; the parties settled, the defendants paying the costs and $10, and Hay also gave Saunders $18.02 in wages. People: Hugh B. Guthrie, Jones Watson Place: Chapel Hill (Watson's store and the street near the post office) · Also named: Mills Saunders, Thomas H. HaySearch the index · Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Records Relating to Cases Tried & Destitute Freedmen, Part 1, transcription p. 159
11. July 8-9, 1868 Professor Charles Phillips certifies aged Chapel Hill residents for Bureau rations On July 8 and 9, 1868, Charles Phillips, signing as professor in the University of North Carolina, wrote certificates asking the Bureau to give food to an aged, bedridden freedwoman of the village and to an elderly couple. He wrote that the want of patronage to the University had so reduced the means of the people who had long helped the couple that they had to turn to the Bureau, and Jones Watson, J.P., A. Mickle and H. B. Guthrie endorsed his statements. People: Charles Phillips, Jones Watson, Hugh B. Guthrie Place: Chapel Hill · Also named: A. MickleFreedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Records Relating to Cases Tried & Destitute Freedmen, Part 2, transcription p. 189
12. 1869 Solomon Pool buys Nancy Hilliard's house, the Crystal Palace, at a sheriff's sale When the hotel keeper Nancy Hilliard went bankrupt, university president Solomon Pool bought her Franklin Street home, known as the Crystal Palace, at a sheriff's sale for $150. He let Col. Hugh B. Guthrie and his wife Jane, a daughter of Hudson Cave, move in, which Bryant reads as a way of forcing Hilliard out. People: Solomon Pool, Nancy Hilliard, Hugh B. Guthrie Place: Crystal Palace (Nancy Hilliard house), Franklin Street, Chapel Hill · Also named: Hudson Cave · Also mentions: Franklin StreetBernard Lee Bryant Jr., Occupants and Structures of Franklin Street, Chapel Hill (1998; Chapel Hill Historical Society, 1999), scan p. 125