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Local figure

Samuel Hancock

Samuel Hancock was a Hillsborough brickmason and brickmaker who gave John Berry his first paid work, on the Presbyterian church in 1815, and then worked with him on brick houses, churches and public buildings. After Hancock went bankrupt in 1834, Dr. James Webb bought his house and Abram, the man the Hancocks enslaved.

Source: NC State University Libraries, North Carolina Architects & Builders: Hancock, Samuel (1784-1848)

Orange County Indexed has not yet linked an indexed work directly to Samuel Hancock. The biography and the dated events on this page provide sources about Samuel Hancock’s life and work.

Search works on Slavery in Orange County Research sources View background reading ↓

Life and Orange County connections

Dated events connected with this person, earliest first. See these 8 dated events in the chronology →

  1. A brick house is built on West Queen Street for Rhody Berry, mother of builder John Berry The one-and-a-half-story Federal house, the oldest surviving brick dwelling in the original town, was built about 1805 for Mrs. Rhody Berry. Tradition credits her son John Berry, but he was seven that year, and the 2014 nomination suggests neighbor Samuel Hancock, the brickmason who later became his partner. People: Samuel HancockSearch the index · National Register: Hillsborough Historic District Additional Documentation (2014), pdf p. 151
  2. The Hillsborough Presbyterian Church is built on the old St. Matthew's church lot with lottery money The brick church on West Tryon Street was built in 1815 and 1816 near the site of the colonial St. Matthew's church, lost in the 1790s, with money raised by a lottery the state authorized. The brickmasons John Berry and Samuel Hancock are credited with the work. People: John Berry, Samuel HancockSearch the index · Hillsborough Historic District National Register Additional Documentation (2014), pdf p. 174
  3. Samuel Hancock buys lots near the Eno for a brickyard With a $50 loan from Dr. James Webb, brickmason Samuel Hancock bought lots near the Eno River for a brickyard, which became known as the Webb-Hancock brickyard. Webb's 1842 bankruptcy papers say the two men ran it as partners. People: James WebbSearch the index · NC State University Libraries, North Carolina Architects & Builders: Hancock, Samuel (1784-1848)
  4. Brickmason Samuel Hancock joins the Hillsborough Presbyterian Church he helped build Samuel Hancock joined the Hillsborough Presbyterian Church on November 17, 1821, five years after his wife Susan. He rented a pew and gave toward the pastor's salary and a bell.Search the index · NC State University Libraries, North Carolina Architects & Builders: Hancock, Samuel (1784-1848)
  5. James S. Smith's building commission starts Hillsborough's brick Masonic Hall In July 1823 commissioners James S. Smith, Thomas Clancy and J. P. Sneed advertised in the Hillsborough Recorder for proposals to build a brick Masonic Hall in the town. The cornerstone was laid on November 23, 1823, for the Greek Revival hall designed by William Nichols and built by local brickmasons John Berry and Samuel Hancock. People: John Berry, William Nichols, Samuel HancockSearch the index · DigitalNC: The Hillsborough Recorder, July 23, 1823, page 3 (To Bricklayers and Carpenters)
  6. The cornerstone of Eagle Lodge's Masonic hall is laid on West King Street The cornerstone of the brick Masonic hall at 142 West King Street, designed by state architect William Nichols and believed built by brickmasons John Berry and Samuel Hancock, was laid on November 23, 1823. The lot was deeded to the lodge in 1824 after the building went up. People: John Berry, William Nichols, Samuel HancockSearch the index · NC State Historic Preservation Office: Hillsborough Historic District Additional Documentation, National Register (OR0077ad, 2014), 142 W. King Street (Eagle Lodge No. 19 A.F. and A.M.)
  7. 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. People: William Nichols, Samuel HancockSearch the index · NC State Historic Preservation Office: Hillsborough Historic District Additional Documentation, National Register (OR0077ad, 2014), 210 St. Mary's Road, St. Matthew's Episcopal Church
  8. Samuel Hancock goes bankrupt and Dr. James Webb buys his house and the enslaved man Abram In 1834 Samuel Hancock went bankrupt. Dr. James Webb bought the Hancocks' house and lot, their furniture and Abram, a man they enslaved, and rented all of them back to Hancock for $1 a year. People: James WebbSearch the index · NC State University Libraries, North Carolina Architects & Builders: Hancock, Samuel (1784-1848)

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 →

Background on Slavery in Orange County

These works give background on Slavery in Orange County, the wider story this person is part of. Each links to the institution that holds or provides it.

To Free A Family

Nathans, Sydney · 2012 · Harvard University Press

Sydney Nathans's biography of Mary Walker, an enslaved woman from Orange County who escaped to the North in the mid nineteenth century and spent the following decades in Cambridge, Massachusetts, working to free the family she had left behind. Chapter titles trace her flight, her years among Northern friends, a rescue plot, a long silence, and the reunion that gives the book its close. Published 2012 by Harvard University Press, 330 pages with 20 pages of plates, illustrations and maps.

Reviewed in Choice Reviews Online (2012), Civil War Book Review (2012).

✓ Held at OCPL · BIO WALKER NAT NC Cardinal UNC Duke NC State NCCU Durham Chapel Hill PL Library of Congress Davidson Methodist Wingate UNCSA

Descendants of Matthew McCauley

Neville, David Lindsay · 2001

David Lindsay Neville's genealogy of the descendants of Matthew McCauley (1750-1821), one of the landowners who gave land for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The Lloyd and Neville families come into it as well, and Orange County genealogy is its field. Compiled in 2001.

NC Cardinal

The Black family in slavery and freedom, 1750-1925

Gutman, Herbert G. (Herbert George), 1928-1985 · 1976 · Pantheon Books

Herbert G. Gutman's 1976 history of African American families from 1750 to 1925, published by Pantheon Books in New York, 664 pages with 38 leaves of plates. Its Orange County connection is the Bennehan and Cameron family plantations, Stagville and Fairntosh: the book discusses the people enslaved by Richard Bennehan (1743-1825) and the Camerons, and follows family ties among them under slavery and after emancipation. Subjects include African American families and enslaved persons in Orange County.

Reviewed in The Journal of Southern History (1977), The William and Mary Quarterly (1977), The American Historical Review (1977), Journal of American History (1977), The History Teacher (1977), Political Science Quarterly (1977), Journal of Black Psychology (1978), Journal of Social History (1978), Civil War history (1978), Signs (1978).

NCCU UNC CH Historical Society Library of Congress

The Cameron Plantation in Central North Carolina (1776-1973) and Its Founder Richard Bennehan

Sanders, Charles Richard · 1974 · Sanders

Charles Richard Sanders's short history of the Cameron plantation in central North Carolina from 1776 to 1973 and of its founder Richard Bennehan, whose lands became Stagville and Fairntosh. It covers the Bennehan and Cameron families and their connection with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Published by the author in Durham in 1974, 79 pages with a plate and illustrations.

✓ Held at OCPL · NC 929.209 SAN Duke Chapel Hill PL Library of Congress Davidson UNC

The Papers Of Willie Person Mangum

Mangum, Willie Person · 1950 · State Dept. of Archives and History

The papers of Willie Person Mangum, 1792 to 1861, a lawyer, judge and United States senator from the part of Orange County that later became Durham County. Five volumes of correspondence published by the State Department of Archives and History beginning in 1950, arranged by date from 1807 to 1894, with illustrations, portraits and folding maps. A source for antebellum North Carolina and national politics, the Whig Party and the Mangum family.

Reviewed in The Journal of Southern History (1951), Journal of American History (1951), The Journal of Southern History (1953), Journal of American History (1953), The Journal of Southern History (1954), The Journal of Southern History (1955), The Journal of Southern History (1957), Journal of American History (1957), The American Historical Review (1957).

✓ Held at OCPL · NC BIO MANGUM SHA NC Cardinal Durham Library of Congress

Map of Orange County, N.C.

Tate, George W. · 1891 · George W. Tate

Facsimile, dated 1940, of George W. Tate's 1891 map of Orange County. It shows towns, roads, railroads such as the North Carolina Rail Road and the Chapel Hill line, residences, schools, churches, mills and mines, with portraits and pictures of buildings in the margins.

UNC DPLA Library of Congress
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Walter Alves papers, 1771-1858, Orange County, North Carolina : also Kentucky and Tennessee.

Alves, Walter, 1768-1819 · 1993 · University Publications of America

University Publications of America issued this two reel microfilm edition in 1993, reproducing the Walter Alves papers of 1771 to 1858 with a printed reel guide. Alves, 1768 to 1819, was an Orange County landowner, and the material runs to real estate investment in North Carolina and Tennessee, Scottish American families, and letters with Richard Bennehan, William Boylan and John Wickham.

UNC

James Pleasant Mason diary, 1876-1893.

Mason, James Pleasant, 1827-1893 · 1876

Fifteen diary volumes kept by James Pleasant Mason (1827-1893) from 1876 to 1893, one linear foot in the Southern Historical Collection at UNC, collection 495. The diaries describe farm life and agriculture in nineteenth century North Carolina, the work of Baptist clergy under the Baptist State Convention, and social life and customs in Orange County, which is the diary's local tie.

UNC

Tintype collection, circa 1856-1900.

1856

Nineteen tintypes dated roughly 1856 to 1900 in the North Carolina Collection at UNC. The tintypes include portraits of African Americans in nineteenth century North Carolina, including enslaved people, along with families, the Roulhac family, Henry Speck Harris (1837-1863), Caesar Mills, and a soldier of the 6th North Carolina Infantry of the Confederate army. Commencement at Chapel Hill and the early University of North Carolina supply the local link.

UNC

Mary E. Strayhorn Berry papers, 1841-1944

Berry, Mary E. Strayhorn, 1854-1934 · 1841

About thirty items of Berry family papers dated 1841 to 1944, part of the Southern Historical Collection at UNC, collection 65-z. Mary E. Strayhorn Berry, 1854 to 1934, is the named creator. Topics include military life in Company G of the 27th North Carolina Infantry, bills of sale for enslaved people in Orange County, enslavers in the county, and social life around Hillsborough.

UNC

McCauley family papers, 1788-1872.

McCauley (Family : Monroe, N.C.) · 1788

Eleven items of McCauley family papers running from 1788 to 1872, part of the Southern Historical Collection at UNC, collection 4346-z. Subjects include Matthew McCauley, 1750 to 1821, and Matthew McCauley, Jr., born 1803, and turn on real property and economic conditions in North Carolina and the history of Orange County in the 18th and 19th centuries.

UNC

Willie Person Mangum (1792-1861) Papers

Mangum, Willie Person, 1792-1861 · 1705

Willie Person Mangum, the Orange County lawyer, judge and United States senator, is at the center of these papers, 1705 to 1916. They bring together selected items from the Mangum family papers at UNC's Southern Historical Collection, chiefly deeds and legal papers, and from his papers at the Library of Congress. Walnut Hill Plantation, the Whig Party and the Mexican War appear. State Archives of North Carolina, PC.69.

State Archives of NC

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