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Key local figure

Dennis Heartt

Dennis Heartt (1783–1870) was a Connecticut-born printer who founded the weekly Hillsborough Recorder in February 1820 and edited it for nearly fifty years, making it a staple for readers in Orange and nearby counties. In 1845 he published poems by the enslaved poet George Moses Horton.

Source: NCpedia (Dictionary of North Carolina Biography): Heartt, Dennis

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Life and Orange County connections

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

StorylineThe Hillsborough Recorder begins publication, 18201820–1879 · 29 events · Dennis Heartt began the Hillsborough Recorder in February 1820 and published it for nearly fifty years, a Whig paper before the Civil War whose shop also printed books, among them George Moses Horton's poems in 1845; William W. Holden learned printing there. Heartt gave up the paper in January 1869, and John D. Cameron, its editor from 1872, moved it to Durham in 1879. StorylineThe Orange County Bible Society, 1822–18461822–1846 · 6 events · In 1828 the Orange County Bible Society resolved to supply every household in the county that had no Bible. Hillsborough people had formed the society on January 7, 1822 as an auxiliary of the American Bible Society. Early in 1828 a committee visited every Hillsborough family and found one household without a Bible, which it supplied within the hour; that summer the managers turned to the whole county and named Dennis Heartt agent to collect gifts. In October 1829 the society reported about a thousand families in the county without a Bible and resolved to supply them through paid agents. In September 1846 citizens organized a new county Bible society at Hillsborough under Giles Mebane. StorylineThe Caldwell Institute at Hillsborough, 1845–18511845–1851 · 9 events · Hillsborough won Orange Presbytery's Caldwell Institute in 1845 and kept it only five years. The presbytery chose the town over Yanceyville and Oxford, and a town meeting chaired by Dennis Heartt pledged the town's support. The institute opened that July under Alexander Wilson in the Hillsborough Academy building, absorbing the older school, and townspeople paid to repair and enlarge the building. Incorporated in 1847, it saw enrollment peak at 100 in 1848 and fall the next year, and the trustees voted in 1850 to discontinue it. Wilson and Ralph H. Graves then opened a classical school, and Benjamin R. Huske and Graves revived the Hillsborough Academy, which ran until 1858.

Dated events connected with this person, in date order. See these 55 dated events in the chronology →

During their lifetime

  1. Sterling Harris builds the house on East Queen Street later called Heartsease Sterling Harris built the one-and-a-half-story core of the house about 1786. Polly Burke bought it in 1810 and added a bay, and Dennis Heartt's family named it Heartsease after 1837. People: Dennis Heartt Place: 115 East Queen Street, Hillsborough · Also named: Sterling HarrisSearch the index · Hillsborough Historic District National Register Additional Documentation (2014), pdf p. 142
  2. Hillsborough has 437 white residents as the Recorder begins Hillsborough was a town of 437 white people in February 1820, when Dennis Heartt, lately of Philadelphia, issued the first number of the Hillsborough Recorder. People: Dennis Heartt Place: HillsboroughSearch the index · Internet Archive: North Carolina Historical Review 30 (1953), p. 392
  3. The Hillsborough Recorder begins publication Dennis Heartt began publishing the weekly Hillsborough Recorder in February 1820, at three dollars a year. The paper ran until 1879, and its surviving issues are a main record of nineteenth-century Hillsborough and Orange County. People: Dennis Heartt Place: HillsboroughHillsborough Recorder, March 1, 1820 (Vol. 1, No. 4)
  4. The Hillsborough Recorder moves its office west of the market house The Hillsborough Recorder moved its printing office to the house opposite Dr. Smith's office, about 150 yards west of the market house. People: Dennis Heartt Place: House opposite Dr. Smith's office, west of the market house, HillsboroughHillsborough Recorder, November 22, 1820, p. 3
  5. The Hillsborough Recorder calls slavery a misfortune and urges colonization Editor Dennis Heartt wrote that slavery harmed the state but argued against freeing people to remain in North Carolina. He proposed sending free Black people to Africa at public expense and asked the legislature to act. People: Dennis Heartt Place: HillsboroughLefler and Wager, Orange County, 1752-1952 (1953), p. 103-104
  6. The Hillsborough Recorder shop prints The Discipline of Friends and A Solemn Address to Youth Besides the weekly paper, Dennis Heartt's Recorder office printed pamphlets. Two surviving titles from 1823 are The Discipline of Friends, for Quaker use, and A Solemn Address to Youth. People: Dennis Heartt Place: HillsboroughLefler and Wager, Orange County, 1752-1952 (1953), p. 127
  7. The court binds Ferdinand W. Burroughs to Dennis Heartt to learn printing The court bound Ferdinand W. Burroughs, 11, orphan of Smith Burroughs late of Martin County, as an apprentice to Dennis Heartt until of full age to learn the printer's trade. Heartt agreed to teach him reading, writing and the ground rules of arithmetic, to give him decent lodging and clothing, and to furnish an extra suit of clothes when his time ended. People: Dennis Heartt Place: Orange County · Also named: Ferdinand W. Burroughs, Smith BurroughsMark Chilton, Freedom Bound: Apprenticeship, Racism & Liberation in Orange County, North Carolina 1777 to 1868 (Wandering through the NC Piedmont)
  8. The Orange County Sunday School Union asks the Assembly to fund its schools The Orange County Sunday School Union petitioned the General Assembly for 25 cents a year per pupil for its 22 Sunday schools, which taught 800 to 1,000 children, many from poor families, to read. John Scott of Hillsborough presented it in the House of Commons, which turned it down. People: James Webb, William Kirkland, William Norwood, John Knox Witherspoon, Dennis Heartt, John Wall Norwood, William Huntington Place: Orange County · Also named: John ScottSearch the index · Lefler and Wager, Orange County, 1752-1952 (1953), pp. 131-132
  9. William W. Holden serves as an apprentice printer at the Hillsborough Recorder At about age ten Holden was apprenticed as a printer's devil to Dennis Heartt, editor of the Hillsborough Recorder, who was responsible for his early education and political views. He struck out on his own at about sixteen, working first for the Milton Chronicle. People: William W. Holden, Dennis Heartt Place: HillsboroughSearch the index · NCpedia (Dictionary of North Carolina Biography): Holden, William Woods
  10. The Orange County Bible Society sets out to put a Bible in every home that lacks one The managers of the Orange County Bible Society resolved to find out which households in the county had no Bible and to supply them, and sent an agent to the places where taxes were listed to take names. They asked magistrates and assembly candidates to help and named Dennis Heartt as agent to collect gifts. People: John Witherspoon, Dennis Heartt, William Huntington Place: Orange County (tax-listing places countywide)Search the index · Hillsborough Recorder, July 2, 1828, p. 3
  11. Chapel Hill's commissioners pass a code of town ordinances The board of commissioners for Chapel Hill adopted fifteen ordinances for the government of the town and had them printed by Dennis Heartt at Hillsborough. The last section repealed all earlier town ordinances and resolutions on the same matters. People: Dennis Heartt Place: Chapel HillSearch the index · Ordinances Passed by the Board of Commissioners for the Town of Chapel Hill (1829), scan p. 3
  12. An Orange County mass meeting calls for state aid to roads and river navigation Friends of internal improvement met at the court house in Hillsborough on April 20, 1829, with Thomas Clancy in the chair and Dennis Heartt as secretary. After the Rev. Joseph Caldwell spoke on the county's want of markets, Caldwell, Duncan Cameron and Cadwallader Jones were named to draft an address. At the adjourned meeting on May 25, chaired by Dr. James Webb, the meeting adopted the address to the people of Orange, which held that a fund for internal improvement must be raised by taxation, and had 500 copies printed for circulation in the county. People: James Webb, Dennis Heartt, Duncan Cameron, Joseph Caldwell Place: Court house, Hillsborough · Also named: Thomas Clancy, Cadwallader JonesSearch the index · Lefler and Wager, Orange County, 1752-1952 (1953), p. 86 · Also: Hillsborough Recorder, April 22, 1829, p. 3; Hillsborough Recorder, June 10, 1829, p. 2
Show all 53 dated events
  1. William Mercer Green delivers the literary societies' oration before commencement On June 22, 1831, the day before commencement, William Mercer Green delivered an oration at Chapel Hill on the influence of Christianity upon the welfare of nations, under the annual appointment of the Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies. Dennis Heartt printed it in Hillsborough the same year. People: William Mercer Green, Dennis Heartt Place: Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina · Also mentions: Dialectic and Philanthropic SocietiesSearch the index · Internet Archive: The influence of Christianity upon the welfare of nations: an oration, delivered at Chapel-Hill, on Wednesday, June 22, 1831 (Hillsborough: Dennis Heartt, 1831)
  2. The Recorder shop prints Letters on Popular Education The Hillsborough Recorder office printed Letters on Popular Education Addressed to the People of North Carolina in 1832. People: Dennis Heartt Place: Hillsborough · Also mentions: Hillsborough Recorder officeLefler and Wager, Orange County, 1752-1952 (1953), p. 127
  3. Orange County railroad meeting names fifteen delegates to the Hillsborough convention A meeting at the Hillsborough court house, with James Mebane in the chair and Dennis Heartt as secretary, heard Thomas Ruffin, Frederick Nash, Willie P. Mangum and Hugh Waddell and named fifteen Orange delegates to the internal improvement convention called for Hillsborough in September. The speakers rejected the Raleigh convention's view that state money should go only to works that begin and end inside the state. People: James Mebane, Dennis Heartt, Thomas Ruffin, Frederick Nash, Willie P. Mangum, Hugh Waddell Place: Court house, HillsboroughSearch the index · The Harbinger (Chapel Hill), September 3, 1833, p. 2
  4. An Orange County internal improvement meeting at Hillsborough asks the state to fund a steam route to the coast An adjourned meeting of Orange County citizens at Hillsborough, with Catlett Campbell in the chair and Dennis Heartt as secretary, heard an address by university president Joseph Caldwell urging a railway from Raleigh to the sea. It voted that the state should put $200,000 of its funds toward a steam passage to the coast if private subscribers raised the rest, and adopted these terms as instructions to Orange County's members of the next General Assembly. People: Joseph Caldwell, Dennis Heartt, Frederick Nash Place: Hillsborough · Also named: Catlett CampbellSearch the index · The Harbinger (Chapel Hill), June 5, 1834, p. 1
  5. Hillsborough celebrates the Fourth of July with an oration and a dinner at the Masonic Hall Citizens went from the court house to the Presbyterian church, where Hugh Waddell read the Declaration of Independence and Allen C. Jones gave the oration, then dined at the Masonic Hall with Alfred Moore presiding and drank thirteen regular toasts and many volunteer toasts, several aimed at Jackson and Van Buren. A court house meeting on June 18 under Maj. Allen J. Davie had named the committees. People: Hugh Waddell, Cadwallader Jones, Dennis Heartt Place: Presbyterian church and Masonic Hall, Hillsborough · Also named: Allen C. Jones, Alfred Moore, Allen J. DavieSearch the index · Hillsborough Recorder, July 9, 1834, p. 3
  6. Orange County votes overwhelmingly for a constitutional convention Orange voted 1,648 to 111 for calling a convention to reform representation, and Hillsborough, which stood to lose its borough seat, voted 228 to 23 in favor. People: Dennis Heartt Place: Orange CountySearch the index · Lefler and Wager, Orange County, 1752-1952 (1953), p. 86 · Also: Hillsborough Recorder, April 10, 1835, p. 3
  7. The Recorder prints a county meeting's warning to abolitionists An Orange County meeting adopted a report warning "northern fanatics" not to stir up the enslaved and predicting lasting hostility between the sections if abolitionists pressed on. Its fourteen-man committee included Frederick Nash, William A. Graham, Hugh Waddell, John U. Kirkland, Dr. Edmund Strudwick and the paper's own editor, Dennis Heartt, as a secretary. People: Frederick Nash, William A. Graham, Hugh Waddell, John U. Kirkland, Edmund Strudwick, Dennis Heartt Place: HillsboroughBurwell 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. 49
  8. Hillsborough elects Dennis Heartt magistrate of police and seven town commissioners Hillsborough voters chose Dennis Heartt, editor of the Recorder, as magistrate of police for the coming year and elected seven town commissioners, among them Dr. Edmund Strudwick, John Scott, William H. Phillips and Stephen Moore. People: Edmund Strudwick, Stephen Moore Place: Hillsborough · Also named: John Scott, William H. PhillipsSearch the index · Hillsborough Recorder, February 12, 1836, p. 3
  9. Orange County supporters of Hugh L. White meet at the court house More than a hundred Orange County opponents of Martin Van Buren met at the Hillsborough court house during county court week, endorsed Hugh L. White for president, John Tyler for vice president and Edward B. Dudley for governor, and named James Mebane, Dr. Edmund Strudwick and Harrison Parker to meet Granville and Person delegates and choose a district elector. James S. Smith, Hugh Waddell and James Mebane spoke, and the meeting adjourned to the Wednesday of superior court week to name candidates for the legislature. People: James Strudwick Smith, Hugh Waddell, James Mebane, Edmund Strudwick, Dennis Heartt, Harrison Parker Place: Court house, Hillsborough · Also named: Edward B. DudleySearch the index · Hillsborough Recorder, February 26, 1836, p. 3
  10. Polly Burke's Queen Street house passes to Dennis Heartt's family Mary W. Burke, daughter of Governor Thomas Burke, moved to Alabama in 1837. On May 4 of that year James Webb, acting as her attorney, sold her East Queen Street house for $750 to Caroline and Henrietta Heartt, daughters of the Hillsborough Recorder editor Dennis Heartt. The whole Heartt family lived there, the house came to be known as Heartsease, and the Heartts added the two-story west wing soon after the purchase. People: Mary “Polly” Burke, James Webb, Dennis Heartt Place: Hillsborough, Heartsease (East Queen Street) · Also named: Mary W. Burke, Henrietta HearttSearch the index · NC State Historic Preservation Office: Heartsease, National Register nomination (OR0009), p. 5 · Also: Open Orange: Heartsease
  11. The Hillsborough Recorder proposes a convention of North Carolina editors Dennis Heartt's Recorder proposed that the state's newspaper editors meet in convention at Raleigh on the first Monday in September to agree on rules for their trade; within two weeks the Raleigh editors took up the proposal and invited their brethren. People: Dennis Heartt Place: Hillsborough Recorder office, HillsboroughSearch the index · Hillsborough Recorder, June 9, 1837, p. 3
  12. The Hillsborough Recorder predicts North Carolina will become a rival of northern cotton mills Editor Dennis Heartt told Recorder readers that northern manufacturers would not much longer be able to count North Carolina as a market for cotton goods, and should instead expect the state to become a formidable competitor. People: Dennis Heartt Place: HillsboroughInternet Archive: North Carolina Historical Review 34 (1957), p. 144
  13. Dennis Heartt's family adds a two-story wing to Heartsease After buying Polly Burke's Queen Street house in 1837, the family of Recorder editor Dennis Heartt named it Heartsease and built a two-story Greek Revival wing on its west side about 1840. People: Mary “Polly” Burke Place: 115 East Queen Street, HillsboroughSearch the index · Hillsborough Historic District National Register Additional Documentation (2014), pdf p. 142
  14. Hillsborough Academy students print the constitution and laws of their Polemic Society Students of the Hillsborough Academy formed the Polemic Society for debate and speaking, with officers elected monthly, Saturday morning meetings and its own library, and had its rules printed in Hillsborough by Dennis Heartt. Only teachers and students of the academy could join. People: Dennis Heartt Place: Hillsborough Academy, HillsboroughPolemic Society, Hillsborough Academy, Constitution and Temporary Laws of the Polemic Society (1841), scan p. 5
  15. Hillsborough Literary Association forms with Dennis Heartt as secretary A Literary Association was formed at a meeting in the Presbyterian session house in Hillsborough on the evening of January 20, 1842, after a preliminary meeting the night before, with Frederick Nash as president; James S. Smith, Cadwallader Jones and Robert Burwell as vice presidents; Dennis Heartt as secretary; and Walter A. Norwood as treasurer. Heartt, a charter member, had helped organize it. People: Frederick Nash, Cadwallader Jones, Robert Armistead Burwell, James Strudwick Smith, Walter A. Norwood Place: Hillsborough · Also named: Robert Burwell · Also mentions: Presbyterian session houseSearch the index · DigitalNC: Wilmington Chronicle, February 9, 1842, page 2 · Also: Hillsborough Recorder, January 27, 1842, p. 3
  16. The Christian Sun is founded at Hillsborough The Christian Sun, a weekly founded at Hillsborough in 1844 as the organ of the Virginia and North Carolina Christian Conference, had Daniel Wilson Kerr, an associate of James O'Kelly, as its first editor and Dennis Heartt, publisher of the Hillsborough Recorder, as its first printer. After five years in Hillsborough the paper moved on, reaching Pittsboro, Raleigh, Suffolk and Petersburg by the end of the Civil War. People: Dennis Heartt Place: Hillsborough · Also named: Daniel Wilson Kerr, James O'KellySearch the index · Internet Archive: North Carolina Historical Review 30 (1953), p. 9
  17. The Recorder begins reprinting Herman Husband's account of the Regulation Dennis Heartt began reprinting in the Recorder, from the Greensborough Patriot, Herman Husband's rare account of the Regulation in Orange so that subscribers could read and keep it, praising the Regulators' spirit of liberty. The Patriot's copy had come through the Rev. Mr. Caruthers from a Regulator's granddaughter living in Indiana. People: Dennis Heartt, Herman Husband Place: Recorder office, HillsboroughSearch the index · Hillsborough Recorder, February 8, 1844, p. 3
  18. Dennis Heartt prints The Poetical Works of George M. Horton Dennis Heartt printed The Poetical Works of George M. Horton, the Colored Bard of North-Carolina at Hillsborough in 1845, with Horton's autobiography prefixed to the poems. It was the second book by Horton, who was still enslaved when it appeared. People: George Moses Horton Place: HillsboroughSearch the index · Documenting the American South: The Poetical Works of George M. Horton (Hillsborough: D. Heartt, 1845)
  19. Orange Presbytery votes to move Caldwell Institute to Hillsborough Orange Presbytery chose Hillsborough over Yanceyville and Oxford as the new seat of its Caldwell Institute, and a town meeting chaired by Dennis Heartt welcomed the school and pledged the town's support. The trustees named Rev. John A. Bingham professor of Latin. People: Dennis Heartt, James Webb Jr., John Wall Norwood Place: Hillsborough · Also named: John A. Bingham · Also mentions: Caldwell InstituteHillsborough Recorder, June 19, 1845, p. 3
  20. Orange County railroad meeting backs a central route through Orange and Guilford A county meeting at the Hillsborough court house, chaired by Dr. Edmund Strudwick, adopted William A. Graham's resolutions that the central railroad should run through Orange and Guilford, pledged enough subscriptions to grade the road through the county, and named ten delegates to the Salisbury railroad convention in June. Graham and Giles Mebane spoke. People: William A. Graham, Edmund Strudwick, Giles Mebane, Dennis Heartt, David L. Swain, Cadwallader Jones, John Wall Norwood, John U. Kirkland, James Patterson Place: Court house, HillsboroughSearch the index · Hillsborough Recorder, March 21, 1849, p. 3
  21. The 1850 census finds Dennis Heartt's printers and apprentices living at Heartsease The 1850 census listed editor Dennis Heartt's household at Heartsease with his two daughters, his son Edwin with his wife and small daughter, two young printers, and four boys aged eleven to eighteen entered as students who were probably apprentices at the Hillsborough Recorder. People: Dennis Heartt Place: Heartsease, East Queen Street, HillsboroughNC State Historic Preservation Office: Heartsease, National Register nomination (OR0009), p. 5
  22. Dennis Heartt takes his son Edwin A. Heartt into the Recorder With the issue that closed the paper's thirty-first volume, Dennis Heartt took his son Edwin A. Heartt into the business, and the Hillsborough Recorder was thereafter published by Dennis Heartt & Son. Place: Recorder office, Hillsborough · Also named: Edwin A. HearttSearch the index · Hillsborough Recorder, February 5, 1851, p. 3
  23. Dennis Heartt is replaced as Hillsborough postmaster by James M. Palmer Dennis Heartt, editor of the Recorder and a Whig, was removed as postmaster at Hillsborough under the Pierce administration and succeeded by James M. Palmer, who signed the town's list of uncalled letters on October 1, 1853. Heartt marked his removal with a mock farewell in verse to the Postmaster General. People: James M. Palmer Place: Post office, HillsboroughSearch the index · Hillsborough Recorder, October 5, 1853, p. 3
  24. The Hillsborough Recorder enlarges and keeps its Whig flag Dennis Heartt's Recorder came out about five columns larger at no increase in price. Announcing the change, the paper welcomed the principles of the new American or Know-Nothing party but said it would not strike the Whig flag for any new party. People: Dennis Heartt Place: Recorder office, HillsboroughSearch the index · Hillsborough Recorder, May 30, 1855, p. 2
  25. Edwin A. Heartt, the Recorder's junior partner and secretary of the town and county boards, dies Edwin A. Heartt, son and partner of Recorder editor Dennis Heartt, died in late August. The Court of Wardens, whose secretary he was, the Hillsborough town commissioners, whom he also served as secretary, and Eagle Lodge No. 71, where he was an officer, passed resolutions of mourning. People: Dennis Heartt Place: Hillsborough · Also named: Edwin A. HearttSearch the index · Hillsborough Recorder, September 12, 1855, p. 3
  26. A sixteen-inch snow and record cold kill three enslaved people in Orange Snow began on the night of Saturday, January 17, fell all day Sunday and lay sixteen inches deep by Monday morning; on Friday morning, January 23, the thermometer at Hillsborough stood at 13 degrees below zero, the worst cold Dennis Heartt had known in thirty-seven years there. Three enslaved people froze to death in the county: one held by Gray Barlee near Chapel Hill, one held by Samuel Thompson of Alamance near Mount Willing, and one held by Mrs. Parish near Hillsborough, who lost his way in an old field on Sunday evening while walking to his wife's house. People: Dennis Heartt Place: Hillsborough, Chapel Hill and Mount Willing, Orange County · Also named: Samuel ThompsonSearch the index · Hillsborough Recorder, January 21, 1857, p. 2
  27. Calvin E. Parish becomes Hillsborough postmaster Calvin E. Parish was appointed postmaster at Hillsborough, succeeding James M. Palmer. He held the office before and during the Civil War, and Dennis Heartt was appointed in his place in June 1865. People: Calvin E. Parish, Dennis Heartt, James M. Palmer Place: HillsboroughSearch the index · Lefler and Wager, Orange County, 1752-1952 (1953), p. 370
  28. Hillsborough holds a town meeting over an outrage at the Female Academy and three men are bound over After young men committed what the editor called a scandalous outrage in the Hillsborough Female Academy building on the night of September 28, 1858, citizens met the next morning with Cadwallader Jones in the chair, heard Judge Frederick Nash, and resolved that town and county officers should bring the offenders to trial. The culprits were arrested that afternoon and on September 30 three were bound over by Calvin E. Parish to the March Superior Court. People: Cadwallader Jones, Dennis Heartt, Frederick Nash, William A. Graham, Josiah Turner Jr., Calvin E. Parish Place: Hillsborough Female Academy, HillsboroughSearch the index · Hillsborough Recorder, October 6, 1858, p. 2
  29. An Orange County mass meeting at the courthouse takes up the crisis of the Union Called by William A. Graham, Paul C. Cameron, Cadwallader Jones, John W. Norwood and other men of both parties, a meeting of Orange County people at the Hillsborough courthouse on Saturday, December 15, directed that a committee be appointed to draft resolutions on the state of the Union and adjourned to December 22. People: William A. Graham, Paul C. Cameron, Cadwallader Jones, John Wall Norwood, Pride Jones, Dennis Heartt, William H. Brown, Henry Kollock Nash Place: Court house, HillsboroughSearch the index · Hillsborough Recorder, December 19, 1860, p. 3
  30. Sidney Smith speaks for a state convention at an Orange County mass meeting in Hillsborough At an adjourned mass meeting of Orange County citizens in the Hillsborough courthouse after Lincoln's election, with William H. Brown in the chair, William A. Graham's committee reported resolutions on the crisis. John W. Norwood moved to ask the legislature to call a state convention; Capt. Berry opposed it, Sidney Smith spoke for it, and the amendment was rejected before the committee's resolutions passed. People: James Sidney Smith, William A. Graham, John Wall Norwood, Dennis Heartt, William H. Brown Place: Hillsborough · Also named: Sidney Smith · Also mentions: Hillsborough courthouseSearch the index · Hillsborough Recorder, January 2, 1861, p. 2 (Mass Meeting in Hillsborough) · Also: Hillsborough Recorder, December 19, 1860, p. 3
  31. A courthouse meeting in Hillsborough calls for a secession convention Four days after Fort Sumter's surrender, a large crowd from across the county met at the courthouse. With Dr. Edmund Strudwick presiding and Dennis Heartt as secretary, it adopted resolutions asking the legislature to call a convention at once to pass an ordinance of secession. The meeting also pledged that the citizens of Orange would provide for the families of the Orange Guards while the company was in state service. People: Edmund Strudwick, Dennis Heartt Place: HillsboroughBurwell 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. 52 · Also: Hillsborough Recorder, April 24, 1861, p. 2
  32. The Recorder cuts the size of its sheet for lack of paper With paper scarce and much dearer, the Hillsborough Recorder came out on December 25 on a smaller sheet of poorer paper, promising to cut advertising rather than reading matter, and announced it would skip the next week's issue for the printers' holiday. People: Dennis Heartt Place: Recorder office, HillsboroughSearch the index · Hillsborough Recorder, December 25, 1861, p. 3
  33. Hillsborough forbids selling liquor in less than a thirty-gallon barrel The Hillsborough commissioners banned the sale of spirituous liquor in any quantity less than a thirty-gallon barrel within the town or a mile of it, on pain of a hundred-dollar fine or thirty days in jail, while letting drug stores fill doctors' prescriptions and orders from the magistrate of police. People: Dennis Heartt Place: HillsboroughSearch the index · Hillsborough Recorder, August 20, 1862, p. 3
  34. Hillsborough restricts Black vendors at the depot and in the produce trade Meeting on the evening of Tuesday, August 4, the Hillsborough town commissioners amended their ordinance of March 13 so that the magistrate of police could issue no new licenses for enslaved or free Black people to sell food at the railroad depot, and could license white sellers there only on payment of five dollars a month. They also forbade enslaved and free Black people to buy chickens, butter, eggs or other provisions to sell again, on pain of twenty lashes for the enslaved and a ten-dollar fine for free people, for each offense. People: Dennis Heartt Place: Railroad depot, HillsboroughHillsborough Recorder, August 5, 1863, p. 3
  35. The Recorder endorses Vance but refuses to print soldiers' charges against Holden Dennis Heartt printed resolutions from the men of Dickson's Battery backing Governor Vance but left out two: one that denounced W. W. Holden and one he read as scorning every man not in the army as a coward. He wrote that Holden sought an honorable peace and that no evidence made him a traitor, and he kept that stand when Raleigh papers objected. People: Dennis Heartt, W. W. Holden, Zebulon B. Vance Place: Recorder office, HillsboroughHillsborough Recorder, April 20, 1864, p. 2
  36. Dennis Heartt leases the Recorder to James M. Turrentine for 1865 Dennis Heartt, in failing health, leased the Hillsborough Recorder for the coming year to James M. Turrentine, who became its editor and publisher and promised a conservative family paper, while Heartt kept his interest and its profits and stayed on to supervise. Place: Recorder office, Hillsborough · Also named: James M. TurrentineSearch the index · Hillsborough Recorder, December 21, 1864, p. 2
  37. Dennis Heartt is Hillsborough's postmaster Dennis Heartt signed the Hillsborough post office's list of uncalled-for letters of October 1, 1865, as postmaster, in place of Calvin E. Parish, who had signed the list of April 1. People: Calvin E. Parish Place: Post office, HillsboroughSearch the index · Hillsborough Recorder, October 4, 1865, p. 3
  38. Hillsborough commissioners ban Sunday trading and offer rewards against housebreakers The Hillsborough town commissioners passed an ordinance fining any merchant, liquor dealer or other person who sold goods on the Sabbath, except in real necessity, up to $10 for each offence. At the same meeting they offered rewards of $50 for convicting anyone who broke into a dwelling and $30 for other night break-ins. People: Dennis Heartt Place: HillsboroughSearch the index · Hillsborough Recorder, April 17, 1867, p. 3
  39. Dennis Heartt gives up the Hillsborough Recorder after nearly fifty years In the Recorder of January 11, 1869, Dennis Heartt announced that his connection with the paper would end with that number, thirteen months short of fifty years after its first issue. An 1899 history of the paper says he sold it to Capt. C. N. B. Evans of the Milton Chronicle. Place: Hillsborough · Also named: C. N. B. EvansSearch the index · Hillsborough Recorder, January 11, 1869, p. 2
  40. Dennis Heartt dies in Hillsborough Dennis Heartt died at his home in Hillsborough on the morning of May 13, 1870, in his eighty-seventh year, and his funeral was held at the Presbyterian church the next day while the town's stores closed. The Recorder noted that Governor W. W. Holden, once his apprentice in the Recorder office, had him appointed Hillsborough postmaster after the war. People: William W. Holden Place: Hillsborough · Also named: W. W. Holden · Also mentions: Recorder officeSearch the index · Hillsborough Recorder, May 18, 1870, p. 2 (obituary)
  41. Henrietta Heartt is appointed Hillsborough's postmaster Henrietta Heartt becomes the first woman on the list of Hillsborough postmasters, succeeding Dennis Heartt. The Hillsborough Recorder reported on May 25, 1870 that Governor Holden had offered the office to the Heartt family and that it had been declined, and on June 1 that Arch. C. Hunter of University Station had been appointed postmaster. Harriet H. Strayhorn in 1873 and Mary E. Berry in 1882 followed her. People: Dennis Heartt, Mary E. Strayhorn Berry Place: Hillsborough · Also named: Henrietta Heartt, Harriet H. Strayhorn · Also mentions: University StationSearch the index · Lefler and Wager, Orange County, 1752-1952 (1953), p. 370 · Also: Hillsborough Recorder, May 25, 1870, p. 3; Hillsborough Recorder, June 1, 1870, p. 2

After their death in 1870

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

  1. The revived Hillsboro Recorder moves Dennis Heartt's old press into its office The new Hillsboro Recorder reported that it had just moved the press and some wood type Dennis Heartt brought from Connecticut for the first Recorder of 1820 out of a Hillsborough cellar, where they had sat since 1867, and into its own office. People: Dennis Heartt, Frederick N. Strudwick, Calvin E. Parish Place: Hillsboro Recorder office, HillsboroughDigitalNC: The Charlotte Democrat, October 14, 1887, p. 1 · Also: Hillsboro Recorder, October 13, 1887, p. 2; Hillsboro Recorder, October 6, 1887, p. 3
  2. Thomas J. Freeland, war veteran and large landholder, dies west of Hillsborough Thomas J. Freeland died at his home three miles west of Hillsborough. He had learned the printing trade at the Hillsborough Recorder under Dennis Heartt, served as a soldier, and became one of the largest landholders in Orange, according to an obituary reprinted from the Durham Recorder. People: Dennis Heartt Place: Three miles west of Hillsborough · Also named: Thomas J. FreelandSearch the index · The Independent (Chapel Hill), October 5, 1894, p. 3

People named in the same events

People named in the same dated entries as Dennis Heartt, 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.

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Indexed works

Works about or by Dennis Heartt. Each links to the institution that holds or provides it. Background reading appears below.

The Durham Recorder (Durham, N.C.)

1820

Durham successor to the Hillsborough Recorder, the Orange County weekly founded in 1820. Dennis Heartt owned and edited the Hillsborough paper from its start until he sold it shortly before his death, and John Donald Cameron later took over as editor. Part of the North Carolina Newspapers collection.

Included because: Their name appears in the record.

DPLA

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 the 7 with a known location.

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.

All places and the county map →

Research sources

Sources and research tools for this person. For ready-made searches of other catalogs, see Search further. Research guide: Trace a family through historical records.

Background

National Register files

  • National Register: HeartseaseNational Register nomination Nomination (4/11/1973), Hillsborough: history, description, and sources for the property

Records of the time

Collections and databases

Local help

Search further

Search other catalogs and collections for this name. Results may include other people with the same name and have not been reviewed by the Friends.

Books about Dennis Heartt

Books by Dennis Heartt

Find copies at other libraries

Photographs, papers, and newspapers

Historical records and collections

These searches use Dennis Heartt’s name without birth or death dates, so results may include namesakes. Links open in a new tab.

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More to discover

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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