Nancy Hilliard

Life and Orange County connections

Storylines this person is part of, in date order. Each opens its own page, with its events date by date.

Dated events connected with this person, in date order. See these 14 dated events in the chronology →

1. 1817 Nancy Hilliard's family moves from Granville County to Chapel Hill William and Lucy Walker Hilliard moved their family, including their daughter Nancy, from Granville County to Chapel Hill in 1817. She later kept the village's main hotel for students and travelers. Place: Chapel Hill · Also named: William Hilliard, Lucy Walker HilliardSearch the index · Documenting the American South: Kemp P. Battle, History of the University of North Carolina, vol. II (1912), p. 38
2. 1846 Nancy Hilliard buys the Watts Hotel from Lucy Watts Lucy Watts sold the hotel and the land beside it to Nancy Hilliard, already known as a Chapel Hill hotel keeper. A year later Hilliard enlarged it for President Polk's commencement visit. People: Nancy Hilliard Place: Eagle Hotel, Lot #13, East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill · Also named: Lucy WattsSearch the index · Bernard Lee Bryant Jr., Occupants and Structures of Franklin Street, Chapel Hill (1998; Chapel Hill Historical Society, 1999), scan p. 81
3. 1847 Nancy Hilliard adds a castellated annex to the Eagle Hotel for President Polk's visit For President James K. Polk's visit to the 1847 commencement, Nancy Hilliard, who kept the Eagle Hotel, added a stuccoed two-story wing with a battlemented porch in a medieval manner. The annex stood on the site of today's Graham Memorial; Dabney Cosby likely built it, perhaps to his own design or one by A. J. Davis. People: Dabney Cosby, James K. Polk, Nancy Hilliard Place: Eagle Hotel, present site of Graham Memorial, Chapel Hill · Also mentions: Graham MemorialSearch the index · NC Digital Collections: M. Ruth Little, The Town and Gown Architecture of Chapel Hill, 1795-1975 (2004), p. 24 · Also: The Daily Tar Heel, April 22, 1994, p. 1
4. May 31 to June 3, 1847 President James K. Polk returns to Chapel Hill for the university commencement Polk came from Raleigh by carriage with Sarah Polk and a large party, lodged at the hotel where Nancy Hilliard had built an annex for his stay, was greeted by Elisha Mitchell, the only professor left from his own student days, visited the college room he had lived in, and stayed through commencement on June 3. People: James K. Polk, Elisha Mitchell, Nancy Hilliard Place: Chapel Hill · Also named: Sarah Childress Polk, Sarah PolkSearch the index · Internet Archive: Milo Milton Quaife, ed., The Diary of James K. Polk during His Presidency, 1845 to 1849, vol. 3 (1910), pp. 44-48 · Also: Documenting the American South: Kemp P. Battle, History of the University of North Carolina, vol. I; NC Digital Collections: M. Ruth Little, The Town and Gown Architecture of Chapel Hill, 1795-1975; Open Orange: James K. Polk
5. 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
6. 1853 Nancy Hilliard builds the house students called the Crystal Palace After selling her hotel, Hilliard built a large two-story house east of it on land she had bought from Lucy Watts. Students nicknamed it the Crystal Palace for its many big windows. People: Nancy Hilliard Place: Hilliard house (the Crystal Palace), East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill · Also named: Lucy WattsSearch the index · Bernard Lee Bryant Jr., Occupants and Structures of Franklin Street, Chapel Hill (1998; Chapel Hill Historical Society, 1999), scan p. 91
7. June 4, 1857 The commencement ball is held in the university's library and ball-room hall The 1857 commencement ball was held on Thursday evening in the building that served as both the university library and its ball room, hung with the American flag and a banner to the graduating class. Nancy Hilliard of Chapel Hill oversaw the supper. People: Nancy Hilliard Place: Smith Hall (library and ball room), University, Chapel HillSearch the index · The Chapel Hill Gazette, June 6, 1857, p. 2
8. between 1869 and 1873 David McCauley buys the Union Hotel and renames it the Chapel Hill Hotel McCauley bought the Union Hotel, the house Nancy Hilliard had once kept as the Eagle Hotel, and gave it the name Chapel Hill Hotel. He also bought the building at the northeast corner of Franklin and Henderson streets where Richard Benbury Saunders had kept his drugstore. People: Nancy Hilliard, David McCauley Place: Union Hotel (later Chapel Hill Hotel), Franklin Street, Chapel Hill · Also named: Richard Benbury Saunders · Also mentions: Franklin and Henderson streets, Union HotelSearch the index · Bernard Lee Bryant Jr., Occupants and Structures of Franklin Street, Chapel Hill (1998; Chapel Hill Historical Society, 1999), scan p. 123
9. 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
10. from late 1872 Cornelia Phillips Spencer raises a relief fund for Chapel Hill's poor With the university closed and few able families left, Spencer wrote to former residents and to Nancy Hilliard's old boarders for money, and kept an account book of the hundreds of dollars she gave out to needy neighbors as wood, food and cash. People: Cornelia Phillips Spencer, Nancy Hilliard Place: Chapel HillSearch the index · Hope Summerell Chamberlain, Old Days in Chapel Hill (1926), scan p. 235
11. 1872 to 1873 David McCauley lets Nancy Hilliard live rent free in her old hotel After losing her house and giving up hotel work at the Exchange Hotel in Raleigh, Nancy Hilliard came back to Chapel Hill destitute by 1872, and the firm of Long and McCauley, which now owned her former Eagle Hotel, let her live rent free in a room there. Former students sent her money until her death in 1873. People: David McCauley Place: Chapel Hill · Also mentions: Eagle HotelSearch the index · Bernard Lee Bryant Jr., Occupants and Structures of Franklin Street, Chapel Hill (1998; Chapel Hill Historical Society, 1999), scan p. 125 · Also: Spencer to Mrs. Swain, December 31, 1872, in Hope Summerell Chamberlain, Old Days in Chapel Hill
12. November 8, 1873 Nancy Hilliard, longtime Chapel Hill hotel keeper, dies Nancy Segur Hilliard, whose family moved to Chapel Hill in 1817 and who fed students and stage travelers for decades, died on November 8, 1873. Cornelia Phillips Spencer appealed to alumni to help her in her last illness and to pay for her burial and a modest monument. People: Cornelia Phillips Spencer, Nancy Hilliard Place: Chapel HillSearch the index · Documenting the American South: Kemp P. Battle, History of the University of North Carolina, vol. II (1912), p. 38