Local figure
William Hooper (1742–1790), one of North Carolina's three signers of the Declaration of Independence, attended the 1775 Provincial Congress at Hillsborough and moved to the town for good in 1782, buying Francis Nash's former house on West Tryon Street. He died in Hillsborough and was buried in his garden, later part of the Old Town Cemetery.
Source: NCpedia: Hooper, William
1742–1790 · Dates from the Library of Congress · On the Friends’ Local Authors roster → · Library of Congress authority record ↗
14 works about William Hooper are indexed here, as are 3 works by Hooper.
Storylines this person is part of, in date order. Each has its own page.
Dated events connected with this person, in date order. See these 21 dated events in the chronology →
Later events: estates and burials, and the buildings, honors and histories that remember them.
People named in the same dated entries as William Hooper, 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.
Works about or by William Hooper. Each links to the institution that holds or provides it. Background reading appears below.
Papers of William Hooper, lawyer, legislator for New Hanover and Orange counties and delegate to the Continental Congress from 1774 to 1777, dated 1773 to 1810. They include a March 1776 letter from Commissary General Joseph Trumbull on the siege of Boston, a letter about medicines and one from the loyalist Mary Middleton about a vessel. Hooper signed the Declaration of Independence and later lived in Hillsborough. State Archives of North Carolina, PC.1141.
Papers of William Hooper (1742-1790) covering 1770 to 1822, part of the Southern Historical Collection at UNC, collection 352-z, with a microfilm copy made by the university library in 1974. Topics include North Carolina politics and government during the Revolution, on Sir James Henry Craig, on Archibald Maclaine Hooper and on the 'Hillsboro recorder', the Hillsborough newspaper.
Papers of William Hooper (1742 to 1790), lawyer, legislator and one of North Carolina's signers of the Declaration of Independence, who spent his last years in Hillsborough. The 62 images include letters touching on the siege of Boston and on politics, a manuscript sketch of his life, a copy of a proclamation by General Jethro Sumner, and copies of the obituary of Judge Alfred Moore. The earliest item is dated 1763.
NC Digital Collections record courtesy of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
Mary Claire Engstrom's article on the last years of William Hooper, one of the North Carolina signers of the Declaration of Independence, who moved to Hillsborough in 1782 and died there in 1790. Four pages with a portrait, detached from the February 1974 issue of the Daughters of the American Revolution magazine.
Included because: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Hooper, William, 1742-1790.
Edwin A. Alderman's Fourth of July address of 1894 at the Guilford Battle Ground, on the life of William Hooper, the North Carolina signer of the Declaration of Independence who died in 1790. The University Press at Chapel Hill printed it for the Guilford Battle Ground Company. It touches the Hooper family and state politics during the Revolution.
Included because: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Hooper, William, 1742-1790.
Artvue postcard of the Nash-Hooper House in Hillsborough from about the 1950s. Francis Nash built the house around 1772, and William Hooper, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, lived there from about 1782 to 1790. The card calls it the only surviving North Carolina home of a signer and mentions its place in Inglis Fletcher's Carolina novels.
Included because: Their name appears in the record.
Photographs gathered by Mary Claire Engstrom (1906-1997), dated from the 1930s to 1979 with most falling between the 1950s and 1976, about 2,140 items in 4.4 linear feet in UNC's North Carolina Collection. Subjects include historic buildings in Hillsborough and Orange County, the Alexander Dixon House, the Nash Hooper Graham House, Bingham School, Nash and Kollock School, the Hillsboro' Military Academy, Carrboro views, and the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery.
Included because: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Hooper, William, 1742-1790.
Artvue postcard of the William Hooper house in Hillsborough, a two-story home with a front porch and two chimneys, from about 1905 to 1915. The card names Hooper as one of the three North Carolina signers of the Declaration of Independence.
Included because: Their name appears in the record.
Reports and messages of joint select committees from August and September 1780, when the General Assembly met at Hillsborough after the defeat at Camden. Committees worked on supplies and provisions for the army and the adjustment of public claims. Horatio Gates, Richard Caswell, Abner Nash, William Hooper, hospitals, surgeons, cavalry and wagons all appear. 88 pages.
Included because: Catalog heading in the NC Digital Collections record: Hooper, William, 1742-1790.
NC Digital Collections record courtesy of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
Governor Richard Caswell's letters for July 1777, 115 images, with Henry Bonner among the writers. William Hooper, William Churchill Houston, Hardy Murfree and John Rutledge are named, and the counties concerned include Anson, Bladen, Camden, Chatham and Orange.
Included because: Catalog heading in the NC Digital Collections record: Hooper, William, 1742-1790.
NC Digital Collections record courtesy of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
Hooper family Bible entries covering 1742 to 1939, one of the Bible Records at the State Archives of North Carolina in Raleigh. Subjects include William Hooper together with John DeBerniere Hooper and William Wilberforce Hooper, Mary Jane Kearney, Ben C. Alston and the Alston family. The family has connections to Orange and Warren counties.
Included because: Catalog heading in the State Archives of NC record: Hooper, William.
Finding aid for a small group of William Hooper papers, 1773 to 1810. Hooper (1742 to 1790) was a lawyer, a legislator for New Hanover and Orange counties and a delegate to the Continental Congress from 1774 to 1777. The papers include Commissary General Joseph Trumbull's March 1776 letter on the siege of Boston, one about ordering medicines, and a letter from the loyalist Mary Middleton about a vessel.
Included because: Their name appears in the record.
NC Digital Collections record courtesy of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
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, Orange County GIS, OpenStreetMap and a few other published sources named on each site’s page; town and community pins show approximate locations.
7 records, 1784 to 1788, name William Hooper as a party to the sale, gift, trust or other transfer of enslaved people. Each record lists the people named in it, with their ages and family ties.
9 deeds, 1783 to 1788, in the county’s deed books name William Hooper as a party, from Mark Chilton’s published abstracts. Each links to the deed-book page at the Register of Deeds.
3 wills and papers in the county’s will books name William Hooper, from Ruth Herndon Shields’s abstracts. Each shows the role and the year.
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.
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Catalog searches use the Library of Congress name heading: Hooper, William, 1742-1790. Historical-record searches use the person’s name and may include namesakes. Links open in a new tab.
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Picture: William Hooper. Public domain. Internet Archive Lambdin, James R. and John Trumbull. "[William Hooper portrait]." Photograph of 1873 Painting. In Signers of the Declaration: Historic Places Commemorating the Signing of the Declaration of Independence , by Robert G. Ferris. U.S. Department of the Interior National Park Service, 1975. Internet Archive. Accessed February 20, 2026.
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