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Schools and academies

Cedar Grove schools

In Cedar Grove. 46 dated events, 1902–2020.

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.

People in its history

In the chronology

  1. Cedar Grove district finishes a new $279 schoolhouse with county help The board paid $150 from the general fund toward the new schoolhouse of Cedar Grove District No. 6, which cost $279.
  2. The old Cedar Grove one-teacher schoolhouse is moved to serve Black children When Cedar Grove's white pupils moved to the new high school, the one-teacher schoolhouse was hauled to Baxter Thompson's land and used as a school for Black children.
  3. The county board buys the Annie Hughes Academy to house a Cedar Grove high school Answering a petition from Cedar Grove residents, the board offered on May 3, 1915 to buy the old Cedar Grove Academy from Annie Hughes and on May 15 paid her $1,500 for it, deeding her the lot of the one-teacher school it closed. The new Cedar Grove High School took grades one through eleven.
  4. Cedar Grove voters approve a special school tax district The board allowed Cedar Grove to call an election on a special school tax in July 1917, and the returns reported in September showed 34 votes for and 16 against. The board then set pay for each Cedar Grove high school teacher at $50 a month.
  5. Black families from five northern Orange schools ask for a brick consolidated school Parents from five schools for Black children, Cedar Grove, Carr, Harmony, Sartins and White Oak, asked the board for a new brick building to replace them. The board promised to look into it; a site near Vincent's Store for a Cedar Grove school for Black children was bought in 1946.
  6. The county buys land from Mary Vincent for a Cedar Grove school for Black children In May 1945 board members Charlie Stanford and James Compton were asked to find a site near Vincent's Store crossroads for a Cedar Grove school for Black children. The board bought the land from Mary Vincent for $1,000 in 1946.
  7. Architect H. Raymond Weeks presents plans for a school for Black children in Cedar Grove Township H. Raymond Weeks showed the Orange County Board of Education his design for a consolidated school for Black pupils in Cedar Grove Township. The board sent the plans to the Federal Works Agency, which lent school systems money for architects' fees.
  8. Cedar Grove parents ask that Black educators help plan their new school A delegation from the Cedar Grove Parent-Teacher Association asked the county board to let Central High principal A. L. Stanback and M. C. Burt, the county's agricultural agent for Black farmers, take part in planning the new Cedar Grove school.
  9. Archie Royal Davis replaces H. Raymond Weeks as architect of the Cedar Grove school When state school planners faulted H. Raymond Weeks's design in April 1950, the board sent him to W. F. Credle and Edward Waugh of the Division of Schoolhouse Planning, but Weeks would not rework it on short notice. By May the job had gone to Archie Royal Davis, who was also designing Lincoln High School in Chapel Hill; the board approved his preliminary plans in June. People: Archie Royal Davis
  10. Principal E. M. Stanfield reports on the one-room school for Black children at Cedar Grove In her report for 1949-50, E. M. Stanfield told the state she was the only teacher for 36 pupils in seven grades in a single room with no library, gymnasium, fire protection or indoor toilet. The two-room Carr School nearby, under principal Anne May Morrow, had 73 pupils and lacked a drinking fountain and state health approval.
  11. The county board accepts Archie Royal Davis's plans for Cedar Grove School The Orange County Board of Education approved Davis's final design for the Cedar Grove school for Black children: a low, flat-roofed brick building with long bands of classroom windows. People: Archie Royal Davis
  12. Bids for Cedar Grove School run over budget and the board asks the state for $147,000 None of the construction bids opened on December 6, 1950, came within the budget, so the board rejected them all. On December 28 it voted to ask the state School Plant Construction, Improvement, and Repair Fund for a $147,000 grant to build the school.
  13. Jordan's Grove School for Black children closes as the Cedar Grove Negro School opens Jordan's Grove School for Black children closed in the fall of 1951, when it and six other small Black schools were combined in the new Cedar Grove Negro School, accepted by the county board that November. It is the only surviving rural field school building the 1993 survey could tie to African American pupils, abandoned in a farm field when recorded. A separate white Jordan's Grove school had merged into Aycock in 1930.
  14. Orange County closes thirteen small schools for Black children and consolidates their pupils At the start of the 1951-52 school year the county shut thirteen one- and two-teacher schools for Black children, put eleven new buses on the roads and consolidated every Black school except three near Efland. New buildings opened that year at the Cedar Grove school.
  15. Construction of Cedar Grove School begins Work on the new school for Black children on NC 86 north of Hillsborough started in January 1951. By early February a well had been drilled and the footings poured.
  16. The board cuts the north wing and kitchen from the Cedar Grove School plans To lower costs, the county board struck the six-classroom north wing, the kitchen, floor tile, clocks, bells, sidewalks and other items from Davis's design. The gymnasium was to serve as a multipurpose room partitioned into four classrooms until money for more space could be found. People: Archie Royal Davis
  17. Cedar Grove parents ask for a say in hiring teachers and get a Black building committee Seven Cedar Grove PTA members asked for a local committee with power to hire and dismiss the new school's teachers, and for paint and tile floors. The board named a building committee of Dallas Sheppherd Burnett, Wayne Compton, D. W. Torain, Elijah Poole and Oscar Carver Beasley but gave it no say over staff; it did approve the paint and the floor tile.
  18. Millard Lee Bess joins the Cedar Grove School staff The county board hired Millard Lee Bess, a Gaston County native, Winston-Salem State graduate and World War II veteran, for Cedar Grove School in September 1952.
  19. The county board votes to borrow for a six-classroom wing at Cedar Grove School On a motion by board member Kemp S. Cate, the board voted to borrow $30,000 from the state literary fund and add $25,000 from its capital budget to build the north classroom wing cut from the 1951 plans. The county commissioners approved the loan.
  20. Cedar Grove School's six-classroom north wing is finished The north wing Archie Royal Davis had drawn in 1951 was finished late in 1953 and closely matches the original classroom wing. With the new rooms the multipurpose room became the gymnasium and auditorium. Davis and board members Harry Breeze and C. W. Stanford inspected the wing in January 1954. People: Archie Royal Davis
  21. The News of Orange prints the first picture of the Cedar Grove Negro School A front-page photograph presented the new school as a major piece of the county's three-year building program. The story listed seven classrooms, a library, an office, a heating plant, two toilets and a multipurpose room used from the start as four classrooms.
  22. The name Cedar Grove Negro School gives way to Cedar Grove School The county board and local papers had called the school the Cedar Grove Negro School from the 1946 land purchase on. After 1954 they used Cedar Grove School or Cedar Grove Elementary School.
  23. Harold H. Webb becomes principal of Cedar Grove School Harold Hudson Webb, a Greensboro-born veteran of the Tuskegee Airmen with two degrees from North Carolina A&T who had taught at Central High, was hired as Cedar Grove's principal. He led the school until 1962, when he joined the state education department; in 1977 he became North Carolina's first Black state personnel director.
  24. A Cedar Grove committee asks for classrooms, a lunchroom and playground land Wayne Compton, Arthur Wells, Lonnie Thompson, Carter White and Oscar Beasley asked the county board for four more classrooms at Cedar Grove School, a lunchroom large enough to grow, and two more acres for a playground. The board did not act.
  25. The county board approves a cafeteria for Cedar Grove School After voting in September to study the need, the board approved a cafeteria for 150 pupils at Cedar Grove at no more than $40,000, while again putting off new classrooms. Archie Royal Davis's plans for it were approved and sent to the state in October 1957. People: Archie Royal Davis
  26. A kitchen and cafeteria are added to Cedar Grove School A one-story brick kitchen and cafeteria, 78 by 49 feet, was finished behind the gymnasium late in 1958 to Archie Royal Davis's plans. One open dining room filled two-thirds of it, with the kitchen, dishwashing and storage along the north side. People: Archie Royal Davis
  27. A Cedar Grove delegation asks for a classroom and playground to win accreditation Seeking state accreditation, a delegation from the school asked the board for one more classroom so the library could be used as a library again, land for a playground, paint for the north wing and outdoor floodlights. The board took no action.
  28. The state declines to accredit Cedar Grove School for lack of space Ruth Lawrence Woodson, state supervisor of the Black elementary schools, refused accreditation because the school had too few classrooms and was using its library as a fourth-grade room. Her report counted the parents' involvement, a staff study program, the office, auditorium and clinic room in its favor.
  29. Cedar Grove's advisory committee asks for two more classrooms Lonnie Thompson, Arthur Wells, Carter White, Wayne Compton and Oscar Beasley of the school's advisory committee asked the board for a two-classroom addition. The board agreed to consider it and in August approved Archie Royal Davis's plans with a $20,000 limit. People: Archie Royal Davis
  30. Two classrooms are added to the south wing of Cedar Grove School The two classrooms at the south end of the original wing, built to Archie Royal Davis's plans on bids taken in fall 1959, were finished by September 6, 1960, when the board inspected them with Davis and contractor Lindsay Fogelman. People: Archie Royal Davis
  31. Belton Edwards becomes principal of Cedar Grove School Belton Edwards, a South Carolina native and North Carolina A&T graduate, followed Harold Webb as principal in 1962 and stayed until 1968, when he became the first Black member of the Orange County Board of Education. George Pierce succeeded him at the school.
  32. Teacher Hassie Vanhook Gattis retires after 34 years Hassie Vanhook Brooks Gattis retired in 1963 after 34 years of teaching Black children in northern Orange County, at the Sartin, Grover, Poplar Grove and Carr schools and, from about 1955, at Cedar Grove. The News of Orange County marked her retirement in June.
  33. Cedar Grove families answer the county's freedom-of-choice forms The county sent 401 school-choice forms to Cedar Grove School families at the end of the 1964-65 year. Fifty-two made no choice, three asked for all-white Aycock Elementary and four for Orange Junior High.
  34. Cedar Grove's advisory council asks for a painted lunchroom and a paved playground Oscar Beasley and Arthur Wells of the Cedar Grove Advisory Council asked the board to paint the lunchroom, hang doors on the girls' restroom and give the school a hard-surfaced playground. The board granted part of the request.
  35. Principal George Pierce and Arthur Wells ask for basketball goals and better lighting Cedar Grove principal George Pierce and advisory council chairman Arthur Wells asked the board for basketball goals, better lighting, doors for the boys' restrooms and supplies for the lunchroom.
  36. Orange County Schools regroup pupils by grade across the Hillsborough schools to complete integration For 1969-70 the county put all its pupils outside the Efland area into Hillsborough schools, each serving set grades: kindergarten at Central Elementary, grades 1-2 at Cameron Park, 3-4 at Central, 5-6 at the old Orange Junior High, 7-9 at a new Orange Junior High and 10-12 at Orange High. Efland-Cheeks took kindergarten through third grade and Efland Elementary grades 4-6, and Aycock, Cedar Grove and West Hillsborough dropped out as separate schools.
  37. Cedar Grove's advisory council petitions to keep the school open As the county prepared to integrate its schools, the Cedar Grove Advisory Council brought the board a petition asking that Cedar Grove School run fully through 1969-70 and that the integration plan be reconsidered. The council said the community did not intend to give up its school.
  38. Cedar Grove School closes under the county's integration plan The county board announced in May 1969 that Cedar Grove School would not operate in 1969-70. The school closed at the end of the 1968-69 year despite the community's appeals, and its pupils moved to schools in Efland and Hillsborough.
  39. The school board sells the empty Cedar Grove School to Orange County for ten dollars After the building had stood vacant for nearly a decade, the Orange County Board of Education conveyed the former school and its eight acres to the county for $10.
  40. Efland-Cheeks pupils use the old Cedar Grove School while their school is enlarged Under county ownership the former Cedar Grove School served several purposes, among them holding Efland-Cheeks School students until an addition to their own building was finished in 1978.
  41. Orange County gets a grant to build a park behind the old Cedar Grove School A $30,000 grant let the county develop recreation land behind the school, where it built a baseball field and a children's play area.
  42. Orange County buys 39 acres to expand the park at Cedar Grove The county bought thirty-nine acres behind the old Cedar Grove School to enlarge its recreation park.
  43. A state trust fund grant pays for a larger Cedar Grove Park Beginning in 2007, with a $500,000 grant from the North Carolina Parks and Recreation Trust Fund, the county greatly enlarged the park around the old school. It now has three ball fields, two basketball courts, a playground and parking.
  44. Cedar Grove Community Center opens with a self-service library station Orange County dedicated the renovated Cedar Grove Community Center, once home to the Cedar Grove Negro School, in June 2016, with a self-serve library station beside the building. The $180,000 kiosk offered automated borrowing in northern Orange County without a staffed branch; the county's FY 2021–22 budget ended support for it, citing poor performance and low patron use.
  45. The Rocks in Chapel Hill and Cedar Grove School join the Study List Among nine central and southeastern public requests approved on October 12, 2017 were William C. Coker's house, The Rocks, in Chapel Hill and the Cedar Grove School north of Hillsborough. The same meeting placed the Hillsborough survey's Ja-Max Motor Lodge and Military Academy dining hall site on the list. People: William Chambers Coker
  46. Cedar Grove School is listed in the National Register On April 23, 2020 the National Park Service listed Cedar Grove School near Cedar Grove in the National Register of Historic Places.

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Indexed works

The index has no works about Cedar Grove schools itself yet. The surveys and maps below cover where it stands. Search the index for Cedar Grove schools, or tell us about a book or record we have missed.

Surveys and maps of the area

Not about Cedar Grove schools alone: the architectural surveys that cover its town or the county, and maps drawn while it stood. Several of the surveys can be read free online at NC Digital Collections.

History and Architecture of Orange County, North Carolina

Mattson, Richard L. · 1996 · Unpublished manuscript

Richard L. Mattson's manuscript survey of the history and architecture of Orange County, completed in September 1996. Its 78 pages cover the county's historic buildings and structures and end with a bibliography.

Orange County multiple property documentation form: "Historic resources of Orange County."

1993

National Register multiple property documentation form on the historic resources of Orange County, completed in 1993. Kelly Lally and M. Ruth Little led the first phase of the survey, and Jody Carter and Todd Peck the second. It runs 123 pages with a bibliography.

[Architectural field surveys for Orange County : collected for the Historic and architectural resources of the Tar-Neuse River basin report]

1974 · Survey and Planning Branch, Historic Preservation Section, Division of Archives and History

Historic building survey forms for Orange County gathered in 1974 by the state's Historic Preservation Section for a report on the Tar-Neuse River basin. About 400 pages of forms covering buildings in Chapel Hill, Hillsborough and the countryside; a form can carry a description, historical notes, location, a photograph and a floor plan.

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.

A map of Orange County, N.C.

Noble, M. C. S. (Marcus Cicero Stephens), 1855-1942 · 1915

Marcus Cicero Stephens Noble drew this 1915 map to show how Orange County's original territory was divided, tracing the formation of Caswell, Person, Alamance, Durham, Chatham, Randolph, Guilford and Rockingham counties out of it. Topics include county boundaries and the history of political divisions in the Piedmont. Surviving as a photocopy on a sheet 31 by 23 centimeters.

UNC

Soil map, North Carolina, Orange County sheet

United States · 1918 · United States Government Printing Office

Color soil map of Orange County issued in 1918 by the U.S. Government Printing Office at one inch to the mile, 68 by 46 cm. Besides soil types it marks roads and railroads, the Southern Railway among them, churches, schools, mills, stores, cotton gins, iron mines, cemeteries and the county home, and it names the townships of Bingham, Cedar Grove, Chapel Hill, Cheeks, Eno, Hillsborough and Little River.

Show 2 more surveys and maps

Map of Orange County, N.C. : 1939

Stanaland, E. A. · 1939 · E.A. Stanaland

Hand colored map of Orange County drawn by E. A. Stanaland and published at Parrott, Georgia, in 1939. It shows towns and townships, roads and railroads, and marks the schools and churches standing in the county. One sheet, 58 by 36 centimeters.

UNC

School map, Orange County, North Carolina.

1922

School map of Orange County from about 1922, a blue line print marking townships, towns, churches and the separate schools for white and Black children under segregation. Communities shown include Hillsborough, Chapel Hill, Carrboro, Efland and Mebane.

Found a book OCPL doesn’t own? You can often borrow it through interlibrary loan at OCPL.

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    Where to look on the shelf

    These books don’t necessarily mention Cedar Grove schools, but they cover where it stands, its kind of building and the land, family and burial records behind it, and they are where a search for a place like this usually goes next. All are at OCPL, most in the Wall Collection.

    Histories of the town and county

    • Foundational · NC 975.656 ORA Orange County--1752-1952 1953

      Hugh Talmage Lefler and Paul W. Wager's history of Orange County across its first two centuries, 1752 to 1952, prepared for the county's bicentennial. It covers government and politics, biography and the county's families, and doubles as a genealogical reference. Published in Chapel Hill by the Orange Printshop in 1953, 389 pages with illustrations and an index; this copy is a later reprint.

    • Start here · NC 371.097 PENDER A History of Orange County Schools, 1752-1983 Pender, Irene Oliver · 1983

      Irene Oliver Pender's history of the public schools of Orange County from 1752 to 1983, covering more than two centuries of schooling in Hillsborough, Efland, Cedar Grove and the rural districts of the county. Published in 1983, 186 pages with illustrations.

    Buildings and surveys

    • Foundational · NC 720.975 BIS A Guide to the Historic Architecture of Piedmont North Carolina Bishir, Catherine W. · 2003

      Catherine W. Bishir and Michael T. Southern's field guide to the historic buildings of the North Carolina Piedmont, arranged county by county from Wake and Franklin in the east to Mecklenburg and Gaston in the west. The Orange County section takes in Hillsborough, Chapel Hill and Carrboro along with the rural county, with entries on individual buildings and maps for finding them. Published 2003, 596 pages with illustrations and maps.

    • Foundational · NC 917.56 ORANGE An Inventory Of Sites Of Cultural, Historic, Recreational, Biological, And Geological Significance In The Unincorporated Portions Of Orange County Orange County (N.C.) · 1986

      County planning department survey of significant sites in the unincorporated parts of Orange County, published in 1988, 95 pages with maps. The survey covers cemeteries, church buildings and archaeological sites on the cultural side, and plants, animals, endangered species, wildlife refuges, geology and recreation areas on the natural side. Useful for local historians, genealogists tracing burial grounds and land planners alike.

    • Foundational · NC 363.69 HIS Historic Preservation Element: Orange County Comprehensive Plan ; Orange County, North Carolina Orange County (N.C.) · 1996

      The historic preservation element of Orange County's comprehensive plan, prepared for the county Historic Preservation Commission and Planning Department by the Jaeger Company of Gainesville, Georgia, and adopted on 1 April 1996. Partly financed by National Park Service funds through the state Division of Archives and History, it sets county policy on historic buildings and sites and their conservation. 59 pages plus 50 unnumbered, with illustrations and maps, some folded and in color.

    Land, family and burial records

    • Start here · NC 333.16 CHILTON The Land Grant Atlas of Old Orange County Chilton, Mark · 2012

      Mark Chilton's oversized atlas plotting eighteenth-century land grants across the original Orange County, which stretched well beyond today's boundaries into what became Alamance and Durham counties. Published in Carrboro by Hand Made Books beginning in 2012, the set was planned in four volumes: Henry McCulloh's great tract number 11 and the land north of it; the Saxapahaw old fields (volume 2); Chapel Hill, Hillsborough and the Johnston Tract; and Durham, Rougemont and McCulloh's tract number 12. Maps and color illustrations, 41 cm.

    Research sources

    Places to visit 14

    Maps, surveys, and the ground itself

    Show all 14

    Read contemporary evidence 4

    Newspapers, photographs, and records of the time

    Search beyond the index 3

    Other catalogs, databases, and guides worth searching

    Ask locally 5

    Local organizations that preserve the story and can help you go further

    Additional research sources

    Other sources to search and local organizations that can help.

    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