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Churches and lodges

Eno Presbyterian Church

In Cedar Grove. 9 dated events, 1755–1899.

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.

Indexed works

Books, articles, records and pictures in the index about Eno Presbyterian Church, found by its names in titles, catalog subjects and the index’s descriptions, and read one by one. Those held at OCPL come first.

Held at OCPL

History of Eno Presbyterian Church, Cedar Grove, North Carolina

Ellis, A. A. · 1980 · The Church

A 1980 edition, issued by the church, of A. A. Ellis's history of Eno Presbyterian Church at Cedar Grove, Orange County. Twenty unnumbered pages with illustrations and portraits. Ellis's original history of the congregation appeared in 1955.

Why this is here: Found by the site’s name in its title, catalog subjects or description, and read by hand.

History of Eno Presbyterian Church, Cedar Grove, N. C

Ellis, A. A. · 1955 · Eno Presbyterian Church

A. A. Ellis's short history of Eno Presbyterian Church at Cedar Grove in northern Orange County, published by the church in 1955, 22 pages with illustrations and portraits. Subjects include the religious aspects of the Civil War among Presbyterians, along with Presbyterian and church history for Orange County.

Why this is here: Found by the site’s name in its title, catalog subjects or description, and read by hand.

Surveys and maps of the area

Not about Eno Presbyterian Church 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Mattson, Richard L. · 1996 · Unpublished manuscript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.

Why this is here: A survey or map of the town or county where the site stands.

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.

Why this is here: A survey or map of the town or county where the site stands.

[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.

Why this is here: A survey or map of the town or county where the site stands.

[Map of Orange County].

1849

Large manuscript map of Orange County on linen, tracing ownership and chains of title for notable tracts with the dates each passed to new owners. Hachures show relief, and it marks principal towns, roads, railroads, mines, creeks, rivers and lakes. The date is uncertain; both 1849 and 1913 have been given for it.

Why this is here: A survey or map of the town or county where the site stands.

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.

Why this is here: A survey or map of the town or county where the site stands.

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

Start at OCPL

Books in OCPL’s Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection at the Main Library in Hillsborough whose titles, catalog subjects or descriptions are about this site. The Friends’ recommended starting points are labelled.

  • Foundational · NC 285 ELL History of Eno Presbyterian Church, Cedar Grove, North Carolina Ellis, A. A. · 1980

    A 1980 edition, issued by the church, of A. A. Ellis's history of Eno Presbyterian Church at Cedar Grove, Orange County. Twenty unnumbered pages with illustrations and portraits. Ellis's original history of the congregation appeared in 1955.

  • Rebecca Wall Collection · NC 285 ELL History of Eno Presbyterian Church, Cedar Grove, N. C Ellis, A. A. · 1955

    A. A. Ellis's short history of Eno Presbyterian Church at Cedar Grove in northern Orange County, published by the church in 1955, 22 pages with illustrations and portraits. Subjects include the religious aspects of the Civil War among Presbyterians, along with Presbyterian and church history for Orange County.

Where to look next on the shelf

These books don’t necessarily mention Eno Presbyterian Church, 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.

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.

  • Start here · NC 306.097 KEN Kinship and Neighborhood in A Southern Community: Orange County, North Carolina, 1849-1881 Kenzer, Robert C. · 1987

    Robert C. Kenzer's study of kinship and neighborhood in Orange County between 1849 and 1881, the decades before and after the Civil War, tracing family ties and neighborhood networks through the county's records. Published by the University of Tennessee Press in 1987, 251 pages with illustrations, maps, portraits and a bibliography. Topics include kinship, neighborhoods and social conditions in the county in the nineteenth century.

  • Rebecca Wall Collection · NC 929.509 STO Tombstone Inscriptions: Recorded From Private or Abandoned Cemeteries in Alamance and Orange Counties, North Carolina Stokes, Durward T. · 1979

    Durward T. Stokes's transcriptions of tombstone inscriptions from private and abandoned cemeteries in Alamance and Orange counties, dated at Graham, N.C., August 25, 1979. A photocopied typescript of 60 leaves with 10 preliminary pages, it preserves names and dates from family and neglected burial grounds and is a genealogical source for both counties.

In the chronology

  1. Hugh McAden preaches to the Eno Presbyterian settlers On August 10, 1755 the missionary Hugh McAden preached at Eno to a Presbyterian community already settled near the river, southeast of present Cedar Grove; the congregation counts its beginning from these years. The settlers asked Hanover Presbytery for supply preachers in 1756, and by church tradition the congregation was formally organized during the Synod mission of 1764.
  2. Hugh McAden preaches to the Eno and Hawfields settlements The traveling Presbyterian licentiate Hugh McAden preached to the Eno settlement on the second Sabbath of August 1755, lodging at John Anderson's house, and rode on to preach at the Hawfields on the fourth Sabbath. His journal is the earliest surviving description of either settlement.
  3. New Hope Presbyterian Church traces its beginning to New Hope Presbyterian Church, south of Hillsborough on the road to Chapel Hill, counts 1756 as its founding year, when the Hawfields and Eno Presbyterians, with whom the New Hope families then worshiped, first asked Hanover Presbytery for preachers. Its early records burned in 1827; D. I. Craig judged it was formally organized later, most likely under Henry Pattillo after his 1765 call, and it first appears with its own minister in the 1795 Orange Presbytery minutes.
  4. Henry Pattillo becomes pastor of the Hawfields, Eno and Little River churches Henry Pattillo moved to Orange County as pastor of the Hawfields, Eno and Little River Presbyterian churches and served them for nine years, becoming known as "Father Pattillo." He was the first regularly installed minister at Eno.
  5. Henry Pattillo leaves the Hawfields and Eno churches Pattillo, who came to the Hawfields and Eno churches in 1765, left in 1774. The New Hope families still belonged to the Hawfields then, and Craig believed Pattillo had organized New Hope church in its first meetinghouse.
  6. John DeBow takes the Hawfields and Eno charge and preaches at New Hope DeBow, a young minister, succeeded Pattillo at the Hawfields and Eno about 1775 and preached at New Hope as he could. Craig calls him probably the first preacher with anything like a regular appointment there.
  7. Jacob Lake ends his ministry to New Hope Lake followed DeBow and served New Hope with the Hawfields and Eno churches in the same way until 1790. He left Orange Presbytery in 1794 after about ten years in it.
  8. Forest fire destroys Eno Presbyterian Church Wind-driven woods fires on Saturday, April 1, 1893 burned the Eno Presbyterian church and its session house at the old site near the river. The loss preceded the congregation's move to Cedar Grove, where it built again in 1897 to 1899.
  9. Eno Presbyterian builds at Cedar Grove The replacement church was constructed over three years.

Open these in the chronology →

Research sources

Places to visit 5

Maps, surveys, and the ground itself

Read contemporary evidence 8

Newspapers, photographs, and records of the time

Show all 8

Search beyond the index 5

Other catalogs, databases, and guides worth searching

Ask locally 4

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.

Nearby

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