Houses, farms, parks and cemeteries
The Hillsborough Historic District takes in the original one-square-mile town laid out in 1754 around Churton and King streets. It was listed in the National Register in 1973, the year the town also designated a local historic district, and in 2014 a new survey and history documented its buildings from the colonial period to the 1960s.
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.
Books, articles, records, and images about Hillsborough Historic District. Each has been reviewed for relevance; materials held at OCPL appear first.
Susan McArtor Bellinger's photographic survey of the buildings in the Hillsborough Historic District put up before 1950, self-published in Hillsborough in 1991. Arranged as a guidebook, it records houses and other structures in photographs. 142 pages with illustrations.
Included because: The site is named in the title, catalog subjects, or description.
An inventory of the buildings in the Hillsborough Historic District, dated 2006. It concerns historic buildings and the buildings and structures of Hillsborough. Useful for anyone checking a particular property in the town's historic district.
Included because: The site is named in the title, catalog subjects, or description.
Not about Hillsborough Historic District 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.
Survey of Hillsborough's historic buildings by Heather Wagner Slane of hmwPreservation, completed in September 2017. The 40-page report covers the town's architecture and history with color illustrations and maps.
Included because: A survey or map of the town or county where the site stands.
NC Digital Collections record courtesy of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
Cheryl Davis Warren's 2005 study of history and sense of place in Hillsborough, 216 leaves with illustrations, maps and a bibliography. Written as human geography, it treats the town's past alongside its social conditions and the ways residents understand where they live.
Included because: 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.
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.
An inventory of the buildings in the Hillsborough Historic District, dated 2006. It concerns historic buildings and the buildings and structures of Hillsborough. Useful for anyone checking a particular property in the town's historic district.
Susan McArtor Bellinger's photographic survey of the buildings in the Hillsborough Historic District put up before 1950, self-published in Hillsborough in 1991. Arranged as a guidebook, it records houses and other structures in photographs. 142 pages with illustrations.
These books don’t necessarily mention Hillsborough Historic District, 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.
A 1982 revision of Allen Alexander Lloyd's history of Hillsborough, now written with Pauline O. Lloyd and carried forward from the town's founding in 1754 to 1982. Published in Hillsborough by A. A. Lloyd, 310 pages with illustrations and a bibliography.
J. Chris Holaday's Images of America volume on Hillsborough (Arcadia, 2002), built mostly from photographs and postcards. Chapters cover homes, churches and schools, business and industry, local people, scenes around town, and sports, entertainment and events.
Elizabeth Shreve Ryan's combined histories and tour guides for Hillsborough, Chapel Hill and Carrboro, the three towns of Orange County, with the University of North Carolina treated alongside Chapel Hill. Each town gets a narrative history and a tour of its streets and buildings. Published by Chapel Hill Press in 2004, 369 pages with illustrations and maps.
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.
Lucile Noell Dula's guidebook to Hillsborough and its historic buildings, published by Pelican in 1989. It pairs a tour of the town with notes on its history, in 128 illustrated pages with a bibliography. Part of the Wall Local History Collection.
Stewart E. Dunaway worked through Hillsborough, N.C., lot by lot, giving each town lot a synopsis of its history, a plat showing where it sits and transcripts of the deeds he could locate for it. The second issue runs to 720 pages with illustrations, maps and facsimiles.
Stewart E. Dunaway's 2015 addendum to his history of Hillsborough's town lots, adding deed records arranged by lot number and further town history, with the expansion of the 1890s covered for the first time. Self-published in North Carolina as version 1.0, 446 pages with illustrations, facsimiles and maps. Topics include deeds, court records, land titles and real property in Hillsborough.
An index to the town lots of Hillsborough, Orange County, compiled in 1982 as a guide to the deeds and court records that trace each lot's ownership.
Sources cited in this site’s history, National Register documents, and places to get research help. Research guide: Research a house or property.
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