Schools and academies
Hillsborough Military Academy was the school Charles C. Tew of South Carolina opened in January 1859 on land west of Hillsborough, modeled on the Citadel, with brick barracks built for 125 cadets. The barracks were torn down in 1938, and only the castellated Commandant's House and a frame dining hall survive.
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.
People named in events about this site, ordered by number of mentions. Each example links to an entry with a source citation.
Books, articles, records, and images about Hillsborough Military Academy. Each has been reviewed for relevance; materials held at OCPL appear first.
Letters of the Sparrow family, including Thomas Sparrow and George Attmore Sparrow, gathered and published in 2011. The correspondence includes material associated with the Hillsboro' Military Academy, which opened in Hillsborough in 1859, and combines family and military history.
Included because: The site is named in the title, catalog subjects, or description.
Raleigh Edward Colston's four-page printed statement for the Hillsboro' Military Academy, issued in 1866 by Wm. E. Pell, printer to the State, and signed by Colston as superintendent. It concerns government aid to education in North Carolina, so it documents the Hillsborough school and the question of state support just after the Civil War.
Included because: The site is named in the title, catalog subjects, or description.
Stephen A. Ross's study of the Hillsborough Military Academy and military education in North Carolina before the Civil War, dated 2002. An article-length piece of 27 pages with illustrations and portraits.
Included because: The site is named in the title, catalog subjects, or description.
Annual catalogues of the Hillsborough Military Academy in the county seat, with registers of the faculty and statements of the curriculum. Titles and imprints vary across the volumes, which were printed at Hillsborough and Raleigh in 1876 and 1877. Illustrated, 26 to 28 centimeters tall.
Included because: The site is named in the title, catalog subjects, or description.
Historic American Buildings Survey documentation of the Barracks, a brick building on Barracks Road in Hillsborough, in two photographs compiled after 1933. Topics include education, private schools and building deterioration. Archie A. Biggs is the name attached to the survey work.
Included because: The site is named in the title, catalog subjects, or description.
George Attmore Sparrow wrote to his father, Thomas Sparrow, on 26 May 1862 from the Hillsborough Military Academy. The cadet says he would rather be serving his county in the war but will stay at school because his father wants him to.
Included because: The site is named in the title, catalog subjects, or description.
Writing from the Hillsborough Military Academy on 11 July 1862, cadet George Attmore Sparrow tells his father, Thomas Sparrow, that his letter arrived with one from his mother and a newspaper. He also mentions a speech by Edward Stanly, the military governor appointed for eastern North Carolina.
Included because: The site is named in the title, catalog subjects, or description.
Letter of 7 September 1862 to Thomas Sparrow from his son George Attmore Sparrow, a cadet at the Hillsborough Military Academy. News that Confederate troops had retaken Washington, North Carolina, has left him worried about his family, and he asks to be told of anything that happens.
Included because: The site is named in the title, catalog subjects, or description.
Civil War letter of 9 November 1862 sent by cadet George Attmore Sparrow from the Hillsborough Military Academy to his father, Thomas Sparrow. He thanks him for twenty dollars and a bag of clothes and turns to the fighting in eastern North Carolina, passing on word of 1,600 Federal troops at Scotland Neck.
Included because: The site is named in the title, catalog subjects, or description.
On 28 November 1862 George Attmore Sparrow wrote from the Hillsborough Military Academy to his father, Thomas Sparrow, about reports of a large fleet off Wilmington and Confederates expecting an attack any day. He admits he puts little faith in the rumor.
Included because: The site is named in the title, catalog subjects, or description.
Registers of the officers and cadets of the Hillsboro Military Academy, printed by Dennis Heartt in 1864. These Confederate-era publications include the curriculum as well as lists of officers and cadets, providing names for research on families and military education in Orange County.
Included because: Published by or for this institution.
Annual registers of the Hillsboro Military Academy at Hillsborough, printed in Raleigh on the Raleigh Register steam power press. The series is dated 1865 and includes issues from 1861 and 1863. Each volume names officers and cadets and outlines the curriculum.
Included because: Published by or for this institution.
Semi-annual register of the officers and cadets of the Hillsboro Military Academy, printed in Raleigh by Jno. W. Syme in 1860. The volume lists names and sets out the course of instruction at the Hillsborough military school.
Included because: Published by or for this institution.
Not about Hillsborough Military Academy 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.
Claude Joseph Sauthier's 1768 plan of the town of Hillsborough in Orange County, reproduced as a colored facsimile of the pen and ink manuscript on a sheet 43 by 53 centimeters. Relief is shown by hachures and the sheet is indexed for points of interest. The 1975 reproduction was made from negatives taken of the original in the Map Room of the British Museum.
Included because: A survey or map of the town or county where the site stands.
Plan of Hillsborough drawn in October 1863, showing the downtown blocks around the crossing of Tryon and Churton Streets, with the Eno River, spelled Enoe on the sheet.
Included because: A survey or map of the town or county where the site stands.
Fire insurance map of Hillsborough, spelled Hillsboro, drawn by the Sanborn Map Company in January 1905 on two sheets, from the Sanborn Maps collection.
Included because: A survey or map of the town or county where the site stands.
Bird's-eye view of Hillsborough looking east, with houses and industrial buildings, on a postcard published by A. C. Bosselman & Co. of New York about 1905 to 1915. Card number 11116.
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.
These books don’t necessarily mention Hillsborough Military Academy, 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.
Francis Nash's history of Hillsborough in colonial and Revolutionary times, first published in 1903 and reprinted in 1953 by Edwards & Broughton with an index and a sketch of the author. Topics include the Regulator Insurrection of 1766 to 1771, the Revolution and local genealogy.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Storylines about this site, each with a page of its own:
Sources cited in this site’s history, National Register documents, and places to get research help. Research guide: Investigate a school or community institution.
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