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Hillsborough Recorder

In Hillsborough. 16 dated events, 1820–1888.

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People in its history

Indexed works

Books, articles, records and pictures in the index about Hillsborough Recorder, 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

Death and Marriage Notices From the Hillsborough Recorder, Published 1820-1879, Hillsborough, North Carolina, and the Hillsboro Recorder, Published 1887-1888

Mallard, Shirley Jones · 1997 · S.J. Mallard

Shirley Jones Mallard's abstracts of the death and marriage notices printed in the Hillsborough Recorder from 1820 to 1879 and in the Hillsboro Recorder of 1887 and 1888. Published by the compiler in Chapel Hill in 1997, 445 pages.

✓ Held at OCPL · NC 929.375 DEA NC Cardinal UNC Duke Durham

Hillsborough Recorder

The Hillsborough Recorder was the town's long running weekly newspaper, begun in 1820 by the printer Dennis Heartt, whose shop also produced many of the Hillsborough imprints of that period.

✓ Held at OCPL

Elsewhere

Citizens of Orange County, North Carolina and vicinity

Munson, E. B. · 2003 · B. Munson

E. B. Munson's compilation of notices and advertisements from the Hillsborough Recorder, the newspaper published in Hillsborough through much of the nineteenth century, selected for the names of Orange County people and their neighbors that they contain. Self-published in Greenville, N.C., in 2003 in several volumes, 28 cm.

NC Cardinal UNC Durham

Marriage and death notices from the Hillsborough Recorder : Hillsborough, Orange County, North Carolina

Munson, E. B. · 2001 · B. Munson

E. B. Munson's five-volume abstract of the marriage and death notices printed in the Hillsborough Recorder between 1820 and 1865: volume 1 covers 1820 to 1836, volume 2 1837 to 1845, volume 3 1846 to 1853, volume 4 1854 to 1859 and volume 5 1860 to 1865. The paper reported on families well beyond Hillsborough. Self-published in Greenville, N.C., 2001, 28 cm.

NC Cardinal UNC

Marriage and death records from the Hillsborough recorder : dates, 1820-29, 1834-58, 1860-69, 1873, 1877 (though not entirely complete), also a few odd issues

Fuller, Marian Camper · 1946

Marian Camper Fuller's abstracts of marriage and death notices printed in the Hillsborough Recorder, covering 1820 to 1829, 1834 to 1858, 1860 to 1869, and the years 1873 and 1877, with gaps in coverage. Prepared in 1946 as a typescript, 130 pages and 81 leaves. A first stop for family historians working Orange County names in the nineteenth century.

NC Cardinal UNC

Death and marriage notices from the Hillsborough Recorder ... 1820-1879 ... and the Hillsboro Recorder ... 1887-1888

Mallard, Shirley Jones · 1997 · S.J. Mallard

Shirley Jones Mallard gathered the death and marriage notices printed in the Hillsborough Recorder from 1820 to 1879 and in the Hillsboro Recorder for 1887 and 1888. Published by the compiler in 1997, 445 pages.

NC Cardinal

Death and marriage notices of The Hillsborough Recorder, 1820-1879, Hillsborough, North Carolina

Mallard, Shirley Jones · 1997 · Mallard

Shirley Jones Mallard's compilation of the death and marriage notices published in the Hillsborough Recorder between 1820 and 1879, issued by the compiler in 1997 at 29 centimeters. The notices name brides, grooms and the dead across six decades of the county seat's newspaper.

NC Cardinal

References to Chapel Hill and to the University of North Carolina appearing in the available issues of the Hillsborough recorder, from 1820 through 1879, located in the North Carolina Room of Wilson Library, U.N.C.

Allen, Helen D. · 1970

An index on cards to mentions of Chapel Hill and the University of North Carolina in surviving issues of the Hillsborough Recorder between 1820 and 1879. Helen D. Allen compiled the entries by hand in 1970, and they fill one file box of four by six inch cards.

UNC

Published by or for it

Hillsboro recorder

1887 · C.E. Parrish [and] F.N. Strudwick

Hillsboro newspaper of the late nineteenth century, published by C.E. Parrish and F.N. Strudwick, with illustrations and a masthead promise of current events at home and overseas. Issues run from 1887 to 1896.

UNC Duke Durham DigitalNC Library of Congress

The Hillsborough recorder.

1820 · Dennis Heartt

The weekly newspaper Dennis Heartt began at Hillsborough in 1820, printed in large format and carrying county and state news. Publishers varied across the run; the paper was Democratic in its politics. Later compilers abstracted its death and marriage notices, which is how much of Orange County genealogy reaches back into the period.

NC Cardinal UNC Duke Durham Library of Congress

Hillsboro Recorder (Hillsboro, N.C.) 1887-18??

1887

Weekly Hillsborough newspaper whose first issue appeared 11 August 1887, published by C. E. Parrish and F. N. Strudwick. When it ended is not known. Part of the Chronicling America newspaper collection.

Library of Congress Digital Collections

Prospectus of the Hillsboro' recorder

Cameron, J. D. (John Donald), 1820-1897 · 1872 · J.D. Cameron

J. D. Cameron issued this single sheet in 1872 to announce the terms and the plan of the Hillsborough Recorder, the town's newspaper, and signed it at the end. The prospectus measures 42 by 10 cm. Evidence of how a county paper solicited subscribers after the Civil War.

UNC

The Hillsborough Recorder (Hillsborough, N.C.) 1820-1879

1820

Dennis Heartt's Hillsborough Recorder, a Democratic weekly for Orange County that ran from 1820 to 1879. Publication was suspended twice in the spring of 1865, from 19 April to 3 May and from 17 May to 26 June. Part of the Chronicling America newspaper collection.

Library of Congress Digital Collections

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.

In the chronology

  1. The Hillsborough Recorder begins publication Dennis Heartt began publishing the weekly Hillsborough Recorder in February 1820, at three dollars a year. The paper ran until 1879, and its surviving issues are a main record of nineteenth-century Hillsborough and Orange County. People: Dennis Heartt
  2. The Hillsborough Recorder calls slavery a misfortune and urges colonization Editor Dennis Heartt wrote that slavery harmed the state but argued against freeing people to remain in North Carolina. He proposed sending free Black people to Africa at public expense and asked the legislature to act. People: Dennis Heartt
  3. The Hillsborough Recorder shop prints The Discipline of Friends and A Solemn Address to Youth Besides the weekly paper, Dennis Heartt's Recorder office printed pamphlets. Two surviving titles from 1823 are The Discipline of Friends, for Quaker use, and A Solemn Address to Youth. People: Dennis Heartt
  4. William W. Holden serves as an apprentice printer at the Hillsborough Recorder At about age ten Holden was apprenticed as a printer's devil to Dennis Heartt, editor of the Hillsborough Recorder, who was responsible for his early education and political views. He struck out on his own at about sixteen, working first for the Milton Chronicle. People: Dennis Heartt
  5. The Recorder shop prints Letters on Popular Education The Hillsborough Recorder office printed Letters on Popular Education Addressed to the People of North Carolina in 1832. People: Dennis Heartt
  6. The Recorder prints a county meeting's warning to abolitionists An Orange County meeting adopted a report warning "northern fanatics" not to stir up the enslaved and predicting lasting hostility between the sections if abolitionists pressed on. Its fourteen-man committee included Frederick Nash, William A. Graham, Hugh Waddell, John U. Kirkland, Dr. Edmund Strudwick and the paper's own editor, Dennis Heartt, as a secretary. People: Frederick Nash, William A. Graham, Hugh Waddell, John U. Kirkland, Edmund Strudwick, Dennis Heartt
  7. Polly Burke's Queen Street house passes to Dennis Heartt's family On May 4, 1837, Mary W. Burke, then living in Alabama, gave Dr. James Webb power of attorney to dispose of her remaining Hillsborough property. Her East Queen Street house was sold that year to the family of Recorder editor Dennis Heartt, who named it Heartsease and added a Greek Revival wing about 1840. People: James Webb, Dennis Heartt
  8. The Hillsborough Recorder argues against dividing Orange County The paper held that a large county was harder for any family, town or company to control and would keep the tax rate low.
  9. Dennis Heartt prints The Poetical Works of George M. Horton Dennis Heartt printed The Poetical Works of George M. Horton, the Colored Bard of North-Carolina at Hillsborough in 1845, with Horton's autobiography prefixed to the poems. It was the second book by Horton, who was still enslaved when it appeared. People: George Moses Horton
  10. The Hillsborough Recorder calls for a plank road from Hillsborough to Milton An editorial regretted that no one had asked the last legislature to charter a company to build a plank road from Hillsborough to Milton by way of Roxboro or Yanceyville. It hoped a stock company would form under the general act of 1850-51 while a charter was sought.
  11. Dennis Heartt gives up the Hillsborough Recorder after nearly fifty years In the Recorder of January 11, 1869, Dennis Heartt announced that his connection with the paper would end with that number, thirteen months short of fifty years after its first issue. An 1899 history of the paper says he sold it to Capt. C. N. B. Evans of the Milton Chronicle.
  12. John D. Cameron becomes editor and publisher of the Recorder John Donald Cameron took over the Recorder from the Evans family, who kept only their Milton Chronicle. His masthead in January 1879 read 'J. D. Cameron, Editor and Proprietor', New Series Vol. 7, Old Series Vol. 58.
  13. John D. Cameron moves the Recorder from Hillsborough to Durham, ending fifty-nine years of publication in the county seat Cameron carried the paper fifteen miles east to the tobacco town, where it continued as the Durham Recorder, published every Wednesday. The last issue under the Hillsborough title in the digitized run is March 5, 1879; the first Durham issue there is July 2, 1879.
  14. The revived Hillsboro Recorder moves Dennis Heartt's old press into its office The new Hillsboro Recorder reported that it had just moved the press and some wood type Dennis Heartt brought from Connecticut for the first Recorder of 1820 out of a Hillsborough cellar, where they had sat since 1867, and into its own office. People: Dennis Heartt, Frederick N. Strudwick
  15. Frederick Strudwick co-owns and edits the Hillsborough Recorder On 11 August 1887 Strudwick and C. E. Parish became co-owners and editors of the Hillsborough Recorder. Their first issue promised a firm and conservative stand on matters of public welfare and a thoroughly Democratic line in politics. Strudwick left the paper after the issue of 8 March 1888.
  16. Fire destroys the Parish and Berry buildings and the Recorder printing office in Hillsborough A fire before dawn burned Postmaster Harry L. Parish's brick building, which held the post office, his store and the Hillsboro Recorder's printing office, then spread to the three-story Berry building next door. The Recorder lost its press, type and subscription books.

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Research sources

Background context 3

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Read contemporary evidence 10

Newspapers, photographs, and records of the time

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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