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Hillsborough Recorder

The Hillsborough Recorder was the weekly newspaper Dennis Heartt founded in February 1820 and ran for nearly fifty years, one of the most respected papers in the state and a main record of nineteenth-century Hillsborough and Orange County. John D. Cameron moved it to Durham in 1879.

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People in its history

People named in events about this site, ordered by number of mentions. Each example links to an entry with a source citation.

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Sites linked through the same people

Indexed works

Books, articles, records, and images about Hillsborough Recorder. Each has been reviewed for relevance; materials held at OCPL appear 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.

Included because: The site is named in the title, catalog subjects, or description.

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

Hillsborough Recorder

State Archives of North Carolina

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.

Included because: Published by or for this institution.

✓ Held at OCPL OCPL microfilm

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.

Included because: The site is named in the title, catalog subjects, or description.

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.

Included because: The site is named in the title, catalog subjects, or description.

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.

Included because: The site is named in the title, catalog subjects, or description.

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.

Included because: The site is named in the title, catalog subjects, or description.

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.

Included because: The site is named in the title, catalog subjects, or description.

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.

Included because: The site is named in the title, catalog subjects, or description.

UNC

Published by or for this institution

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.

Included because: Published by or for this institution.

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.

Included because: Published by or for this institution.

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.

Included because: Published by or for this institution.

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.

Included because: Published by or for this institution.

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.

Included because: Published by or for this institution.

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

Storyline about this site, with a page of its own:

  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 Hillsborough Recorder, March 1, 1820 (Vol. 1, No. 4)
  2. The Hillsborough Recorder moves its office west of the market house The Hillsborough Recorder moved its printing office to the house opposite Dr. Smith's office, about 150 yards west of the market house. People: Dennis Heartt Hillsborough Recorder, November 22, 1820, p. 3
  3. 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 Lefler and Wager, Orange County, 1752-1952 (1953), p. 103-104
  4. 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 Lefler and Wager, Orange County, 1752-1952 (1953), p. 127
  5. 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 NCpedia (Dictionary of North Carolina Biography): Holden, William Woods
  6. 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 Lefler and Wager, Orange County, 1752-1952 (1953), p. 127
  7. 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 Burwell School Historic Site Task Force: Antebellum Hillsborough, Slavery, and Enslaved and Free People of Color who Worked at the Burwell School, 1837-1857 (2019), p. 49
  8. The Hillsborough Recorder proposes a convention of North Carolina editors Dennis Heartt's Recorder proposed that the state's newspaper editors meet in convention at Raleigh on the first Monday in September to agree on rules for their trade; within two weeks the Raleigh editors took up the proposal and invited their brethren. People: Dennis Heartt Hillsborough Recorder, June 9, 1837, p. 3
  9. The Hillsborough Recorder predicts North Carolina will become a rival of northern cotton mills Editor Dennis Heartt told Recorder readers that northern manufacturers would not much longer be able to count North Carolina as a market for cotton goods, and should instead expect the state to become a formidable competitor. People: Dennis Heartt Internet Archive: North Carolina Historical Review 34 (1957), p. 144
  10. A memorial against dividing Orange County circulates in the Hillsborough Recorder A memorial to the General Assembly from inhabitants of Orange opposed to division, printed in the Recorder while it went round for signatures, held that a large county was harder for any family, town or company to control and would keep the tax rate low, and asked the legislature not to disturb the county's ancient relations. Lefler and Wager, Orange County, 1752-1952 (1953), p. 18 · Also: Hillsborough Recorder, September 6, 1838, p. 3
  11. The Recorder begins reprinting Herman Husband's account of the Regulation Dennis Heartt began reprinting in the Recorder, from the Greensborough Patriot, Herman Husband's rare account of the Regulation in Orange so that subscribers could read and keep it, praising the Regulators' spirit of liberty. The Patriot's copy had come through the Rev. Mr. Caruthers from a Regulator's granddaughter living in Indiana. People: Dennis Heartt, Herman Husband Hillsborough Recorder, February 8, 1844, p. 3
  12. 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 Documenting the American South: The Poetical Works of George M. Horton (Hillsborough: D. Heartt, 1845)
Show all 31 dated events
  1. The 1850 census finds Dennis Heartt's printers and apprentices living at Heartsease The 1850 census listed editor Dennis Heartt's household at Heartsease with his two daughters, his son Edwin with his wife and small daughter, two young printers, and four boys aged eleven to eighteen entered as students who were probably apprentices at the Hillsborough Recorder. People: Dennis Heartt NC State Historic Preservation Office: Heartsease, National Register nomination (OR0009), p. 5
  2. Dennis Heartt takes his son Edwin A. Heartt into the Recorder With the issue that closed the paper's thirty-first volume, Dennis Heartt took his son Edwin A. Heartt into the business, and the Hillsborough Recorder was thereafter published by Dennis Heartt & Son. Hillsborough Recorder, February 5, 1851, p. 3
  3. 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. Lefler and Wager, Orange County, 1752-1952 (1953), p. 184
  4. The Hillsborough Recorder enlarges and keeps its Whig flag Dennis Heartt's Recorder came out about five columns larger at no increase in price. Announcing the change, the paper welcomed the principles of the new American or Know-Nothing party but said it would not strike the Whig flag for any new party. People: Dennis Heartt Hillsborough Recorder, May 30, 1855, p. 2
  5. Edwin A. Heartt, the Recorder's junior partner and secretary of the town and county boards, dies Edwin A. Heartt, son and partner of Recorder editor Dennis Heartt, died in late August. The Court of Wardens, whose secretary he was, the Hillsborough town commissioners, whom he also served as secretary, and Eagle Lodge No. 71, where he was an officer, passed resolutions of mourning. People: Dennis Heartt Hillsborough Recorder, September 12, 1855, p. 3
  6. The Recorder cuts the size of its sheet for lack of paper With paper scarce and much dearer, the Hillsborough Recorder came out on December 25 on a smaller sheet of poorer paper, promising to cut advertising rather than reading matter, and announced it would skip the next week's issue for the printers' holiday. People: Dennis Heartt Hillsborough Recorder, December 25, 1861, p. 3
  7. The Recorder endorses Vance but refuses to print soldiers' charges against Holden Dennis Heartt printed resolutions from the men of Dickson's Battery backing Governor Vance but left out two: one that denounced W. W. Holden and one he read as scorning every man not in the army as a coward. He wrote that Holden sought an honorable peace and that no evidence made him a traitor, and he kept that stand when Raleigh papers objected. People: Dennis Heartt, W. W. Holden, Zebulon B. Vance Hillsborough Recorder, April 20, 1864, p. 2
  8. Dennis Heartt leases the Recorder to James M. Turrentine for 1865 Dennis Heartt, in failing health, leased the Hillsborough Recorder for the coming year to James M. Turrentine, who became its editor and publisher and promised a conservative family paper, while Heartt kept his interest and its profits and stayed on to supervise. Hillsborough Recorder, December 21, 1864, p. 2
  9. 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. Hillsborough Recorder, January 11, 1869, p. 2
  10. C. N. B. Evans closes the Milton Chronicle and joins the Recorder C. N. B. Evans, who had closed his Milton Chronicle, became associate editor and publisher of the Hillsborough Recorder with his son, Capt. T. C. Evans. Hillsborough Recorder, January 26, 1870, p. 2
  11. 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. DigitalNC: The Durham Recorder (Durham, N.C.) Historic Issues
  12. The Recorder moves its office to the southeast corner of the courthouse square The Hillsborough Recorder moved its office to the southeast corner of the courthouse square in Hillsborough, skipping its issue of October 20 during the move. Hillsborough Recorder, October 27, 1875, p. 3
  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. DigitalNC: The Durham Recorder (Durham, N.C.) Historic Issues
  14. 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. People: Calvin E. Parish NCpedia: Strudwick, Frederick Nash · Also: Orange County Observer (Hillsborough), August 13, 1887, p. 2; Hillsboro Recorder, August 11, 1887, p. 2
  15. 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, Calvin E. Parish DigitalNC: The Charlotte Democrat, October 14, 1887, p. 1 · Also: Hillsboro Recorder, October 13, 1887, p. 2; Hillsboro Recorder, October 6, 1887, p. 3
  16. F. N. Strudwick withdraws from the Hillsboro Recorder F. N. Strudwick, who had become co-owner and editor of the revived Hillsboro Recorder in 1887, withdrew from the paper. Orange County Observer (Hillsborough), March 17, 1888, p. 3
  17. 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. People: Calvin E. Parish Orange County Observer (Hillsborough), December 1, 1888, p. 3
  18. The Recorder's new publisher gives up the Durham Recorder and keeps the Hillsboro Recorder The Recorder's publisher announced that the Durham Recorder, bought from E. C. Hackney in July 1895, would go back to Hackney's side and be printed at the Durham Herald office, while the Hillsboro Recorder would go on alone with new type and a lower price. The paper charged that Hackney had misrepresented the accounts it bought; W. P. Ezzell had charge of the Recorder office at Hillsborough. Hillsboro Recorder, December 12, 1895, p. 1
  19. Former Recorder owner John D. Cameron is buried at St. Matthew's Col. John D. Cameron, the newspaperman who had owned the Hillsboro Recorder, died on December 9 and was brought to Hillsborough for burial in St. Matthew's churchyard, where Bishop Joseph B. Cheshire and Rev. S. Paxson Watters read the service. People: Joseph Blount Cheshire Orange County Observer (Hillsborough), December 16, 1897, p. 2

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Deeds

5 deeds from the county’s deed books that bear on this site, from Mark Chilton’s published abstracts. The note under each says why: the site’s survey file or National Register nomination cites it, it names the site, or it passes the site’s land along the chain of title the survey traces. Each deed’s page links to its deed-book page at the Register of Deeds.

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Research sources

Sources cited in this site’s history, National Register documents, and places to get research help. Research guide: Investigate a school or community institution.

Background

National Register files

Records of the time 22

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