Houses, farms, parks and cemeteries
In Hillsborough. 14 dated events, 1821–2001.
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.
Books, articles, records and pictures in the index about Montrose, found by its names in titles, catalog subjects and the index’s descriptions, and read one by one. Those held at OCPL come first.
Nancy Goodwin's month-by-month account of a year in the gardens at Montrose, the nineteenth-century estate in Hillsborough that she and her husband Craufurd moved to in 1977. Beginning in late January and running through the following January, the chapters record what is in bloom and in progress across the more than twenty acres of gardens she developed there, with a map of the grounds. Published by Duke University Press in 2005, 313 pages; this is the e-book edition.
A year of letters exchanged between two gardeners, Nancy Goodwin at Montrose, her garden and nursery in Hillsborough, and Allen Lacy (1935-2015) in New Jersey, published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2001. 208 pages with illustrations.
John V. Allcott's 1965 article on the building campaign at Montrose, the Hillsborough home of William A. Graham, during the 1850s. Allcott connects the work to the architect Alexander Jackson Davis, and the piece runs as pages 85 to 95 of a larger publication, with illustrations.
Photograph of the kitchen outbuilding at Montrose in Hillsborough, which the caption dates to about 1835, with an herb and heirloom vegetable garden planted around it. Avery Brighton made the image for the Garden Club of America collection at the Archives of American Gardens. Features include boxwood, wrought iron fences and outbuildings.
Avery Brighton photographed the scree garden at Montrose in Hillsborough, where large cast iron cooking pots serve as planters. Subjects include cactus, irises, phlox, cookware and rock gardens. The image forms part of the Garden Club of America collection at the Archives of American Gardens.
Rock garden at Montrose in Hillsborough, shown with spring woodland flowers and a planted urn, photographed by Avery Brighton for the Garden Club of America collection at the Archives of American Gardens. The garden features naturalized plantings and urns.
Avery Brighton photographed the lath house at Montrose for the Garden Club of America, showing shade loving plants growing under its frame. The Hillsborough garden features shade plantings and vines. Part of the Garden Club of America collection in the Archives of American Gardens.
Looking through a redwood toward the old boxwood hedge and the house, this Avery Brighton photograph records the garden at Montrose in Hillsborough for the Garden Club of America. Phlox, primroses and boxwood are also named. From the Garden Club of America collection in the Archives of American Gardens.
Garden photography by Kenneth Druse of Montrose in Hillsborough, concerning gardens of North Carolina. It belongs to the Ken Druse garden photography collection in the Archives of American Gardens, and Hillsborough is the only Orange County tie the entry offers.
Images and documentation of Montrose in Hillsborough gathered for the Garden Club of America collection at the Archives of American Gardens. The Rumson Garden Club contributed material, and people associated with the garden include William A. Graham, Susan Washington Graham and Thomas Paxton among the people associated with the garden.
Trade catalogs issued by Montrose Nursery of Hillsborough, a horticultural nursery whose plant listings run to several volumes at 22 centimeters. The catalogs record what the nursery grew and offered for sale, so they serve gardeners and anyone studying the plant trade in Orange County.
Not about Montrose 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.
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.
Geoffrey B. Henry of GAI Consultants surveyed the historic buildings along St. Mary's Road (S.R. 1002) near Hillsborough in August 1999 and evaluated them for the National Register, for the Orange County Department of Planning. A 53-page report with maps.
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.
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.
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.
Nancy Goodwin's month-by-month account of a year in the gardens at Montrose, the nineteenth-century estate in Hillsborough that she and her husband Craufurd moved to in 1977. Beginning in late January and running through the following January, the chapters record what is in bloom and in progress across the more than twenty acres of gardens she developed there, with a map of the grounds. Published by Duke University Press in 2005, 313 pages; this is the e-book edition.
These books don’t necessarily mention Montrose, 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.
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.
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.
Index to Orange County estate records for 1800 to 1880: inventories, sales and settlements filed when a resident died. Published in 2000, it points to the original probate files, which list property, purchasers at estate sales and heirs.
Maps, surveys, and the ground itself
Newspapers, photographs, and records of the time
Other catalogs, databases, and guides worth searching
Local organizations that preserve the story and can help you go further
Other sources to search and local organizations that can help.
