Churches and lodges
University Baptist Church began as the Baptist Church of Chapel Hill, organized in 1854, which opened a brick meeting house in May 1855. In 1923 the congregation built its Neoclassical church at West Franklin and South Columbia streets, facing the campus, to a design by Frank Milburn; Martin Luther King Jr. spoke there in 1960.
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 University Baptist Church. Each has been reviewed for relevance; materials held at OCPL appear first.
Samuel Tilden Habel's centennial monograph on the Baptist Church at Chapel Hill, covering its first hundred years from 1854 to 1954. It pairs a narrative of the congregation with membership lists. Published by the church in Chapel Hill in 1954, 58 pages plus sixteen pages of plates with illustrations, portraits and facsimiles.
Included because: The site is named in the title, catalog subjects, or description.
A. C. Howell's history of the Baptist church in Chapel Hill from 1854 to 1924, published in 1945. Thirty-two pages with one plate; the story touches the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina as well as the congregation itself.
Included because: The site is named in the title, catalog subjects, or description.
Family portrait from 1990 of H. Mitchell Simpson, pastor of University Baptist Church in Chapel Hill, with his wife and children. From the churches series of the Chapel Hill Historical Society's Prints and Photographs Collection.
Included because: The site is named in the title, catalog subjects, or description.
Samuel Tilden Habel's history of the Baptist Church at Chapel Hill, written for its hundredth anniversary and published by the church in 1954.
Included because: The site is named in the title, catalog subjects, or description.
One volume marking the centennial of Chapel Hill Baptist Church in 1954, with a title supplied by the cataloger. It is a scrapbook and as Baptist church history in Chapel Hill, so the volume gathers material on the congregation's hundredth year. In the North Carolina Collection at UNC.
Included because: The site is named in the title, catalog subjects, or description.
Chapel Hill's Baptist church, with its columned entrance and cars parked out front, on a 1930s real photo postcard by Richardson Photo Card of Charlottesville, Virginia. Card number 4C.
Included because: The site is named in the title, catalog subjects, or description.
Chapel Hill Baptist Church in four undated exterior photographs, including a view from the street and a front view with two people posed outside. Part of the Chapel Hill Historical Society's Prints and Photographs Collection.
Included because: The site is named in the title, catalog subjects, or description.
University Baptist Church in Chapel Hill, in ten undated exterior photographs taken from the side, from across the street and in shadow. Part of the Chapel Hill Historical Society's Prints and Photographs Collection.
Included because: The site is named in the title, catalog subjects, or description.
Audio recording of William C. Friday, the longtime president of the University of North Carolina, welcoming students at University Baptist Church in Chapel Hill in August 2009. The disc holds two segments, the second introduced by Mitch Simpson and recorded at the same church on October 16, 2011.
Included because: Published by or for this institution.
Yearbook and membership directory of Chapel Hill Baptist Church, issued as a serial with illustrations and a portrait and recorded here at 1974. A note records that the 1930 issue carries a historical sketch of the congregation. Topics include Baptists at Chapel Hill and the church history of the town, and the rosters name members year by year.
Included because: Published by or for this institution.
Constitution and by-laws of University Baptist Church in Chapel Hill, adopted March 1, 1961, and printed by the church in 1965 with all revisions through December 31, 1964. Sixteen pages.
Included because: Published by or for this institution.
Draft constitution put to the members of University Baptist Church in Chapel Hill, circulated with a cover letter dated February 20, 1961. Twenty five leaves setting out the proposed government of the congregation.
Included because: Published by or for this institution.
Statement that W. Wesley Shrader put before his congregation at University Baptist Church in Chapel Hill, printed by the author in 1960 in four unnumbered leaves. The statement concerns Baptists in Chapel Hill, African Americans and religion, addressing questions of race within the congregation.
Included because: Published by or for this institution.
Two typed leaves setting out the recommended 1961 budget of University Baptist Church in Chapel Hill, issued by the church in 1960.
Included because: Published by or for this institution.
Recommendation put before the Baptist congregation at Chapel Hill by its board of deacons, presented in conference on January 24 and January 31, 1957. Six mimeographed leaves with a map. A brief printed record of a decision the congregation was asked to take in the late 1950s.
Included because: Published by or for this institution.
Stewardship booklet from the Baptist Church at Chapel Hill for 1955 and 1956, presenting the congregation's ministry as a case for members' giving. Published by the church in 1955, 32 unnumbered pages with illustrations.
Included because: Published by or for this institution.
Marjorie Wylde's religious drama, published in 1954 and tied to the Chapel Hill Baptist Church, the probable publisher. Its subjects are Baptists in drama and drama set in Chapel Hill, so the piece belongs to the congregation's own life. Twenty-eight pages at 29 cm.
Included because: Published by or for this institution.
Congregational records of University Baptist Church in Chapel Hill spanning 1854 to 1973, about 5,500 items in 13.5 linear feet, part of the Southern Historical Collection at UNC, collection 4162.
Included because: Published by or for this institution.
Not about University Baptist Church 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.
George Arthur Johnson surveys the churches of southern Orange County, the part of the county south of Interstate 85 that takes in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, from 1756 to 2000. The volume also includes his talk to the Chapel Hill Historical Society on March 4, 1996, on the university, the churches and the Jews of Chapel Hill. Published by the society in 2000, 144 pages plus lettered pages A to F.
Included because: A survey or map of the town or county where the site stands.
Margaret Ruth Little-Stokes's survey of Chapel Hill's town and campus buildings from 1795 to 1975, published by the Preservation Society of Chapel Hill in 2006. Chapters run from the first campus buildings through David Swain's romantic campus to midcentury modernism, followed by area surveys of the campus, east and west Chapel Hill, downtown, Northside and the suburbs.
Included because: A survey or map of the town or county where the site stands.
M. Ruth Little's 2004 architectural history of Chapel Hill and the university campus from 1795 to 1975, written for the Preservation Society of Chapel Hill. A 99-page survey with a bibliography.
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.
M. B. Gatza's final report of the 1992 Chapel Hill historic sites survey for the town Planning Department, with contributions by Beverly C. Kawalec and Catherine Bishir. It covers historic buildings and districts in Chapel Hill in 80 pages.
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.
Kelly A. Lally's October 1992 final report on the architectural survey of Chapel Hill township, including Chapel Hill and Carrboro. Besides the report and a bibliography, most of its 56 pages form an annotated index of the historic buildings surveyed.
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.
Cornelia Spencer Love's recollections of Chapel Hill as a village, published by the Chapel Hill Historical Society in 1976 with drawings by John V. Allcott. Love lived from 1892 to 1981, and the book covers Chapel Hill biography, the town's social life and customs, and the faculty of the university before 1962. viii and 87 pages with illustrations.
Included because: A survey or map of the town or county where the site stands.
Bernard Lee Bryant's compilation of who occupied each structure on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill at five-year intervals from 1793 to 1998, issued by the Chapel Hill Historical Society in 1999 as a photocopy of his original computer printout on cotton paper. 191 leaves.
Included because: A survey or map of the town or county where the site stands.
Henry Dennis Carter's reconstruction, drawn as a blueprint in 1934, of Chapel Hill as it stood between 1875 and 1885, showing the buildings of the village. A note on the map says the information came from old residents who gave it to Mary L. Thornton.
Included because: A survey or map of the town or county where the site stands.
Dating from 1888 and attributed to Hunter Lee Harris, a map of Chapel Hill and its vicinity, reproduced as a photocopy measuring 22 by 37 centimeters. Harris died in 1893, which brackets the drawing to the late nineteenth century. An early depiction of the streets of the village and the land around it.
Included because: A survey or map of the town or county where the site stands.
Pen-and-ink manuscript map of Chapel Hill dated 1852, with a table of measurements, showing the University campus, the village around it, street widths and layout, and the town limits. Later notes attributed to Kemp P. Battle give the longitude and latitude of landmarks as measured from atop New East Hall in 1880.
Included because: A survey or map of the town or county where the site stands.
Sanborn Map Company fire insurance map of Chapel Hill, June 1925, on eleven sheets, with Carrboro also drawn. Sanborn maps recorded the outline, construction and use of each building for fire insurers, so the set shows both towns block by block in the mid 1920s.
Included because: A survey or map of the town or county where the site stands.
Street and property map of Chapel Hill and the surrounding country, revised to 1 January 1933 and printed in the town. Topics include streets, real property and the historical geography of Chapel Hill along with maps of the University of North Carolina in its 1793 to 1962 period. A useful sheet for tracing lot lines and street names as they stood at the start of the 1930s.
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 University Baptist Church, 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.
Steven Stolpen's pictorial history of Chapel Hill, one of the Donning Company's photographic town histories, published in Norfolk, Virginia in 1978. Photographs and portraits carry the story of the town and the university, including references to Thomas Wolfe's years as a student at Carolina. 156 pages with illustrations.
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.
A pocket-sized guide to the historic buildings and landmarks of Chapel Hill, prepared by the Chapel Hill Historical Society and printed by Creative Printers in 1973. Forty pages with illustrations and maps, 14 by 22 cm. Topics include architecture, historic buildings and historic districts in Chapel Hill, and the guide is useful for a walking tour of the older parts of town.
Deed transcripts for the town lots of Chapel Hill and adjoining land from 1790 to the 1930s, compiled by Stewart E. Dunaway. Each transcript keeps only the working facts: grantor and grantee, price, acreage and the metes and bounds of the parcel. Self-published in 2014 as Issue 1G, 702 pages with maps and facsimiles.
Storyline about this site, 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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