Named event or history
Hillsborough Academy, the Bingham School, the Burwell School, the Nash and Kollock School, and the other schools that made the county an educational center before the public system.
Starting source“Classical academy opened in 1801 and rechartered, 1814. William J. Bingham was principal, 1827-1844. Closed 1858. Campus here.”
State historical marker: G-37: Hillsborough Academy
134 indexed records are connected with this event.
Narrow the indexed records. Each link opens the search already limited to this event. Counts are indexed records, not copies on a shelf.
Related works found in catalogs and archives across North Carolina. Each links to the institution that holds or provides it.
Dated events connected with this event: sixteen of 24, the highlights and the earliest of the rest, in date order. See all 24 in the chronology →
Meeting at Halifax, the General Assembly passed an act to establish an academy in the neighborhood of Hillsborough, naming William Hooper, Thomas Burke, Nathaniel Rochester, James Hogg and others as trustees. The act named the school Science Hall and gave its trustees the same powers as those of Liberty Hall in Mecklenburg County.
People: Alexander Martin · Nathaniel Rochester
The school chartered as Science Hall opened as Hillsborough Academy in the repaired Anglican church building, with the Yale graduates Benjamin Perkins and Solomon Pinto as its first principals. It never thrived and closed in 1790.
Hillsborough Academy reopened under Andrew Flinn in 1801 and grew under William J. Bingham, who left in 1844 to open his own school at the Oaks. The Burwell School for girls ran from 1837 to 1857. The Nash and Kollock School and Hillsborough Military Academy opened in 1859; the military academy sent its cadets home in May 1865.
The academy's trustees announced that it had reopened on a larger plan for youth of both sexes under the Rev. Andrew Flinn, teaching Latin, Greek, English, mathematics and bookkeeping.
People: William Kirkland · Duncan Cameron
A grammar school under the Rev. William Paisley was announced to open in January 1809 about ten miles west of Hillsborough, teaching Latin, Greek, geography and philosophy for sixteen dollars a year.
The trustees announced that the Rev. William Bingham had taken charge of Hillsborough Academy, with exercises to begin on February 3 and Elizabeth Russell in charge of a female department.
Hillsborough Academy received a new charter from the General Assembly in 1814.
After leaving Hillsborough Academy, the Rev. William Bingham kept his own academy at Mount Repose, in a house on Back Creek about ten miles northwest of Hillsborough. His son William James Bingham closed it in 1826 when he took over Hillsborough Academy.
James A. Craig announced that the Chapel Hill Academy would begin its session on June 20, 1820, with a course arranged as preparation for the University of North Carolina and sessions matching the university's.
A female seminary opened in Hillsborough on August 1, 1825, taught by Lavinia Brainerd under the supervision of the Rev. William M. Green. DNCR says the Hillsborough Female Academy had been incorporated apart from the male academy in 1824.
People: William Mercer Green
After John Rogers resigned, the trustees engaged William James Bingham as principal of Hillsborough Academy, where he taught until he moved his school to the country in 1844.
Robert and Margaret Anna Burwell operated their Hillsborough school for girls from 1837 to 1857.
Anna Burwell advertised that she would open a female school in Hillsborough on July 17, 1837, teaching the usual English branches, with music available. She and her husband, the Rev. Robert Burwell, ran it in their home until 1857.
Daniel W. Kerr ran an academy in northern Orange County, advertised as Mount Pleasant Academy in 1837 and by 1838 as Junto Academy, twelve miles northwest of Hillsborough and six miles south of Mason Hall.
William James Bingham left Hillsborough Academy and opened a select classical and mathematical school at the Oaks in rural Orange County. It became known as the Bingham School and stayed there until 1865.
The Orange Presbytery's Caldwell Institute, founded at Greensboro, moved to Hillsborough and began its first session there on July 9, 1845, with Alexander Wilson as president. It used the Hillsborough Academy building and absorbed that school.
People: Alexander Wilson
Other catalogs, databases, and guides worth searching
Other catalogs to search and local organizations that can help.
Held in OCPL’s Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection. Selected because their titles or catalog subjects provide wider historical context for this event; they may not discuss the Orange County event directly.
More to discover
The Friends connects people with new library materials, local writers and publishers, and resources documenting Orange County.
