Storyline
How Orange Presbytery’s Caldwell Institute came from Greensboro to Hillsborough: the town’s welcome in 1845, the refitted academy building handed over in 1846, the charter of 1847, enrollment that peaked at 100, the close in 1850 and the academy revived under Huske and Graves.
In briefHillsborough won Orange Presbytery's Caldwell Institute in 1845 and kept it only five years. The presbytery chose the town over Yanceyville and Oxford, and a town meeting chaired by Dennis Heartt pledged the town's support. The institute opened that July under Alexander Wilson in the Hillsborough Academy building, absorbing the older school, and townspeople paid to repair and enlarge the building. Incorporated in 1847, it saw enrollment peak at 100 in 1848 and fall the next year, and the trustees voted in 1850 to discontinue it. Wilson and Ralph H. Graves then opened a classical school, and Benjamin R. Huske and Graves revived the Hillsborough Academy, which ran until 1858.
Read the full storyRead the 9 eventsAll storylines
Read the events and sources below.
No works in the index are currently linked directly to this storyline. The works below provide background on Orange County’s nineteenth-century academies.
By June 19, 1845 Orange Presbytery had chosen Hillsborough over Yanceyville and Oxford as the new seat of its Caldwell Institute, founded at Greensboro, and a town meeting chaired by Dennis Heartt welcomed the school and pledged the town's support. The institute began its first Hillsborough session on July 9, 1845, with Alexander Wilson as president, in the Hillsborough Academy building, and absorbed the older school. Townspeople paid to repair and enlarge the building. In April 1846 smallpox at the Turner house sent twenty or thirty of the Institute's students out of town, Anna Burwell wrote. On July 16, 1846 Henry K. Nash, for the town commissioners, delivered the keys of the newly finished building to the trustees, with about seventy students enrolled. In January 1847 the General Assembly incorporated the institute, and the spring session opened with eighty-nine students. Enrollment peaked at 100 in 1848 and fell to 68 the next year. The trustees voted in 1850 to discontinue the school after five years in Hillsborough. On January 14, 1851 Wilson and Ralph H. Graves opened a classical school in the town. Wilson left that spring, and on June 14 Benjamin R. Huske accepted the Academy building free of rent and with Graves revived the Hillsborough Academy, which ran until 1858.
Events in this storyline, in date order. See these 9 dated events in the chronology →
Buildings, schools, churches and other sites named in the dated events on this page, the most often named first. The map shows them all.
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.
Background reading on Orange County’s nineteenth-century academies. These works cover the broader subject and may not discuss this storyline. Follow a link to find a copy or view the material.
Sylvia D. Hoffert's article on Margaret Anna Burwell, 1810 to 1871, and the work of being a Presbyterian minister's wife in North Carolina from 1835 to 1857, the years of the female school she and her husband kept in Hillsborough. Pages 245 to 275 with illustrations, facsimiles and portraits, issued by the Office of Archives and History in Raleigh in 2019.
The Historic Hillsborough Commission's account of slavery in antebellum Hillsborough and of the enslaved and free people of color who worked at the Burwell School, the female school the Burwells kept in town, between 1837 and 1857. African American history in Hillsborough and the school's own history are its two threads. Published in 2019.
Mary Claire Engstrom's biographical register of the young women who attended the Burwell School in Hillsborough, subtitled lives of educated women in the antebellum South. The school was kept by Margaret Anna Burwell and her husband, and the book bears on women's education in nineteenth-century North Carolina. Published by the Historic Hillsborough Commission, 1979, 256 pages with illustrations and portraits.
Ellen Stanley Rogers's family history centered on Dr. John Rogers (1794-1832) and his connection to Hillsborough Academy. Compiled in 1966, 49 pages with bibliographical footnotes.
Memoirs of Dr. Paul B. Barringer, physician and educator, published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1949, 280 pages. Barringer attended the Bingham School in Orange County as a boy; he went on to a career in medicine and later headed the University of Virginia and Virginia Tech. Subjects include physicians and Bingham School students.
Ella P. Primrose's short sketch of the school kept by the Misses Nash and Miss Kollock in Hillsborough, a select boarding and day school for girls in the nineteenth century. Printed in Raleigh in 1926, 13 pages with a single plate.
Address by Bishop Joseph Blount Cheshire at St. Matthew's Church in Hillsborough on 24 August 1924, marking the parish's hundredth anniversary. Printed in Durham in 1925 at the vestry's order, with a foreword by the rector. Cheshire discusses George Micklejohn, William Mercer Green and Moses Ashley Curtis.
Recruiting booklet from Bingham School, the private school in Orange County near Mebane, published in 1910: a word to parents about their boy, with the sentence begun on the cover completed page by page as reasons to enroll him. Signed at the end by Preston Lewis Gray, president of the school. Fourteen pages with illustrations in a small oblong format.
Promotional booklet from the Bingham School in Orange County, gathering testimonials from students, parents and others about the quality of its teaching and the way the school was run; the latest testimonials date from 1907. Twenty unnumbered pages with illustrations in a small 9 by 16 cm format.
Small promotional pamphlet for the Bingham School, the private boys' school in Orange County near Mebane, setting out reasons a parent should send a son there. Signed by Preston Lewis Gray on the last page and printed by Edwards & Broughton in Raleigh, around 1899. Ten unnumbered pages, 9 by 16 centimeters.
Single-sheet program for a soiree musicale given June 10, 1891 at the Misses Nash and Miss Kollock's School in Hillsborough, a girls' school of the period. It lists the student performers and the music they played, a small record of a school evening and of Hillsborough printing in 1891. One unnumbered page, 22 by 13 centimeters.
Form letter from R. Bingham concerning the Bingham School, dated September 6, 1882 at Mebaneville, North Carolina, and addressed Dear sir. The family's boarding school was then in Orange County. A single printed sheet, 26 by 21 cm.
Sources and research tools for this storyline. Research guide: Follow an event across several accounts.
More to discover
The Friends connect people with new library materials, local writers and publishers, and resources documenting Orange County.
