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Theme

Churches & Faith

Congregations, places of worship, revivals, and the communities they helped sustain.

In briefCongregations of every denomination raised the county’s meeting houses and churches, held its revivals and anchored its communities, Black and white; the freedpeople’s churches after emancipation and the Holy Week Fast of 1964 show the churches in the county’s public life. The works here are congregational histories and church records.

633 indexed works are connected with this theme. 19 held at OCPL →

Search these works Research sources View indexed works ↓
A brick church behind its churchyard wall.

Events and storylines

Named events and episodes the index follows in detail. Each has its own page.

Freedom, schools, and Black community-building after emancipationFreedpeople’s schools, the Quaker Freedmen’s School in Hillsborough, Black churches, mutual-aid societies, landownership, and the institutions that later carried Lincoln High and the civil-rights movement Holy Week Fast, 1964The fast on the Franklin Street post office lawn that pressed for a public accommodations ordinance Binkley Baptist and the Community Church of Chapel HillTwo Chapel Hill congregations of the 1950s: the interracial Community Church, and Binkley Baptist, refused by the local Baptist association in 1966 over its open membership and cut off by the state and Southern conventions in 1992

Indexed works

Related works found in catalogs and archives across North Carolina, the most widely held first, novels aside. Each links to the institution that holds or provides it.

Narrow these works. Each link opens the search already limited to this theme. Counts are indexed works, not copies on a shelf; a work can carry more than one period or place.

Material

Histories 261Periodicals 70Photographs & portraits 42Handbooks & manuals 29Biography 28other types 152

Period

Colonial era (to 1775) 517th century 818th century 44Revolution (1775–1783) 1619th century 95Civil War (1861–1865) 30Reconstruction (1865–1877) 620th century 67

Place

North Carolina (statewide) 360Chapel Hill 340Orange County 245Hillsborough 101Carrboro 42Alamance County (neighboring) 19

Widely held

Church in the Old Fields: Hawfields Presbyterian Church and Community in North Carolina

Turner, Herbert Snipes · 1962

Herbert Snipes Turner's history of Hawfields Presbyterian Church and its community from 1738 to 1960. Hawfields lies in what is now Alamance County, land that was part of Orange County until 1849, and the book gives a place to Henry Pattillo, the congregation's eighteenth-century minister. Published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1962, 297 pages with illustrations.

Why this is here: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Church history.

Reviewed in The Journal of Southern History (1963).

✓ Held at OCPL · NC 285.175 TUR NC Cardinal UNC Durham CH Historical Society Library of Congress

A Historical Sketch of New Hope Church, in Orange County, N.C

Craig, D. I. · 1891

Rev. D. I. Craig's history of New Hope Church, a Presbyterian congregation in Chapel Hill Township, Orange County, printed at Reidsville in 1891. A closing family history section covers the Strayhorn, Craig, Blackwood and Kirkland families.

Why this is here: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Church history.

✓ Held at OCPL · NC 285 CRAIG NC Cardinal UNC NC State Library of Congress DPLA

Jane Crow: The Life of Pauli Murray

Rosenberg, Rosalind · 2017

Rosalind Rosenberg's 2017 biography of Pauli Murray (1910-1985), lawyer, poet and Episcopal priest, raised in Durham. Its six parts follow a Southern childhood, the move to New York, the 1938 application to the University of North Carolina that was refused because Murray was Black (the chapter is titled 'Members of your race are not admitted'), law school and the coining of the phrase Jane Crow, the Cold War years, the push toward 'an NAACP for women', and a late-life ordination. 494 pages with portraits.

Why this is here: Catalog heading in the Duke record: Episcopal Church.

Reviewed in The Journal of Southern History (2018).

✓ Held at OCPL · BIO MURRAY ROS Duke NC Cardinal Durham Chapel Hill PL

Journey to New Hope

Murphy, Barbara A. · 2006

A congregational history of New Hope Presbyterian Church in Orange County, written by Barbara A. Murphy and published in 2006 by Chapel Hill Press. Chapters take up the five successive church buildings, the land itself, the ministers who served, the cemeteries, members who went to war, the church's organization, its music, gifts and memorials, and its outreach to the surrounding community. It also covers Presbyterian experience of the Civil War. 126 pages with illustrations and portraits.

Why this is here: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Presbyterians.

✓ Held at OCPL · NC 285 MURPHY NC Cardinal UNC Library of Congress CH Historical Society

Facing Tomorrow, Understanding Yesterday

1992

A history of Orange United Methodist Church in Chapel Hill since 1832, prepared by the congregation's History Committee and edited by Margaret A. Blanchard with Julia Blackwood, Mildred Stout, Wiley Williams, Kay Creech, Andrea Stark and Shirley Mallard. Published by Taylor Publishing of Dallas in 1992, 161 pages with illustrations, some in color, a facsimile, maps and portraits.

Why this is here: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Church history.

✓ Held at OCPL · NC 287 BLA UNC Duke Durham CH Historical Society

Binkley: A Congregational History

Gardner, Andrew · 2023 · The University of Tennessee Press

Andrew Gardner's history of Binkley Memorial Baptist Church in Chapel Hill, named for Olin T. Binkley, covering the years between the late 1950s and the 2010s and tracing how a congregation with Southern Baptist roots came to be known for liberal Christianity. Published by the University of Tennessee Press in 2023, 213 pages with illustrations.

Why this is here: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Baptists.

UNC Duke Library of Congress Wake Forest
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Centennial Monograph

Habel, Samuel Tilden · 1954 · The Baptist Church

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.

Why this is here: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Church history.

UNC Duke NC Cardinal Durham

A History of the Chapel Hill Baptist Church, 1854-1924

Howell, Almonte Charles · 1945

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.

Why this is here: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Baptists.

UNC Duke Durham DPLA

Recently indexed: Adolphus Williamson Mangum : memorial address delivered in the chapel of the university, Sunday, May 31st, 1891 (1891) · Directory of students of Methodist preference and affiliation at the University of N.C. : 1926-27 (1926) · Dr. James Phillips (1882) · The early settlements of the Moravians in North Carolina (1900) · Explain two plans for teaching Bible in university : University Y.M.C.A. has definite program if churches cannot unite (1924) · Getting straight with Meher Baba : a study of mysticism, drug rehabilitation and postadolescent role conflict (1972)

Search all 633 indexed works →

Start at OCPL

Books in OCPL’s Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection whose titles, catalog subjects, or descriptions match this theme. The Friends’ recommended starting points are labelled.

  • Start here · REF 275.6 LLO History of the Churches of Hillsborough, N.C. Ca., 1766-1962 Lloyd, Pauline O. · 1962

    Pauline O. Lloyd's history of the churches of Hillsborough from about 1766 to 1962, nearly two centuries of the town's congregations, with attention to the church buildings themselves. Published in Hillsborough in 1962, 151 pages with illustrations, maps and portraits, and a bibliography on the final page.

  • Foundational · NC 285 MURPHY Journey to New Hope: The History of New Hope Presbyterian Church, 1756-2006 Murphy, Barbara A. · 2006

    A congregational history of New Hope Presbyterian Church in Orange County, written by Barbara A. Murphy and published in 2006 by Chapel Hill Press. Chapters take up the five successive church buildings, the land itself, the ministers who served, the cemeteries, members who went to war, the church's organization, its music, gifts and memorials, and its outreach to the surrounding community. It also covers Presbyterian experience of the Civil War. 126 pages with illustrations and portraits.

  • Foundational · NC 285 ELL History of Eno Presbyterian Church, Cedar Grove, North Carolina Ellis, A. A. · 1980

    A 1980 edition, issued by the church, of A. A. Ellis's history of Eno Presbyterian Church at Cedar Grove, Orange County. Twenty unnumbered pages with illustrations and portraits. Ellis's original history of the congregation appeared in 1955.

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  • Rebecca Wall Collection · NC 286.06 MOU Mount Adar Baptist Church, 1889-1989 1989

    The centennial history of Mount Adar Baptist Church at Cedar Grove in northern Orange County, marking 1889 to 1989 under the motto a century of remembrance, a future of vision. Prepared by a centennial committee co-chaired by Nancy Rogers and Jackie Oakley and published by the church in 1989, 36 unnumbered pages with illustrations. Topics include Baptists in North Carolina and church history for Cedar Grove.

  • Rebecca Wall Collection · NC 285.175 LITTLE Little River Presbyterian Church History 1986

    A history of Little River Presbyterian Church in Orange County, compiled in 1986. Topics include the church's history, Orange County church history and Orange County genealogy, along with the Presbyterian Church in North Carolina. A source for family historians with Presbyterian ancestors in the county.

  • Rebecca Wall Collection · NC 275.6 NORTH Fall Tour Of Historic Churches And Sites North Carolina Presbyterian Historical Society · 1983

    A tour booklet from the North Carolina Presbyterian Historical Society's fall tour of 1983, covering historic churches and sites in Hillsborough. Church buildings in Hillsborough are its subject, so church architecture and local history are its ground.

  • Foundational · NC 289.6 HAINES Forged in the Spirit: Quaker Pioneers on the Eno Haines, Nancy Learned · 2026

    Nancy Learned Haines tells the story of the Quaker families who left Pennsylvania around 1750 for the Eno River valley near Hillsborough, where they farmed, traded and built a school, and asks how a community committed to peace fared through the unrest of the colonial years. Published by Pleasant Green Books in 2026, 122 pages with bibliography and index. Subjects include Quakers in North Carolina and the history of Hillsborough, Orange County and the Eno River valley.

  • Foundational · NC 289.6 ENG Early Quakers in the Eno River Valley: Ca. 1750-1847 Engstrom, Mary Claire · 1989

    Mary Claire Engstrom's history of the Quaker settlers of the Eno River valley from about 1750 to 1847, in the country that is now Orange and Durham counties. Published by the Association for the Preservation of the Eno River Valley in Durham in 1989, 73 pages with illustrations, maps and portraits.

  • Rebecca Wall Collection · NC 287 BLA Facing Tomorrow, Understanding Yesterday: A History of Orange United Methodist Church Since 1832, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 1992

    A history of Orange United Methodist Church in Chapel Hill since 1832, prepared by the congregation's History Committee and edited by Margaret A. Blanchard with Julia Blackwood, Mildred Stout, Wiley Williams, Kay Creech, Andrea Stark and Shirley Mallard. Published by Taylor Publishing of Dallas in 1992, 161 pages with illustrations, some in color, a facsimile, maps and portraits.

In the chronology

Dated events connected with this theme: sixteen of 558, the highlights and a sample of the rest spread across the years, in date order. See all 558 dated events in the chronology →

Earliest first. Scroll sideways, or use the arrows.

16 dated events

  1. Settlers from Pennsylvania and Virginia come down the Great Wagon Road into the Haw and Eno country

    Migration or settlement · Orange County

    From the 1740s families moving south from Pennsylvania, Maryland and western Virginia along the Great Wagon Road took up land in the Piedmont backcountry that became Orange County in 1752. Quaker families reached the Cane Creek country by this route, and German and Scotch-Irish families entered the colony the same way.

  2. John DeBow, minister to the Hawfields, Eno and New Hope people, dies

    Life event · the Hawfields

    DeBow died at 38 and was buried at Hawfields church. Craig was told he was the first person buried in the present Hawfields churchyard.

    Subject: Hawfields Presbyterian Church · New Hope Presbyterian Church

  3. The county tax list counts 36 white polls and 82 taxable enslaved people in Hillsborough town

    Statistic or record · Orange County

    Orange County's 1790 tax list returned 2,272 polls and 406,106 acres across its eight districts, with a separate list for Hillsborough town showing 36 white polls against 82 black polls. William Hooper was charged for 22 of them, John Taylor for 10 and Francis Childs for 5.

    People: William Hooper · Walter Alves

  4. Polly Burke helps organize the Hillsborough Presbyterian Church

    Founding or opening · Hillsborough, Hillsborough Presbyterian Church

    In September 1816 Mary W. Burke joined eight other people and the Rev. John Knox Witherspoon to organize the Hillsborough Presbyterian Church, which acquired the town's brick church built in 1810. She rented pew 13 on the first pew list and supported the church for the next eighteen years.

    People: John Knox Witherspoon

    Subject: Hillsborough Presbyterian Church

  5. New Hope church is reorganized under Shepherd K. Kollock

    Founding or opening · New Hope

    On April 22, 1820, Kollock laid before the session Orange Presbytery's call for long-vacant churches to be reorganized; finding no roll of members and little discipline, the session resolved to reorganize the next day. On April 23 four elders and ten members publicly assented to the articles of faith and covenant.

    Subject: New Hope Presbyterian Church

  6. Hillsborough Presbyterian Church buys the house as its manse

    Property or economic transaction · Hillsborough

    The church's trustees bought lots 152 and 153 in January 1836, renovated the house, and gave it to their minister, Robert Armistead Burwell, and his family, who had arrived from Virginia late the year before.

    Part of Orange County’s nineteenth-century academies · 102 events

    People: Robert Armistead Burwell

    Subject: Hillsborough Presbyterian Church · Burwell School

  7. Chapel Hill Baptist Church is organized

    Founding or opening · Chapel Hill

    Chapel Hill Baptists organized the Baptist Church of Chapel Hill in 1854 under William Henry Merritt, George W. Purefoy and Brantley J. Hackney, with Elder J. P. Mason as first pastor. Its first building went up in 1854–55, and the congregation is now University Baptist Church.

    Subject: University Baptist Church

  8. Henry B. Pratt, a missionary to South America, supplies New Hope

    Appointment, election or service · New Hope

    Pratt preached at New Hope for six months with the Hillsborough church. On May 24, 1868, D. I. Craig, John T. Hogan and three women were received and baptized as members.

    Subject: New Hope Presbyterian Church

  9. Joseph Blount Cheshire leaves Chapel Hill to become rector at Charlotte

    Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill

    In the spring of 1881 Cheshire accepted a call to St. Peter's Church in Charlotte, ending about three years at the Chapel of the Cross. He was elected bishop of North Carolina in 1893.

    Subject: Chapel of the Cross

  10. Lee's Chapel Baptist Church is organized

    Founding or opening · Lee's Chapel Baptist Church

    William H. Standfield organized Lee's Chapel Baptist Church, a Black congregation, and was its first pastor.

  11. A Christian Church congregation is organized in Chapel Hill

    Founding or opening · Chapel Hill

    The Christian Church congregation later called United Congregational Christian Church was organized in Chapel Hill and built its church in 1914.

  12. Chapel Hill Baptists build a Neoclassical church at Franklin and Columbia streets

    Construction or physical change · West Franklin and South Columbia streets, Chapel Hill

    Leaving their church a few blocks west, the Baptists built a tan brick and stone church with an Ionic portico on a raised basement at the corner of West Franklin and South Columbia streets, facing the campus. Frank Milburn designed it, probably his last Chapel Hill job.

    Subject: University Baptist Church

  13. Hillsborough Methodist Church builds an educational wing

    Construction or physical change · Hillsborough United Methodist Church, 130 West Tryon Street, Hillsborough

    The congregation added a two-story educational wing behind its 1859 church in the 1940s. Another addition and a covered breezeway followed in 1985.

    Subject: Hillsborough Methodist Church

  14. The Rock Baptist Church building on West Franklin Street is torn down

    Construction or physical change · Rock Baptist Church, West Franklin Street, Chapel Hill

    The Black Baptist congregation's church on West Franklin, in use since 1908, was demolished late in 1953 once its new church on North Roberson Street was finished.

  15. Binkley moves to Willow Drive

    Construction or physical change · Chapel Hill

    The congregation occupied its first permanent building.

  16. Carrboro unveils a truth plaque naming Green Cordal and Benjamin Craig

    Naming or commemoration · Carrboro

    The Town of Carrboro unveiled its second truth plaque at the former freedmen's school site on North Merritt Mill Road, next to St. Paul AME Church. The text reads that Green Cordal and Benjamin Craig, freed from bondage, purchased this land for a Freedman School and church, and that with funds from the Society of Friends they built a schoolhouse that served hundreds of free Black children and adults.

    People: Benjamin Craig · Jacquelyn Gist

Places in this theme

Buildings, schools, churches and other sites named in the dated events on this page, the most often named first. The map shows the 70 with a known location.

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.

Show 63 more

All places and the county map →

Research sources

Background context 16

Background from selected state and local sources

Show all 16

Places to visit 5

Maps, surveys, and the ground itself

Show all 5

Read contemporary evidence 3

Newspapers, photographs, and records of the time

Search beyond the index 11

Other catalogs, databases, and guides worth searching

Show all 11

Ask locally 3

Local organizations that preserve the story and can help you go further

Background reading at OCPL

Held in OCPL’s Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection. Selected because their titles or catalog subjects provide wider historical context for this theme; they may not discuss the Orange County theme directly.

  • Background reading · Rebecca Wall Collection Religion and the American Revolution in North Carolina Calhoon, Robert M. · 1976

    Number 11 in the North Carolina Bicentennial Pamphlet Series, Robert M. Calhoon's study of religion in North Carolina during the American Revolution rests on period sources and ends with a bibliography. The state Division of Archives and History published it in Raleigh in 1976; 81 pages with illustrations.

    Subjects in the Library of Congress catalog record: North Carolina -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783 -- Religious aspects -- Sources OCPL call number: NC 261.7 CAL
  • Background reading · Rebecca Wall Collection Ambivalent Churchmen and Evangelical Churchwomen: The Religion of the Episcopal Elite in North Carolina, 1800-1860 Rankin, Richard · 1993

    Religious life among North Carolina's Episcopal elite from 1800 to 1860, studied by Richard Rankin, who contrasts the men's ambivalence toward the church with the evangelical devotion of the women and follows the Diocese of North Carolina through the period. Published by the University of South Carolina Press in 1993; xv and 203 pages with illustrations, notes and an index.

    Subjects in the Library of Congress catalog record: Episcopal Church Diocese of North Carolina -- History -- 19th century; Anglican Communion -- North Carolina -- History -- 19th century; Evangelicalism -- Episcopal Church -- History -- 19th century OCPL call number: NC 283.756 RAN
  • Background reading · Rebecca Wall Collection Jubilee, Again and Again: A History of Walnut Grove United Methodist Church, 1841-1991 Parker, Mike · 1991

    Walnut Grove United Methodist Church at Walnut Grove, North Carolina, over its first 150 years, 1841 to 1991, in a history by Mike Parker, printed in 1991; illustrated and unpaged.

    Subjects in the OCPL catalog record: Walnut Grove United Methodist Church (Walnut Grove, N.C.); North Carolina -- Church history OCPL call number: NC 285 JUB
  • Background reading · Rebecca Wall Collection Our Heritage and Our Hope: A History of Pullen Memorial Baptist Church, 1884-1984 Crook, Roger H. · 1985

    Roger H. Crook's history of Pullen Memorial Baptist Church in Raleigh through its first hundred years, 1884 to 1984, published by the church's history committee in 1985. The congregation began in 1884 as a First Baptist Church mission, was organized as Fayetteville Street Baptist Church, and took the name of its lay leader John T. Pullen after his death in 1913.

    Subjects in the Library of Congress catalog record: Pullen Memorial Baptist Church (Raleigh, N.C.) -- History; Raleigh (N.C.) -- Church history OCPL call number: NC 286.175 CROOK

Search the Wall Collection for related books →

Related themes

Schools & Education →UNC & Campus Life →Buildings & Preservation →Black Life & Civil Rights →Wars & Military Service →Politics & Government →

Picture: Library of Congress photograph, late 1930s; public domain. Image credits →

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