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Storyline

Freedom, schools, and Black community-building after emancipation

Freedpeople’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.

In briefAfter emancipation, Black residents of Orange County built their own churches, schools and societies. Chapel Hill's First Baptist Church formed in September 1865, and in June 1866 Job Berry and Philadelphia Quakers opened Hillsborough's freedmen's school in the old courthouse. Over the next two decades congregations bought land, Black Masons established Mount Olive Lodge No. 86, and supporters of Chapel Hill's Black public school pledged nearly $80 toward a schoolhouse. In 1886 Hillsborough's AME church bought the old courthouse where it had worshipped and kept school for twenty years. A normal school for Black pupils opened in Hillsborough in 1887, and in 1889 the American Missionary Association made the Methodists' 1853 Chapel Hill church a Congregational church for Black worshippers.

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56 works about Freedom, schools, and Black community-building after emancipation are indexed here. 8 held at OCPL →

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Dickerson Chapel A.M.E. Church, Hillsborough
Dickerson Chapel A.M.E. Church, Hillsborough

The full story

After emancipation, Black residents of Orange County built their own institutions. Chapel Hill's First Baptist Church formed in September 1865; Job Berry and Philadelphia Quakers opened Hillsborough's freedmen's school in the old courthouse on June 5, 1866; Black residents bought land for a Chapel Hill school in 1866; and St. Paul AME bought its church lot in 1878.

Early in 1880 the Rev. G. W. Offley of Chapel Hill's AME church appealed to the public for help in finishing its house of worship, and supporters of the town's Black public school, which had more than 80 pupils and one teacher, pledged nearly $80 toward a schoolhouse, much of it from university faculty and students. That year Black Masons established Mount Olive Lodge No. 86, a Prince Hall lodge serving Chapel Hill and Carrboro, and about that year Black Baptists organized Glenn's Grove Baptist Church, with Henry Fuller as first pastor, and Orange Cross Roads Baptist Church.

In 1882 the congregation then known as Poplar Springs, later Mount Zion, bought an acre from S. W. and Margaret J. Hughes for its first church. In 1883 the American Missionary Association, with a gift from a Mrs. Gray of California, began a church and school building for Black residents at Brownsville, west of Hillsborough. In 1886 the trustees of Hillsborough's AME church bought the old courthouse, where the congregation had worshipped and kept school for twenty years, from the Philadelphia Friends for $800.

A normal school for Black pupils opened in Hillsborough on October 1, 1887 under Miss L. C. Jenkins, a Hampton Institute graduate, and had forty-five pupils by January 1888, when the Independent Literary Society at the A.M.E. church installed the Rev. J. E. C. Barham as president. In March 1889 the Methodist trustees sold their 1853 Chapel Hill church to the American Missionary Association, which made it a Congregational church for Black worshippers.

Indexed works

Related works found in catalogs and archives across North Carolina. Each links to the institution that holds or provides it.

Filter these works by material, period, or place. Counts refer to works, not individual copies. A work may appear under more than one period or place.

Material

Histories 17Biography 13Interviews 11Periodicals 4Genealogy 3other types 10

Period

19th century 11Civil War (1861–1865) 1Reconstruction (1865–1877) 120th century 8

Place

Chapel Hill 41Orange County 20North Carolina (statewide) 13Carrboro 5Durham County (neighboring) 5City of Durham (neighboring) 3

Ribbons of Color Along the Eno River

2021

Collected first-hand and second-hand stories from the Eno River valley as told from the standpoint of African Americans and Native people who have lived along the river in Orange and Durham counties, from prehistory to the present day. Issued by the Eno River Association in Durham as volume 10, number 2 of the Eno Journal, 2021, 106 pages with illustrations.

Included because: Catalog heading in the UNC record: African Americans -- North Carolina -- Orange County -- History.

✓ Held at OCPL · NC 975.656 RIBBONS NC Cardinal UNC Duke Durham Chapel Hill PL CH Historical Society

African Americans of Durham & Orange Counties

Bolduc, Jean · 2016

Jean Bolduc's 2016 collection of interviews with African American residents of Durham and Orange counties, presented as short biographies. The subjects are Floyd McKissick (1922-1991), the first African American admitted to UNC's law school, Walter Jackson, Brenda Stephens, Nate Davis, poet Jaki Shelton Green, Jackie Wagstaff, Diane Wright and Michelle Johnson, with a closing chapter on the Ku Klux Klan. 125 pages with illustrations.

Included because: Catalog heading in the OCPL record: African Americans -- North Carolina -- Orange County -- History.

✓ Held at OCPL · NC 975.656 BOLDUC Duke

The Impact of Slavery on the Education of Blacks in Orange County, North Carolina 1619-1970

Moore, Rosetta Austin · 2015

Rosetta Austin Moore's survey of Black education in Orange County from the colonial era to 1970, in a revised edition published in 2015 through Lulu in Morrisville. After chapters on slavery nationally and on schooling for enslaved people in North Carolina, the book turns to the county: its formation, the growth of its schools, the arrival of free public schooling for all, and the schools and African American educators of the twentieth century. 265 pages with maps, portraits and facsimiles.

Included because: Catalog heading in the Durham record: African Americans -- North Carolina -- Orange County -- History.

✓ Held at OCPL · 371.009 MOORE NC Cardinal UNC NC State Durham Chapel Hill PL CH Historical Society

Carrboro

Ellington, Richard ; Otto, David A. · 2011

Pictorial history of Carrboro in Arcadia's Images of America series by David A. Otto and Richard Ellington, published in 2011. Its 127 pages of photographs, maps, facsimiles and portraits cover the town's history, social life and African American community, with a bibliography and index.

Included because: Catalog heading in the UNC record: African Americans -- North Carolina -- Carrboro -- History -- Pictorial works.

✓ Held at OCPL · 975.656 OTTO UNC Durham Chapel Hill PL Library of Congress CH Historical Society NC Cardinal

Because we're still here (and moving) : mapping a world of Black history in our own backyard

2009 · Chapel Hill Historical Society

Folded map guide from the Chapel Hill Historical Society, published in 2009, plotting sites of Black history in Chapel Hill and Carrboro. Two maps mark places of interest with descriptions beside them, on a sheet that folds to pocket size, with illustrations, some in color.

Included because: Catalog heading in the UNC record: African Americans -- North Carolina -- Carrboro -- History.

UNC

Rogers Road

Pearce, Emily Eidenier · 2009

Emily Eidenier Pearce's history of Rogers Road, the historically African American neighborhood on the edge of Chapel Hill and Carrboro, and of what happened to it after Orange County opened its landfill next door in 1972. Drawing on interviews with residents, the book records the neighborhood's origins, family life, churches and customs, and then the environmental and social burdens of decades beside the landfill. Privately issued in 2009, 298 pages with illustrations, maps and portraits.

Included because: Catalog heading in the Durham record: African Americans -- North Carolina -- Orange County -- History.

✓ Held at OCPL · 975.656 EID NC Cardinal UNC Durham Chapel Hill PL CH Historical Society
Show 6 more

Oral history interview with Charlene Regester, February 23, 2001: interview K-0216, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

Regester, Charlene B. · 2007 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

Charlene Regester (born 1956) recalls being one of the first Black children to attend Chapel Hill's white elementary schools, in a Southern Oral History Program interview recorded February 23, 2001, by Susan Upton. Her parents, convinced that integrated schools would give Black children better resources, petitioned for her transfer to Estes Hills Elementary, then all white, and Regester describes what those years were like for her. About 45 minutes. Published online in 2007 by the UNC-Chapel Hill Library in Documenting the American South.

Included because: Catalog heading in the UNC record: African Americans -- North Carolina -- Chapel Hill -- Social conditions.

NC Cardinal UNC

Black Freedom and the University of North Carolina, 1793-1960

Chapman, John K. · 2006 · John K. (Yonni) Chapman

John K. Chapman's 2006 study of race at UNC from 1793 to 1960, issued by the author. Chapman argues that standard university histories play down the institution's role in upholding white supremacy through slavery, Reconstruction and the Jim Crow era, and that they leave out what African Americans contributed to the campus. It also covers segregation in education and the social conditions of Black residents of Chapel Hill across two centuries. 215 pages with maps.

Included because: Catalog heading in the UNC record: African Americans -- North Carolina -- Chapel Hill -- Social conditions -- 20th century.

NC Cardinal UNC

Oral history interview with Fred Battle, January 3, 2001: interview K-0525, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

Battle, Fred · 2006 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

Fred Battle grew up in Chapel Hill under segregation and describes that world in a Southern Oral History Program interview recorded January 3, 2001, by Bob Gilgor. He portrays the Black community of his youth as centered on the church and on Lincoln High School, recalls his schooling there, and tells of his college years in Greensboro and the civil rights demonstrations he joined there. Published online in 2006 by the UNC-Chapel Hill Library in Documenting the American South.

Included because: Catalog heading in the NC Cardinal record: African Americans -- North Carolina -- Chapel Hill -- Social life and customs -- 20th century.

NC Cardinal UNC

Oral history interview with James Atwater, February 28, 2001: interview K-0201, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

Atwater, James · 2006 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

James Atwater, born in 1932 into a family that had lived in Chapel Hill for generations, talked with Jennifer Nardone in February 2001. He describes the town's Black community between the 1930s and the 1950s: how neighbors dealt with one another in church, at school and in social life, and what schooling under segregation meant at Orange County Training School and Lincoln High School. About an hour and eighteen minutes; electronic edition from the UNC library, 2006, through Documenting the American South.

Included because: Catalog heading in the NC Cardinal record: African Americans -- North Carolina -- Chapel Hill -- Social life and customs -- 20th century.

NC Cardinal UNC

Oral history interview with Rebecca Clark, June 21, 2000: interview K-0536, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

Clark, Rebecca · 2006 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

Interview recorded June 21, 2000 with Rebecca Clark (1915-2009), a Black Chapel Hill resident, for the Southern Oral History Program at UNC. Clark, educated in Chapel Hill's segregated schools, describes working life under segregation and the economic discrimination she met in it. Topics also include Lincoln High School, school integration, and Howard Lee, elected mayor of Chapel Hill in 1969. Interview K-0536 in collection #4007.

Included because: Catalog heading in the UNC record: African Americans -- North Carolina -- Chapel Hill -- Economic conditions.

NC Cardinal UNC

Oral history interview with Sheila Florence, January 20, 2001: interview K-0544, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

Florence, Sheila · 2006 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

Sheila Florence (born 1947) was one of the first African American students to enter Chapel Hill High School when it desegregated. In this January 2001 interview with Bob Gilgor she describes growing up in segregated Chapel Hill, the poor state of the town's Black schools, including Lincoln High School, the harassment she faced at the formerly white school, and the civil rights demonstrations of the era. About an hour and forty minutes; electronic edition from the UNC library, 2006, through Documenting the American South.

Included because: Catalog heading in the NC Cardinal record: African Americans -- North Carolina -- Chapel Hill -- Social life and customs -- 20th century.

NC Cardinal UNC

Search all 56 indexed works →

Start at OCPL

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

  • Start here · NC 371.097 PENDER A History of Orange County Schools, 1752-1983 Pender, Irene Oliver · 1983

    Irene Oliver Pender's history of the public schools of Orange County from 1752 to 1983, covering more than two centuries of schooling in Hillsborough, Efland, Cedar Grove and the rural districts of the county. Published in 1983, 186 pages with illustrations.

  • Foundational · 371.009 MOORE The Impact of Slavery on the Education of Blacks in Orange County, North Carolina 1619-1970 Moore, Rosetta Austin · 2015

    Rosetta Austin Moore's survey of Black education in Orange County from the colonial era to 1970, in a revised edition published in 2015 through Lulu in Morrisville. After chapters on slavery nationally and on schooling for enslaved people in North Carolina, the book turns to the county: its formation, the growth of its schools, the arrival of free public schooling for all, and the schools and African American educators of the twentieth century. 265 pages with maps, portraits and facsimiles.

  • Foundational · NC 929.375 MAL Freedmen's Marriage Records, Orange County, North Carolina, 1866-1868 Mallard, Shirley Jones · 2000

    Transcriptions by Shirley Jones Mallard of Orange County's freedmen's marriage records for 1866 to 1868, the registers in which formerly enslaved couples recorded marriages made under slavery and given legal standing after emancipation. For many African American families in the county these are the earliest records that name both partners. Compiled in 2000.

Show 6 more
  • Foundational · NC 975.656 HISTORIC Antebellum Hillsborough, Slavery, and Enslaved and Free People of Color Who Worked at the Burwell School, 1837-1857 Historic Hillsborough Commission (Hillsborough, N.C.) · 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.

  • Foundational · NC 975.656 BOLDUC African Americans of Durham & Orange Counties: An Oral History Bolduc, Jean · 2016

    Jean Bolduc's 2016 collection of interviews with African American residents of Durham and Orange counties, presented as short biographies. The subjects are Floyd McKissick (1922-1991), the first African American admitted to UNC's law school, Walter Jackson, Brenda Stephens, Nate Davis, poet Jaki Shelton Green, Jackie Wagstaff, Diane Wright and Michelle Johnson, with a closing chapter on the Ku Klux Klan. 125 pages with illustrations.

  • Foundational · NC 371.009 RUF Hillsborough Negro School 1936-1968: The First State Supported Negro School in Orange County, North Carolina Ruffin-Villines, Donna · 1998

    Donna Ruffin-Villines documents the school that served African American students in Hillsborough from 1936 until 1968, described as the first state supported school of its kind in Orange County. Published in 1998 concerning African American public schools and their history in the county. A starting point for anyone tracing segregated education in Hillsborough.

  • Foundational · NC 373.756 NAS Ladies in the Making (also A Few Gentlemen) at the Select Boarding and Day School of the Misses Nash and Miss Kollock, 1859-1890, Hillsborough, North Carolina Nash, Ann Strudwick · 1964

    Ann Strudwick Nash's history of the Nash and Kollock School, the select boarding and day school the Misses Nash and Miss Kollock ran in Hillsborough from 1859 to 1890, mostly for girls with a few boys. Published in Hillsborough in 1964 with plans and portraits. Part of the Wall Local History Collection.

  • Foundational · NC 975.656 RIBBONS Ribbons of Color Along the Eno River: The History of African Americans and People of Color Living on the Eno 2021

    Collected first-hand and second-hand stories from the Eno River valley as told from the standpoint of African Americans and Native people who have lived along the river in Orange and Durham counties, from prehistory to the present day. Issued by the Eno River Association in Durham as volume 10, number 2 of the Eno Journal, 2021, 106 pages with illustrations.

  • Foundational · NC 973.8 ZUB North Carolina During Reconstruction Zuber, Richard L. · 1969

    Published in 1969 by the State Department of Archives and History, Richard L. Zuber's short history follows North Carolina through Reconstruction after the Civil War. It runs 67 pages with illustrations, facsimiles, portraits and a bibliography, and was later reprinted by the Division of Archives and History.

In the chronology

Episodes in this history, in date order. Each has its own page.

The Freedmen’s Bureau at Hillsborough, 1865–1868August 1865–December 1868 · 100 events · After emancipation the county court went on binding out Black children, apprenticing them to masters, and the Freedmen's Bureau itself apprenticed some, among them Cadmus and Erasmus Webb in October 1865. From May 1866 to the end of 1868 the Bureau kept an office at Hillsborough for the sub-district of Orange, under Lt. Isaac Porter until the fall of 1867 and Lt. Thomas H. Hay from May 1868. It heard freedpeople's complaints over wages, crops and children, approved labor contracts, gave rations to destitute people white and Black, and helped freedpeople open schools. The court kept binding children through 1867, and in 1868 it rescinded bindings, among them Calvin Godfrey's because he was working for wages paid to his mother.

Other events in this storyline, in date order. See these 168 dated events in the chronology →

  1. Job, later Rev. Job Berry, is baptized at St. Matthew's Job, enslaved by George W. B. Burgwyn, was baptized at St. Matthew's Episcopal Church by William Mercer Green and confirmed the next April. As Job Berry he later led Hillsborough's first Black congregation. People: William Mercer Green, Job BerryElizabeth Keckly Center research database: Job Berry
  2. Job Berry and Billy Payne begin the congregation that became Dickerson Chapel Dickerson Chapel AME Church dates its founding to 1851, when Job Berry, an enslaved painter and its first pastor, began gathering the congregation with Rev. Billy (William) Payne, enslaved by Dr. Edmund Strudwick. With state law barring Black preachers, they met in homes; the congregation moved into the old courthouse on Queen Street in 1866. People: Edmund Strudwick, Job BerrySearch the index · News of Orange County: Hillsborough church awarded $400k preservation grant (2025)
  3. The Baptists sell their old courthouse church to George Bishop of New Bern Trustees H. C. Strowd, John Cheek and William Ward sold the old Baptist church lot at Churton and Queen streets, part of town lot 80, to George Bishop of New Bern for $750. Bishop later resold it to Philadelphia Friends working for freedpeople, and it became the home of Dickerson's Chapel.Search the index · Pauline O. Lloyd and Allen A. Lloyd, History of the Churches of Hillsborough, N.C., ca. 1766-1962 (1963), scan p. 29
  4. Black and Native American worshippers in Chapel Hill gather under a grape arbor and form the congregation that became St. Paul AME A group that included William Thompson, Charles Craig, Jerry Hargraves, Kenny Brooks, Green Merritt and Green Cordal began meeting under a grape vine arbor, with Rev. Green Cordal preaching the first service. The congregation was received into the African Methodist Episcopal connection in 1870. People: Green CordalFrom the Rock Wall: St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church
  5. Freedpeople build a church and school at Chapel Hill's West End After emancipation, Black families kept homes and small farms on Chapel Hill's west end. St. Paul's congregation, first gathered under an arbor in December 1864, built a log church on Merritt Mill Road and bought land in 1878, and in 1866 Benjamin Craig and Green Cordal bought an acre nearby for a freedmen's school. People: Green Cordal, Benjamin CraigChapel Hill Historical Society, From the Rock Wall: St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church
  6. Emancipation frees about 6,000 people in Orange County, many of whom become tenants and sharecroppers About 6,000 enslaved people in Orange County were freed at the end of the Civil War. Many Black families left for Durham and other towns, while some stayed on the land as tenant farmers or sharecroppers.Orange County Courthouse Mural: Orange County Growth & Development
  7. Some freed household workers in Chapel Hill ask to be paid Once Union troops held the village, the people held in slavery in Chapel Hill households were free. Spencer, writing from the employers' side, says that in one or two households they asked to be paid in coin, and that domestic work mostly went on but was understood on both sides to be voluntary.Cornelia Phillips Spencer, The Last Ninety Days of the War in North-Carolina (1866), scan p. 195
  8. Paul Cameron complains that Jesse Ruffin is raising freedpeople's hopes of land In May 1865, weeks after the Confederate surrender near Durham, Paul Cameron wrote to his father-in-law Thomas Ruffin that the judge's longtime coachman Jesse had stirred the freedpeople on his place to hope for a freehold in the land they worked, and asked that his name not be linked with Jesse's. People: Paul C. Cameron, Thomas Ruffin, Jesse RuffinBurwell School Historic Site Task Force: Antebellum Hillsborough, Slavery, and Enslaved and Free People of Color who Worked at the Burwell School, 1837-1857 (2019), p. 32
  9. Freedpeople hold a Fourth of July celebration at Hillsborough On the first Fourth of July after emancipation, freedpeople held a large celebration at Hillsborough, as others did at Raleigh. In Chapel Hill white residents held no observance, and Swain's plan for a short address was dropped.Hope Summerell Chamberlain, Old Days in Chapel Hill (1926), scan p. 136
  10. The court binds Lucetty Woods, a seven-year-old of color, to Joseph W. Latta The court bound Lucetty Woods, described as a minor of color aged seven, to Joseph W. Latta until she reached twenty-one, with Latta to pay her a sum of money if she served out her time and to give bond with John W. Gates as surety.Search the index · Mark Chilton, Freedom Bound: Apprenticeship, Racism & Liberation in Orange County, North Carolina 1777 to 1868 (Wandering through the NC Piedmont)
  11. Young white men clash with freedmen meeting in Chapel Hill to choose convention delegates Freedmen met in Chapel Hill to elect delegates to their state convention, which was to ask for the right to vote, and young white men of the village and the college fell into a fight with them. Spencer recorded broken heads and arms and fear in town that a Black guard would be sent in.Hope Summerell Chamberlain, Old Days in Chapel Hill (1926), scan p. 139
  12. First Baptist Church organizes independently The minute books of the church now called University Baptist record a unanimous vote on September 3, 1865 to let the colored patrons withdraw and organize a church of their own, and note that sixty-one colored members were dismissed that month for the purpose. The new congregation, later First Baptist Church of Chapel Hill, met at first in the old Quaker schoolhouse on Franklin Street under Rev. Eddie H. Cole.Search the index · UNC Libraries Southern Sources: Founded in 1865: African American Churches at the End of the Civil War
Show all 168 dated events
  1. Job Berry calls a fair to buy a building for a Black school The Hillsborough Recorder printed Job Berry's notice that the colored citizens of Hillsborough would hold a fair on September 23 to raise money for a school building. The school later met in the old courthouse at Queen and Churton streets. People: Job BerryElizabeth Keckly Center research database: Job Berry
  2. Job Berry buys an acre on South Wake Street Months after emancipation, Job Berry paid Henry N. Brown $300 for parts of lots 20 and 17 off South Wake Street, next to the Nash and Kollock School, where his wife Rebecca Nash had been enslaved. People: Job BerryElizabeth Keckly Center research database: Job Berry
  3. The Freedmen's Bureau apprentices Cadmus and Erasmus Webb to Robert F. Webb A paper among the county's apprentice bonds records that the Freedmen's Bureau apprenticed two boys, Cadwell (Cadmus), eleven, and Erasmus, seven, to Robert F. Webb. In February 1867 the county court bound Cadmus, thirteen, and Erasmus, eight, persons of color, to the same Webb until twenty-one.Search the index · Mark Chilton, Freedom Bound: Apprenticeship, Racism & Liberation in Orange County, North Carolina 1777 to 1868 (Wandering through the NC Piedmont)
  4. The Freedmen's Bureau apprentices Albert, a boy of seven, to Thomas Lynch A bond of 7 November 1865 records that the Freedmen's Bureau apprenticed Albert, aged seven, to Thomas Lynch. The county court bound him to Lynch again the next May.Mark Chilton, Freedom Bound: Apprenticeship, Racism & Liberation in Orange County, North Carolina 1777 to 1868 (Wandering through the NC Piedmont)
  5. The court binds Mary C. Pugh, aged ten, to Nathaniel D. Bain On motion, the court bound Mary C. Pugh, ten, to Nathaniel D. Bain until she reached 18; her bond, dated 28 November 1865, bound her to learn spinning. People: Nathaniel D. BainSearch the index · Mark Chilton, Freedom Bound: Apprenticeship, Racism & Liberation in Orange County, North Carolina 1777 to 1868 (Wandering through the NC Piedmont)
  6. The court rescinds the 1861 binding of John Chavis, a free child of color, to George Laws The court rescinded its May 1861 order binding John Chavers, son of Eliza Chavers, to George Laws and discharged Laws from his bond. John had been bound at seven as a free boy of color under a $1000 bond, with Thomas Webb as security.Search the index · Mark Chilton, Freedom Bound: Apprenticeship, Racism & Liberation in Orange County, North Carolina 1777 to 1868 (Wandering through the NC Piedmont)
  7. Benjamin Craig and Green Cordal secure land for a Black school In 1866 Benjamin Craig and Green Cordal bought a plot of land near what is now the corner of West Franklin Street and Merritt Mill Road and gave part of it to the Philadelphia Quakers for a school for freedpeople and the rest for the church that became St. Paul AME. In the spring of 1867 the Friends reported that the freedmen were putting up a school and house of worship on a fifty-dollar lot. People: Green Cordal, Benjamin Craig, George DixonTown of Carrboro: Historic Downtown Walking Tour, stop 14 · Also: Internet Archive: Fourth Annual Report of the Friends' Association of Philadelphia for the Relief of Colored Freedmen; NC Digital Collections: M. Ruth Little, The Town and Gown Architecture of Chapel Hill, 1795-1975; Open Orange: Quaker Freedmen's School
  8. Freedpeople register their marriages in Orange County An 1866 state law declared formerly enslaved couples who had lived together as husband and wife legally married and required them to register their unions, most often with the county register of deeds. Orange County’s cohabitation records from that registration survive at the State Archives and are digitized in North Carolina Digital Collections.North Carolina Digital Collections: Cohabitation Records
  9. Quakers open a freedmen's school in Chapel Hill In 1866 Philadelphia Friends opened a school for Black children in Chapel Hill; by early 1867 it had been running more than half a year with 248 pupils, in a rented house while the freedpeople built a school and house of worship on a fifty-dollar lot the Friends had bought. The school, which came to stand on the land near West Franklin Street and Merritt Mill Road that Benjamin Craig and Green Cordal bought in 1866, merged into Orange County Training School in 1917. People: Green Cordal, Benjamin CraigInternet Archive: Fourth Annual Report of the Friends' Association of Philadelphia for the Relief of Colored Freedmen (1867), p. 20 · Also: Town of Carrboro: Historic Downtown Walking Tour, stop 14
  10. The AME congregation later called Dickerson Chapel begins worshipping in the old courthouse The AME congregation later known as Dickerson Chapel moved into the 1790 courthouse building on Queen Street in 1866, sharing it with the freedmen's school the Philadelphia Friends ran there. Lefler and Wager date its formal organization to 1873, and the Friends conveyed the building to the church's trustees in 1886. People: Job BerrySearch the index · News of Orange County: Hillsborough church awarded $400k preservation grant
  11. The Union League organizes Black voters in Orange County The Republican Union League, organized in Orange, Alamance and Guilford by Albion W. Tourgee, its first state president, recruited nearly every Black man who would vote before the 1867 election. It had faded by the end of 1870. People: William W. Holden, Albion W. TourgeeLefler and Wager, Orange County, 1752-1952 (1953), p. 114-115
  12. Twenty Black members leave First Baptist Church of Hillsborough and organize Mount Bright Baptist Church Twenty Black members withdrew from First Baptist Church of Hillsborough in 1866, or about 1868 by another account, and organized a congregation of their own, named for its first pastor, Rev. Alfred E. Bright. The widow of Governor William A. Graham gave the group the West Union Street site where the congregation still worships.Mt. Bright Missionary Baptist Church: Our Story (Internet Archive copy, June 13, 2024)
  13. Federal command lets Orange courts try freedpeople's cases Answering a letter from Orange County's county attorney that Governor Jonathan Worth had passed on, General Ruger's headquarters ruled that the civil courts could try offenses where the law punished Black and white offenders alike. Freedmen's Bureau agents kept only petty cases punishable by up to a month in jail or a $100 fine. People: Jonathan WorthSearch the index · Hillsborough Recorder, February 21, 1866, p. 2
  14. Charles Phillips teaches a Sunday school for Black residents of Chapel Hill Charles Phillips and his wife Laura taught a Sunday school for Black people in Chapel Hill, and in March 1866 a supply of books arrived from New York for it. When he left for Davidson College in 1868, a crowd of his scholars stood weeping at the gate. People: Charles PhillipsHope Summerell Chamberlain, Old Days in Chapel Hill (1926), scan p. 153
  15. The Bureau office at Hillsborough tries freedpeople's claims against white residents In the spring of 1866 the Bureau officers at Hillsborough sat as a court on freedpeople's complaints, and this file holds three Orange cases. On May 20 Brevet Captain George H. Penniman ordered a white man who failed to appear to pay a freedman $100 in wages or go to the county jail for 30 days (a new trial was granted, and Porter dismissed the case on September 2 on evidence the debt was paid); on May 22 Penniman ruled that a mule four white men had taken from a freedman's plough was government property and ordered the seller to refund the freedman, and in June Porter reheard a freedman's claim to a threshing machine because no record of the first hearing survived.Search the index · Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Letters Received, May 1866–Dec. 1868, Part 1, transcription p. 11
  16. Jesse and Rebecca Ruffin register the marriage they made in 1828 Jesse Ruffin, coachman to Judge Thomas Ruffin, and Rebecca, who had kept the keys of the Norwood household across the Eno, had married in 1828 while enslaved to different families. They recorded the marriage with the Freedmen's Bureau and later bought a farm. People: Jesse Ruffin, Thomas RuffinBurwell School Historic Site Task Force: Antebellum Hillsborough, Slavery, and Enslaved and Free People of Color who Worked at the Burwell School, 1837-1857 (2019), p. 29
  17. Black residents of Hillsborough ask the Bureau to find teachers for their children On May 31, 1866, Lieutenant Isaac Porter reported that Black families in Hillsborough had asked him to get teachers and that the town had enough children for a school of 100 to 125 pupils. His application went to the Bureau's state superintendent of education, F. A. Fiske, on June 2.Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Letters Received, May 1866–Dec. 1868, Part 1, transcription p. 16
  18. Lieutenant Isaac Porter takes charge of the Freedmen's Bureau office at Hillsborough By May 22, 1866, Second Lieutenant Isaac Porter of the Veteran Reserve Corps was the Bureau's assistant superintendent for the sub-district of Orange at Hillsborough, finishing cases begun by Brevet Captain George H. Penniman; an earlier officer, Lieutenant Crockett, had left no record of the cases he tried. In June Porter also had the Alamance sub-district, four counties in all (Orange, Person, Alamance and Caswell), and headquarters refused him a clerk for lack of funds although he had lost his left arm.Search the index · Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Letters Received, May 1866–Dec. 1868, Part 1, transcription p. 45
  19. The court binds Albert Lynch, a boy of color, to the Rev. Thomas Lynch On motion, the court bound Albert Lynch, a boy of color who had turned seven the previous November, to the Rev. Thomas Lynch until he reached 21; his bond of 28 May 1866 bound him to learn farming. The Freedmen's Bureau had apprenticed him to Lynch in November 1865.Mark Chilton, Freedom Bound: Apprenticeship, Racism & Liberation in Orange County, North Carolina 1777 to 1868 (Wandering through the NC Piedmont)
  20. The court rescinds a girl's binding to Julia A. Minor The court rescinded its earlier order binding a girl, whose name the minute leaves blank, to Julia A. Minor, and discharged Minor from her bond. The order is filed with the records of Fanny Taborn, a free girl of color bound to Minor in 1861.Mark Chilton, Freedom Bound: Apprenticeship, Racism & Liberation in Orange County, North Carolina 1777 to 1868 (Wandering through the NC Piedmont)
  21. Rev. Job Berry and the Philadelphia Friends open Hillsborough's first school for Black children and adults Job Berry, who had advertised a fair in September 1865 to raise money for a school, worked with the Friends of Philadelphia to buy the former Orange County courthouse on Queen Street for twelve hundred dollars and open a freedmen's school in it on June 5, 1866. More than three hundred children and adults learned to read and cipher there. The Freedmen's Bureau's state superintendent of education wrote on June 2, 1866 that a freedmen's school had then been running in Hillsborough for more than four months, with 107 pupils in April, and would reopen under its former principal. People: Job BerryNews of Orange County: Rev. Job Berry's legacy rooted in faith, marriage, education · Also: Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Letters Received, part 1, transcription p. 14
  22. The Bureau office at Hillsborough reviews apprenticeships made by the Orange County court In June 1866 two complaints about Black youths bound out by the Orange County court reached Lieutenant Isaac Porter. On June 2 he upheld the court's indenture of a boy against his mother's plea to have him back, judging her unfit and noting that the court bound white children the same way, and headquarters had him countersign the indenture; on June 25 headquarters sent him a young man bound before the war who said he had received nothing but clothing in more than six years and no wages since returning in November 1865, with orders to investigate.Search the index · Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Letters Received, May 1866–Dec. 1868, Part 1, transcription p. 20
  23. Freedpeople hold a Black Fourth of July celebration Cornelia Phillips Spencer's journal records that the Black residents of Chapel Hill marched in procession behind a banner, heard an address by Colonel J. J. Guthrie and a reading of part of the Declaration of Independence by Jurdon Swain, then sat down to a dinner they had provided themselves on the ground bought from the Craigs for their new school house. The banner mottoes were "Respect for Former Owners" and "Our Hope is in God". People: Cornelia Phillips Spencer, Benjamin CraigInternet Archive: Old Days in Chapel Hill, Being the Life and Letters of Cornelia Phillips Spencer
  24. The Freedmen's Bureau turns freedpeople's cases in Orange and Alamance over to the county courts After Governor Jonathan Worth certified that state law no longer discriminated against free people of color in the courts, the Freedmen's Bureau ordered its officers to send all cases involving freedpeople to the county and state courts, keeping only claims for wages under contracts its agents had approved. Lt. Isaac Porter, assistant superintendent of the Bureau's sub-district of Orange and Alamance, published the order in Hillsborough. The order reached Porter by an endorsement of July 13 from the Bureau's Central District headquarters, which turned criminal cases over to the civil courts and told him to act as counsel for freedpeople there. People: Jonathan WorthSearch the index · Hillsborough Recorder, July 25, 1866, p. 2 · Also: Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Letters Received, part 1, transcription pp. 56-57
  25. Bureau headquarters declines to overturn a magistrate's judgment against a freedman On August 14, 1866, Lieutenant Isaac Porter reported that an Orange magistrate had given a $15 judgment against a freedman for a horse sold to him two weeks before Lee's surrender, while he was still enslaved, although Porter had written to the magistrate that the horse was branded government property and that no legal claim could lie against an enslaved man. Headquarters answered that his only remedy was a higher civil court, and on August 29 ruled that by giving security to stay execution he had accepted the county court's jurisdiction and the Bureau could not help him.Search the index · Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Letters Received, May 1866–Dec. 1868, Part 1, transcription p. 60
  26. Joseph Turrentine and Alston Woods, jailed for fines and costs, are bound to Robert Laws for a year Bonds dated 30 August 1866 record that Joseph Turrentine and Alston Woods, each described as a person of color committed to jail for fine and costs, were apprenticed to Robert Laws for twelve months of service to learn farming. The bonds give no ages.Mark Chilton, Freedom Bound: Apprenticeship, Racism & Liberation in Orange County, North Carolina 1777 to 1868 (Wandering through the NC Piedmont)
  27. The court binds A. W. McBroom to James R. Harris and Margaret Jane McBroom to S. S. McBroom On motion, the court bound A. W. McBroom, ten, to James R. Harris until 21, and Margaret Jane McBroom, six, to S. S. McBroom until 18. Their bonds of 28 August 1866 bound the boy to learn farming and the girl housekeeping and sewing.Search the index · Mark Chilton, Freedom Bound: Apprenticeship, Racism & Liberation in Orange County, North Carolina 1777 to 1868 (Wandering through the NC Piedmont)
  28. The court binds Dilcy Henderson, an eight-year-old girl of color, to Morgan Closs until eighteen On motion, the court bound Dilcy Henderson, a person of color aged eight, to Morgan Closs until she reached eighteen, and the indenture was made. The bond of August 28 names spinning as her trade.Mark Chilton, Freedom Bound: Apprenticeship, Racism & Liberation in Orange County, North Carolina 1777 to 1868 (Wandering through the NC Piedmont)
  29. Peter and Diannah Benton acquire land south of Hillsborough A deed from Frances Thompson conveyed land half a mile south of town, where the Chatham and Chapel Hill roads divided (today Mayo Street and Orange Grove Road), to Peter Benton, his wife Diannah and Jimmy Thompson. Peter Benton, a free man, had gardened at the Burwell School in 1855.Burwell School Historic Site Task Force: Antebellum Hillsborough, Slavery, and Enslaved and Free People of Color who Worked at the Burwell School, 1837-1857 (2019), p. 18
  30. The Bureau's school superintendent seeks Quaker teachers for Chapel Hill and Bane's School House After Lieutenant Isaac Porter answered a schools survey on September 24, 1866, superintendent F. A. Fiske wrote on October 6 that he expected the Friends of Philadelphia, through their superintendent George Dixon, to send two teachers to Hillsborough and would try to get them to send others to Chapel Hill and to Bane's School House, though the society's funds were low. On October 15 Porter reported that Black residents throughout the sub-district were providing schools for themselves with much success, while in his view the schooling of poor whites was entirely neglected. People: George DixonFreedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Letters Received, May 1866–Dec. 1868, Part 1, transcription p. 71
  31. The Bureau office warns that Orange County provides only for its white poor Asked what suffering to expect in the coming winter, Lieutenant Isaac Porter replied on October 15, 1866, that helpless Black people in Orange would lack food and clothing because the county provided only for white paupers. The chairman of the wardens of the poor told him the November county court would take up provision for the Black poor, and Porter added that no one would suffer for want of protection while the government kept a Bureau officer there.Search the index · Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Letters Received, May 1866–Dec. 1868, Part 1, transcription p. 79
  32. The Bureau disputes a coroner's verdict clearing C. C. Tinnen in the shooting of Bill Fuller On the night of November 2, 1866, Bill Fuller, a Black youth, was fatally wounded in the leg when C. C. Tinnen fired a gun out a window to break up a freedmen's corn shucking at his place, and a coroner's jury the next day found he meant no harm. Lieutenant Isaac Porter reported on November 9 that only two of the fifteen or twenty people present had been examined and that justice had not been sought, and on November 23 the acting assistant commissioner ruled the verdict unjustified by the evidence and ordered a complaint made to the civil authorities to bring the case to trial.Search the index · Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Letters Received, May 1866–Dec. 1868, Part 1, transcription p. 87
  33. Seventeen freedpeople at Hillsborough seek passage to a Mississippi plantation On November 20, 1866, Lieutenant Isaac Porter asked the Bureau to carry 17 freedpeople from Hillsborough to Commerce, Mississippi, to work on George P. Collins's plantation, where Collins and neighboring planters proposed a church and school. Most had been moved from the Deep South during the war and wanted to return, and with the farms they had lived on now rented to white tenants Porter judged they could not support themselves in Orange; headquarters refused on November 23 because they were not shown to be dependent.Search the index · Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Letters Received, May 1866–Dec. 1868, Part 1, transcription p. 98
  34. The Hillsborough Bureau office approves 62 labor contracts The office's tally of labor contracts made and approved totals 62 from November 1866 to August 1867, most in the winter hiring season: 9 in November, 13 in December, 7 in January and 14 in February, then 4 in March, 8 in May, 4 in June and one each in July and August. In June 1867 Porter wrote that his orders kept him out of contract disputes unless a Bureau officer or agent had witnessed or approved the contract.Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Letters and Endorsements Sent and Received, Vol. 128, transcription p. 120
  35. The Hillsborough Bureau office hears about twenty freedpeople's claims for wages and crops Between November 1866 and August 1867 Porter's office settled four claims over crop shares and rent by umpire and sent about fourteen claims for wages, crop shares and small debts, from $2.40 to $70, to the civil authorities. It also held hearings of its own, dismissing a wage claim in November 1866 after the employer's books showed payment, and in February 1867 ordering a deputy sheriff to release hay that a freedman claimed as his share under a contract approved by an earlier Bureau officer, Lt. N. N. Crockett, a case dismissed when the freedman did not appear.Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Letters and Endorsements Sent and Received, Vol. 128, transcription p. 109
  36. The Hillsborough Bureau office records nine attacks on freedpeople Porter's register of outrages for November 1866 to July 1867 lists the killing of a freedman and eight assaults and batteries on Black men and women, most sent to magistrates on warrants; in one case in February 1867 two white men beat two freedmen, and one was bound over to the county court while the other fled. Through the same months Porter's twice-monthly reports to Raleigh each said no outrages had been reported in the period they covered.Search the index · Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Letters and Endorsements Sent and Received, Vol. 128, transcription p. 105
  37. The court binds Simeon Miller, a boy of color aged eleven, to Albert F. Faucett On motion, the court bound Simeon Miller, a boy of color who had turned eleven the previous March, to Albert F. Faucett until he reached 21; his bond of 30 November 1866 bound him to learn farming.Mark Chilton, Freedom Bound: Apprenticeship, Racism & Liberation in Orange County, North Carolina 1777 to 1868 (Wandering through the NC Piedmont)
  38. A Black newspaper editor from Baltimore canvasses Hillsborough for subscribers George T. Cook, a Black editor from Baltimore, spent a day in Hillsborough about December 1, 1866, taking subscriptions for his paper among Black residents, and on December 3 wrote from Hillsborough to the Bureau that Guilford County's courts dealt unjustly with Black people. The assistant commissioner's office, which thought him a sensationalist, asked Lt. Isaac Porter about him; Porter replied on December 18 that he had not met Cook and knew of the visit only from Black residents.Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Letters and Endorsements Sent and Received, Vol. 128, transcription p. 72
  39. Rev. Job Berry officiates at more than forty weddings of freed people Between 1867 and 1877 Job Berry officiated at more than forty weddings of Black couples in and around Hillsborough, among them one held at the Freedmen's School House on September 17, 1868. Orange County marriage books record him as minister, later as AME minister of Bethel.Search the index · News of Orange County: Rev. Job Berry's legacy rooted in faith, marriage, education (Betty Eidenier, March 25, 2022)
  40. Sarah J. Woodson teaches at the freedmen's school in Hillsborough Sarah J. Woodson, an Oberlin graduate from Ohio, was principal of the school for Black children in Hillsborough, which she taught with V. S. Williams. The Freedmen's Bureau's report of January 1868 named it among the large, well-run schools in North Carolina.Search the index · Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands (J. W. Alvord): Fifth Semi-Annual Report on Schools for Freedmen, January 1, 1868, p. 25
  41. The Bureau investigates reports that a Hillsborough freedmen's teacher was shot at and driven away Warren Yardley of Germantown, Pennsylvania, wrote on January 23, 1867, that citizens near Hillsborough had fired at him and forced out the teacher Mr. Leeds, and General O. O. Howard ordered the school reestablished and guarded if that were so. Lt. Isaac Porter reported on February 5 that Leeds and his school had met only threats and insults from one drunken man and two or three failed demonstrations, that Leeds had never missed a day of teaching, and that in Porter's judgment local sentiment was against any interference with the school.Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Letters and Endorsements Sent and Received, Vol. 128, transcription p. 96
  42. Orange County court binds out eight Black children as apprentices with the Bureau officer attending Lt. Isaac Porter attended the February 1867 term of the Orange County Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions at Hillsborough, with James C. Turrentine presiding and John W. Graham as county solicitor, and reported that the court made eight indentures of apprenticeship of Black children, all in his view in keeping with the Bureau's circular, and cancelled none. At the May term he reported no indentures made or cancelled. People: James C. Turrentine, John W. GrahamSearch the index · Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Letters and Endorsements Sent and Received, Vol. 128, transcription p. 45
  43. Lt. Isaac Porter reports that the Bureau has issued no rations in Orange in a year Asked how many people deserved a share of Northern relief, Porter wrote that the Bureau had issued no rations in the sub-district in the past year and that he knew of no pressing need the county authorities did not meet, but put at about 300 the number to whom help would be a relief. His twice-monthly reports from November 1866 to June 1867 likewise reported no rations issued and called the freedpeople's condition generally satisfactory, adding in December 1866 that nearly all were employed at reasonable wages.Search the index · Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Letters and Endorsements Sent and Received, Vol. 128, transcription p. 45
  44. Milly Johnson of Chapel Hill asks the Bureau to recover children taken from her in slavery On March 26, 1867, Milly Johnson, a freedwoman living in Chapel Hill, asked the Bureau at Hillsborough to help her find five children sold or kept by former owners in Virginia and North Carolina, among them a daughter her former owner Albert Elliott had carried off after the surrender, claiming her until she was 21. Lieutenant Isaac Porter vouched for her account and sent it up on April 2; Virginia agents could not find the children sold there, and on July 31 the assistant commissioner ordered Elliott to return the daughter at his own expense, which he promised to do before October 1. On June 14 Porter wrote her that one daughter had left her owner in 1865 and was thought to be in Washington, that a son sold in 1859 through a Richmond firm could not be traced because its books had burned, and that her former husband was living in Essex County, Virginia.Search the index · Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Letters Received, May 1866–Dec. 1868, Part 1, transcription p. 154
  45. Lt. Isaac Porter reports four freedmen's schools running in Orange and the Hillsborough school closed In his school report Porter listed schools at Chapel Hill with an estimated average attendance of 150, the Oaks with 40, Durham's with 75 and Mebanesville with 80, while the Hillsborough school, with about 140 pupils, was organized but without teachers, having closed on Saturday, March 23. He recommended night schools and books for adult freedpeople, teachers who were Black or native white, and a school to train Black teachers.Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Letters and Endorsements Sent and Received, Vol. 128, transcription p. 51
  46. Job Berry is admitted as a preacher by the A.M.E. Church Meeting in Greensboro, the church's North Carolina Conference admitted Job Berry on trial and sent him to Mebanesville and Graham, making formal the ministry he had carried on while state law barred Black preachers. People: Job BerryElizabeth Keckly Center research database: Job Berry
  47. The Bureau and James C. Turrentine distribute 150 bushels of corn to Orange County's poor The Bureau told Lt. Isaac Porter on April 10, 1867, that 150 bushels of corn given by citizens of Philadelphia were coming for Orange County's destitute, to be shared without regard to race, politics or religion under his and James C. Turrentine's supervision. When the shipment went to Charlotte by mistake, the Bureau's quartermaster paid $225 for 150 bushels bought locally, and Porter later reported that no distinction of color had been made: all eleven applicants from Chapel Hill were Black and all received corn. People: James C. TurrentineSearch the index · Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Letters and Endorsements Sent and Received, Vol. 128, transcription p. 18
  48. Lt. Isaac Porter reports that talk of land and houses is drawing freedpeople from their crops In his monthly report Porter wrote that a report circulating widely among Orange's freedpeople, that they were to be given land and houses, was in his judgment doing harm by leading some to neglect their crops or stop work. He said he had tried to correct the idea but found it hard while some of the state's newspapers encouraged such hopes.Search the index · Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Letters and Endorsements Sent and Received, Vol. 128, transcription p. 53
  49. Freedpeople ask the Hillsborough Bureau office to recover children held by employers and former owners Between April 1867 and July 1868 the office took up nine complaints over Black children kept by white employers, former owners or masters under indentures, eight of them from parents or a grandparent. Lt. Isaac Porter ordered one employer in June 1867 to give a boy back to his mother as his lawful guardian and found bindings in Person County lawful, and in 1868 the agents ordered a child delivered to its parent, left a granddaughter with her grandmother and warned a master that ill treatment would cost him his apprentice.Search the index · Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Letters and Endorsements Sent and Received, Vol. 128, transcription p. 85
  50. Lt. Isaac Porter recommends men to register Orange County's voters under the Reconstruction Acts Porter wrote to the governor on May 13, 1867, that he knew Messrs. Laws and Blackwood, applicants to be registrars for Orange County, and thought them qualified and acceptable to citizens of both races. On May 15 he sent the Bureau's state headquarters the names of persons to act as registrars and inspectors of elections in each of Orange's election districts.Search the index · Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Letters and Endorsements Sent and Received, Vol. 128, transcription p. 84
  51. Lt. Isaac Porter takes charge of Orange and Person counties for the Bureau from Hillsborough Under a Bureau circular of June 18, 1867, Porter reported that he had assumed the duties of assistant sub-assistant commissioner for Orange and Person counties with headquarters at Hillsborough. From June 1 his office had dealt directly with the assistant commissioner's headquarters in Raleigh instead of the Central District office.Search the index · Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Letters and Endorsements Sent and Received, Vol. 128, transcription p. 61
  52. Cicero M. Faucett is confirmed as clerk of the Bureau office at Hillsborough On July 17, 1867, the Bureau in Washington appointed C. M. Faucett clerk at Hillsborough at $60 a month from July 1, confirming a post he had held since February. Refused a clerk in June 1866, Lieutenant Isaac Porter had employed Frederick Nash by August 1866 and Thomas A. Wilbon, at $59.50 a month, in November and December 1866.Search the index · Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Letters Received, May 1866–Dec. 1868, Part 1, transcription p. 262
  53. The Bureau office at Hillsborough draws corn and bacon for the destitute and proposes ending rations Lt. Isaac Porter drew 5,600 pounds of corn and 800 pounds of bacon in July 1867 for the destitute of the sub-district of Orange, which then also took in Person County, and by August 2 had issued 2,996 pounds of corn and 428 of bacon. His ten-day returns show more white than Black recipients (51 whites and 41 freedpeople in the period ending August 5), and he advised stopping the issue after that month; he reported none issued in September.Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Letters Sent, Vol. 130, July 1867–Dec. 1868, transcription p. 34
  54. The court binds Lewis B. Collins, bound in 1864 as a minor of color, to John B. Leathers The court bound Lewis B. Collins, 10, to John B. Leathers until he reached 21; the bond, dated 29 August 1867, leaves his trade blank. In November 1864 the court had bound him, then a minor of color aged seven, to William Mangum, who was to pay him $200 at 21 if he served his time and gave a $1000 bond.Search the index · Mark Chilton, Freedom Bound: Apprenticeship, Racism & Liberation in Orange County, North Carolina 1777 to 1868 (Wandering through the NC Piedmont)
  55. Freedpeople near White Oak Spring gather 75 children for a school Aaron Wilson and others of Orange County wrote the Bureau office at Hillsborough that they had signed up 75 Black children for a school within reach of the White Oak Spring school house and church, and recommended Jos. W. McKee as teacher.Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Register of Letters Received, Vol. 129, July 1867–Dec. 1868, transcription p. 38
  56. Lt. Isaac Porter sends the Bureau his annual report for the sub-district of Orange For the year ending September 25, 1867, Porter counted 15 labor contracts made and 81 approved, 5 cases tried and 47 settled by arbitration, 71 accounts drawn up for freedpeople to collect, and 23 applications by freedpeople for children, 15 of them granted after investigation. He put average wages at $9 a month for men and $6 for women, said few contracts were submitted and none of the Homestead Act was used, and blamed most complaints of idleness on loose contracts, though in his judgment some freedmen had lately grown inclined to be idle.Search the index · Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Letters Sent, Vol. 130, July 1867–Dec. 1868, transcription p. 62
  57. The Bureau relieves Lt. Isaac Porter and puts Orange County under its Raleigh agent Special Orders No. 120 relieved Porter from Bureau duty in North Carolina and added Orange and Person counties to the sub-division of Wake and Chatham under Dr. H. C. Vogell at Raleigh, to whom Porter was to turn over the Bureau's property. The Hillsboro letter book then has no entries until late February 1868.Search the index · Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Register of Letters Received, Vol. 129, July 1867–Dec. 1868, transcription p. 9
  58. Black men vote in Orange County's first Reconstruction election Under the 1867 Reconstruction Acts, Black men registered and voted alongside white men in the November 19-20, 1867 election for a state constitutional convention. Orange County elected the Conservative nominees, E. M. Holt and J. W. Graham, as delegates, by about 900 majority.Documenting the American South: Journal of the Constitutional Convention of the State of North-Carolina, at Its Session 1868 · Also: Hillsborough Recorder, November 27, 1867, p. 2
  59. Governor Holden appoints Wilson Caldwell a justice of the peace In 1868 Governor William W. Holden appointed Wilson Swain Caldwell a justice of the peace. Caldwell had been enslaved by university president David L. Swain and had worked at the university since boyhood; he taught school for a time before returning to the university in 1875. People: Wilson Swain Caldwell, William W. Holden, David L. SwainDocumenting the American South: Kemp P. Battle, History of the University of North Carolina, vol. 2, pp. 558-559
  60. Ned Strowd organizes Terrell Creek Baptist Church Ned Strowd organized Terrell Creek Baptist Church, a Black congregation, on Atwater Road about two miles south of its later site.Lefler and Wager, Orange County, 1752-1952 (1953), p. 305
  61. Robert G. Fitzgerald comes to Hillsborough to teach a freedmen's school Fitzgerald, a Union Navy and cavalry veteran who had taught freedpeople in Amelia County, Virginia, came to Hillsborough through the Friends' Freedmen's Association of Philadelphia to teach at a new school for Black students. The Freedmen's Bureau's monthly school reports name Misses Harris and Allen as the Hillsborough teachers from February to August 1868 and first list Fitzgerald there in September; by December he and Hester Anderson taught the town's Howard school.Search the index · Orange County Historical Museum blog: Robert Fitzgerald · Also: Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Monthly Reports of Schools, 1868, transcription p. 22
  62. Six freedmen's schools are running in Orange County By 1868 six schools for freed people had been set up in the county, paid for mostly by the Freedmen's Bureau and Quaker missions, with Black families giving what they could. The Freedmen's Bureau's own monthly reports count five day schools in Orange in February and March 1868 and eight to ten by the end of the year. People: Robert G. FitzgeraldNC Historic Preservation Office: Richard L. Mattson, History and Architecture of Orange County (1996), p. 36 · Also: Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Monthly Reports of Schools, 1868
  63. The Bureau assigns agent Charles B. Whittemore to Hillsborough in charge of Orange and Person counties Special Orders No. 19 from the Bureau's headquarters in Raleigh assigned agent C. B. Whittemore to Hillsborough in charge of Orange and Person counties, relieving agent James Carle. Whittemore's school report for March says he had then been at Hillsborough one month.Search the index · Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Special Orders Received, Feb.–Mar. 1868, transcription p. 4
  64. Bureau agent James Carle reports five freedmen's day schools and fifty districts without schools in Orange The Hillsborough office's school report for February 1868 listed day schools at Hillsborough, taught by Misses Harris and Allen, Cedar Grove (Frank Whitted), Pleasant Green (William Douglass), the Ridge (London Moore) and Durham's (George Bradshaw). It counted 50 school districts without schools and about 6,000 children of both races who might attend, though it advised organizing schools in no more than half of them; agent James Carle had written to men in Orange and Person for the figures.Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Monthly Reports of Schools, Feb.–Dec. 1868, transcription p. 4
  65. Agent Whittemore makes a planter divide a crop with two freedmen after two former Confederate officers vouch for them In his first case, agent Charles B. Whittemore heard two freedmen's claims to shares of a crop raised on a planter's farm about twelve miles from Hillsborough. Robert Bingham and Maj. William B. Lynch, who told him they had been Confederate officers with no love for Yankees, came with the freedmen and said they were faithful and industrious men about to be robbed of their dues. Whittemore ordered the crop held, on March 24 awarded one freedman 920 sticks of tobacco and 50 bushels of corn, and on April 17 sent Deputy Sheriff J. M. Blackwood to weigh and divide the rest. People: Robert Bingham, W. B. (William Bingham) LynchFreedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Letters Sent, Vol. 130, July 1867–Dec. 1868, transcription p. 77
  66. Agent Charles B. Whittemore counts 26 freedmen's schools in Orange and Person, most of them Sabbath schools Whittemore's March 1868 report counted 26 freedmen's schools in his two counties, 6 day schools, 2 night schools and 18 Sabbath schools, with 15 teachers, 7 white and 8 Black. Five of the day schools were in Orange, at Hillsborough, Cedar Grove, Pleasant Green, the Ridge and Durham's; he put the Black children without schools at about 1,000 and wrote that at planting time nearly all children outside the towns were needed at work.Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Monthly Reports of Schools, Feb.–Dec. 1868, transcription p. 13
  67. Agent Whittemore summons Orange County employers in more than thirty claims brought by freedpeople Between early March and mid-May 1868 Whittemore wrote more than thirty letters ordering white employers and neighbors to settle claims brought by freedpeople, mostly for unpaid wages or withheld shares of the 1867 crop, and a few over cows, a horse and land, or to appear at his office and explain. He threatened to send an officer to seize crops, told one debtor that bankruptcy did not cancel a wage claim, and ordered another to answer a girl's complaint that he had whipped her and kept her clothes.Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Letters Sent, Vol. 130, July 1867–Dec. 1868, transcription p. 81
  68. Robert Allen is driven from his farm near Ridge Meeting House over his Republican vote Robert Allen, a Black sharecropper living about six miles west of Hillsborough near Ridge Meeting House, told the Bureau that his landlord, Daniel F. Thompson, ordered him to leave because he would not vote as Thompson wished. Allen said that late on the night of Monday, April 20, 1868, a man came to his door with a musket, claimed that twenty or thirty men surrounded the house and that Thompson had offered $300 for his scalp because he was a Radical, and warned that the family would be killed if they stayed; Allen left the next day. Thompson swore that he never ordered Allen off the place, and on May 27 the assistant commissioner sent Allen's complaint to the Hillsborough office for settlement. Agent Charles B. Whittemore, who doubted the landlord's counter-charge that Allen meant to burn his buildings and break into his smokehouse, heard it on April 29 and decided it in Allen's favor on May 13.Search the index · Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Records Relating to Cases Tried & Destitute Freedmen, Part 1, transcription p. 110
  69. A freedman is shot on a plantation near South Lowell, and the Bureau orders the planter arrested Agent Charles B. Whittemore wrote Sheriff John Turner on April 25, 1868 that a Black man, named in his letter as Ned Gate, had been shot at Henry F. Gate's plantation near Turner's Mills or South Lowell on Thursday, April 23, during the election, and had died the next night, and told the sheriff to arrest Gate and hand him to the military at Raleigh. In June George Dixon of the Philadelphia Friends wrote to the Hillsborough office that a freedman named Ned Bumpass had been killed for voting the Radical ticket by a man he named as Quincy Gates, who was still at large; the office's register lists a letter on the murder of Ned Bumpass, and the two reports may be of the same killing.Search the index · Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Letters Sent, Vol. 130, July 1867–Dec. 1868, transcription p. 98
  70. The Bureau agent orders a Mebaneville landowner to pay Jordan White for railroad cordwood On April 24, 1868, Whittemore settled Jordan White's complaint against Addison E. Wilson, on whose land near the North Carolina Railroad White had cleared ground and cut wood, by ordering Wilson to pay him for 22 cords and a dollar a cord on 27 more and to let him stay and work his part of the place until November 1. Wilson asked for a new hearing on April 27, and Benjamin F. Mebane, William Bingham and Robert Bingham signed a statement that the custom of giving the wood to whoever cleared the land did not hold along the railroad, where wood had a cash value. White wrote to Gen. Nelson A. Miles on June 10 that the ruling had been turned against him at a hearing he was not called to; the case went to Lt. Thomas H. Hay and was closed on October 30 with a $7.50 judgment from a justice of the peace. People: Benjamin Franklin Mebane, William Bingham (1835-1873), Robert BinghamFreedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Records Relating to Cases Tried & Destitute Freedmen, Part 1, transcription p. 84
  71. The Hillsborough Bureau office dockets about sixty complaints in the summer of 1868 From May 14 to October 16, 1868, the office's complaint docket recorded about 60 cases, some 50 of them from Orange and the rest from Person, most of them claims by freedpeople for wages, crop shares or small debts from 1867, which agents Manchester W. Weld, Charles B. Whittemore and Thomas H. Hay usually settled with awards of a few dollars, a few bushels of corn or a lien on the tobacco crop. The office also told a magistrate to recall warrants against a freedman, had the sheriff enforce an agent's order, and from late July sent more cases to the new justices of the peace, among them William F. Strayhorn.Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Register of Complaints, Vol. 132, May–Oct. 1868, transcription p. 5
  72. Lt. Thomas H. Hay is ordered to Hillsborough to take charge of Orange and Person counties Special Orders No. 48 sent Hay, a first lieutenant of the 42nd Infantry, to Hillsborough to take charge of the two counties. It ended a quick turnover of agents: Charles B. Whittemore was relieved on May 9, Manchester W. Weld reported for duty on May 13 and took twenty days' leave on May 18 with clerk George Raynes left in charge, and Hay was signing letters at Hillsborough by May 20.Search the index · Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Register of Letters Received, Vol. 129, July 1867–Dec. 1868, transcription p. 17
  73. Lt. Thomas H. Hay finds about 150 people in Orange County in need of relief After talking with white and Black residents from all parts of the county, Hay reported little destitution bordering on starvation, but some old, feeble and sick people of both races, and a few widows of Confederate soldiers with families, who needed help; he put the number at no more than 150. With the wardens of the poor giving outdoor relief besides keeping 24 inmates at the poorhouse, and their chairman agreeing to take cases he referred, Hay asked that 4,000 rations be kept at Hillsborough for emergencies until the early crops came in.Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Letters Sent, Vol. 130, July 1867–Dec. 1868, transcription p. 112
  74. Thomas H. Hay's freedmen's court at Hillsborough decides Orange cases From May 23 to July 11, 1868, papers headed 'In Freedmens Court, Orange Co.' record seven Orange cases before Thomas H. Hay, first lieutenant in the 42nd Infantry and brevet major, the Bureau's officer at Hillsborough: four wage or account claims, a debt over pledged corn, a marriage dispute and an assault charge; he also tried four Person County cases at Roxboro on June 1-6. In each money claim in these papers with a recorded decision the freedperson won all or part, in sums from $5.55 to $35 in Orange and up to $107.97 in Person, paid at the Hillsborough office or collected by the sheriff.Search the index · Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Records Relating to Cases Tried & Destitute Freedmen, Part 1, transcription p. 137
  75. Lt. Thomas H. Hay reports on the May term of the Orange County court and its cases against Black defendants Hay attended the term that sat from May 25 to May 30, 1868 under chairman James C. Turrentine with John W. Graham as county solicitor. The court made indentures binding Black children and cancelled the indentures of five. In state cases against Black defendants, petit larceny brought four convictions, three acquittals and one continuance, bastardy two convictions and two continuances, and keeping a disorderly house one conviction. People: James C. Turrentine, John W. GrahamSearch the index · Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Letters Sent, Vol. 130, July 1867–Dec. 1868, transcription p. 114
  76. The Bureau sends sick freedmen from Hillsborough to its Salisbury hospital until it stops taking patients In June and July 1868 Lt. Thomas H. Hay got transportation for two poor, sick freedmen to the Freedmen's Hospital at Salisbury, saying the county poorhouse had no means to care for them. When he recommended a third, from Flat River, in October, headquarters replied on October 23 that with the Bureau soon closing no more patients would be received, and Hay advised sending the man to the poorhouse on a county commissioner's order.Search the index · Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Endorsements Sent and Received, Vol. 131, July 1867–Dec. 1868, transcription p. 70
  77. The court binds Amelia Ann Mays to John W. Graham and Ellen Mays to William A. Graham On motion, the court bound Amelia Ann Mays, twelve, to John W. Graham and Ellen Mays, ten, to William A. Graham, each until 18; their bonds, dated 30 and 20 May 1868, bound both girls to learn spinning. People: John W. GrahamSearch the index · Mark Chilton, Freedom Bound: Apprenticeship, Racism & Liberation in Orange County, North Carolina 1777 to 1868 (Wandering through the NC Piedmont)
  78. The court rescinds Calvin Godfrey's indenture because he works for wages paid to his mother Richard J. Thompson brought Calvin Godfrey, a person of color bound to him, into court and asked to be discharged from his bond. Finding that Calvin was working for wages paid to his mother, Alvina Godfrey, the court rescinded the indenture. The court had bound Calvin, a minor of color aged fourteen, to Thompson in May 1864, with money and a suit of clothes due at twenty-one.Mark Chilton, Freedom Bound: Apprenticeship, Racism & Liberation in Orange County, North Carolina 1777 to 1868 (Wandering through the NC Piedmont)
  79. The court rescinds the 1859 binding of the four Harris children to Lambert W. Hall The court rescinded its May 1859 order binding Thomas N., Doctor W., Betsy and Nancy Harris, persons of color, to Lambert W. Hall, and discharged Hall from all liability on his bond. The minutes give no reason.Mark Chilton, Freedom Bound: Apprenticeship, Racism & Liberation in Orange County, North Carolina 1777 to 1868 (Wandering through the NC Piedmont)
  80. Destitute Orange residents, white and Black, apply to the Bureau office at Hillsborough for rations In July 1868 the Hillsborough office received about 112 certificates asking rations for about 116 destitute people, 57 described as Black or freed, 51 as white and 8 not stated, most of them old, sick, disabled, widowed or caring for children. Justices of the peace and other residents of Hillsborough, Chapel Hill, Durham, Rock Spring, Caldwell and St. Mark's district signed them, Josiah Turner Jr. among them, and the white applicants included a veteran of the War of 1812 and a Confederate soldier who had lost a leg near Petersburg. Notes on two show rations paid to one applicant on July 13 and refused to another. People: Josiah Turner Jr.Search the index · Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Records Relating to Cases Tried & Destitute Freedmen, Part 1, transcription p. 178
  81. The Hillsborough Bureau office sends freedpeople's assault complaints to the magistrates, one against Pride Jones A freedwoman's complaint of July 1, 1868, that a white man had beaten her that day went to justice Andrew Murdock, who bound him over to court, and a freedman's complaint of assault on July 13 went to the same justice to have the accused bound over. A Chapel Hill freedman beaten by several men on July 2 settled for $10 and costs, and a wife's complaint of a violent beating by her husband was sent to justice Washington Jordan to bind him to keep the peace. People: Pride JonesSearch the index · Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Register of Complaints, Vol. 132, May–Oct. 1868, transcription p. 11
  82. The Philadelphia Friends' association owns the freedmen's schoolhouse at Hillsborough and lends it to the Methodists George Dixon wrote on June 26, 1868, that the Friends' teachers at the Hillsborough freedmen's school would leave early the next week and that the association had tried to keep a teacher for the youngest pupils through the summer. He said the schoolhouse belonged to the Philadelphia association, which let the Methodists preach in it without any claim to the property, and asked that they keep it in repair for the three months. People: George DixonFreedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Letters Received, May 1866–Dec. 1868, Part 1, transcription p. 219
  83. Lt. Thomas H. Hay praises Hillsborough's Howard Freedmen's School and asks the Philadelphia Friends for more teachers Writing to the secretary of the Friends' Freedmen's Association of Philadelphia, Hay called the Howard Freedmen's School at Hillsborough one of the most flourishing he had seen in the South and its teachers, Misses Harris and Allen, competent and faithful, and said nearly every freedman in town wanted them back after their vacation. He asked whether the association could send three or four teachers by September 1 for schools he was organizing.Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Letters Sent, Vol. 130, July 1867–Dec. 1868, transcription p. 127
  84. Lt. Thomas H. Hay reports twenty cases settled in June and freedmen's schools closed for the summer Hay investigated and settled twenty cases in June 1868, eighteen brought by freedmen and two by white men, and judged the freedmen to be working better than a year before. Some schools had closed for the summer, with children in the fields and some Northern teachers recalled for three months; he expected all to reopen in the fall and at least four new ones to start. Orange County needed some rations, nearly as many for whites as for Black residents.Search the index · Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Letters Sent, Vol. 130, July 1867–Dec. 1868, transcription p. 127
  85. A Chapel Hill magistrate and his son beat Mills Saunders while he is held on a civil warrant On July 1, 1868, constable Judd McDade brought Mills Saunders, a Black farm worker, to magistrate Jones Watson's store at Chapel Hill on a civil warrant from his employer; when Saunders said he had business to attend to on the Bureau's advice, Watson and his son Charles went at him with chairs, Saunders struck the son with his stick, and Watson, by his own account, hit Saunders with the stick near the post office. McDade tied Saunders's hands and led him back to the store, and the next day Hay summoned the Watsons, McDade and the employer to answer a charge of cruel and unjustifiable assault and battery. On July 6 Lt. Thomas H. Hay heard Saunders's charge at Hillsborough, with witnesses who included former sheriff H. B. Guthrie, who had seen the magistrate strike him, and Black neighbors who called the magistrate fair; the parties settled, the defendants paying the costs and $10, and Hay also gave Saunders $18.02 in wages. People: Hugh B. Guthrie, Jones WatsonSearch the index · Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Records Relating to Cases Tried & Destitute Freedmen, Part 1, transcription p. 159
  86. Freedpeople at Cedar Grove put up a school house and win Bureau rent for it Trustees led by Sam F. Martin wrote on July 4, 1868 that they were putting up an 18 by 20 foot school building at Cedar Grove and would open with 20 scholars, and asked the Bureau for $8 a month for a year. Lt. Thomas H. Hay, who had visited on July 2 and met the leading Black men of the district, recommended it, and on July 28 the superintendent of education agreed to pay $8 a month rent, to go to John F. Masters.Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Register of Letters Received, Vol. 129, July 1867–Dec. 1868, transcription p. 24
  87. Professor Charles Phillips certifies aged Chapel Hill residents for Bureau rations On July 8 and 9, 1868, Charles Phillips, signing as professor in the University of North Carolina, wrote certificates asking the Bureau to give food to an aged, bedridden freedwoman of the village and to an elderly couple. He wrote that the want of patronage to the University had so reduced the means of the people who had long helped the couple that they had to turn to the Bureau, and Jones Watson, J.P., A. Mickle and H. B. Guthrie endorsed his statements. People: Charles Phillips, Jones Watson, Hugh B. GuthrieFreedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Records Relating to Cases Tried & Destitute Freedmen, Part 2, transcription p. 189
  88. Chapel Hill freedmen seek Bureau aid for a building that Lt. Hay judges is meant as a Baptist church Thomas Kirby and others of Chapel Hill wrote Gen. O. O. Howard on July 15, 1868 asking help to build a school house on land they had secured. The superintendent of education advised against it because the Bureau had already helped build one school there. Lt. Thomas H. Hay reported a school house of 44 by 22 feet already standing, enough for all the Black children who would attend, judged that the letter's main object was a house of worship for Chapel Hill's Black Baptists, and recommended refusal.Search the index · Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Endorsements Sent and Received, Vol. 131, July 1867–Dec. 1868, transcription p. 63
  89. St. Mark's district residents tell the Bureau that county relief has failed On July 28, 1868, four residents of St. Mark's district wrote to Hay asking Bureau provisions for a very old woman who had been a charge on the county for many years, saying her efforts to get relief from the county had now failed. They wrote that the neighborhood would have fed her as before but that hardly anyone had surplus grain or meat, and Samuel Lynch, a former warden of the poor, vouched for them.Search the index · Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Records Relating to Cases Tried & Destitute Freedmen, Part 2, transcription p. 69
  90. Lt. Thomas H. Hay reports ten freedmen's day schools in Orange and Person, nearly all with Black teachers In his first school report from Hillsborough, Hay listed five day schools in Orange, at Hillsborough, Chapel Hill, Durham's, Bains and Cedar Grove, and five in Person, with 10 of the 11 teachers Black. The schoolhouses at Hillsborough and Chapel Hill belonged to the Friends' Freedmen's Association of Philadelphia and those at Bains and Cedar Grove to the freedpeople, who in Hay's judgment could scarcely make a living and could give little toward schools.Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Monthly Reports of Schools, Feb.–Dec. 1868, transcription p. 16
  91. Lt. Thomas H. Hay reports whites refusing Bureau summonses since the state's return to the Union Hay reported 23 complaints in July 1868, 21 by Black residents against whites and 2 by whites against Black residents, of which 11 were settled and the rest referred or pending. Since North Carolina's readmission, he wrote, whites were less willing to obey his summonses and claimed every case belonged in state or county courts, and many were driving freedmen off the farms where they worked on trivial excuses. He asked that the Bureau keep hearing freedpeople's complaints through the year, since the civil courts were too slow for people who lived by their daily labor.Search the index · Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Letters Sent, Vol. 130, July 1867–Dec. 1868, transcription p. 138
  92. The Bureau distributes 5,620 pounds of corn and 836 pounds of bacon among Orange County's destitute Lt. Thomas H. Hay reported that 5,620 pounds of corn and 836 pounds of bacon were given out among the destitute of Orange County during July 1868, about equally between white and Black recipients.Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Letters Sent, Vol. 130, July 1867–Dec. 1868, transcription p. 138
  93. Freedpeople at Durham's Station buy land and build a school house Lt. Thomas H. Hay went to Durham's on August 10, 1868 to establish a school. By August 27 the freedpeople had bought land and were putting up a building for 60 scholars and would pay a teacher's board; Hay asked $150 toward a salary for James Stagg, a white man the freedmen wanted, judging that the two small rival schools then kept by Empson Moore and George Bradshaw were doing little good. Bradshaw was teaching the freedmen's school at Durham's in November.Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Letters Sent, Vol. 130, July 1867–Dec. 1868, transcription p. 147
  94. Four people are held in the Orange County jail for the killing of Smith Green Lt. Thomas H. Hay reported that Smith Green's widow and three others were in the county jail awaiting trial for his murder at the superior court term beginning November 2, 1868, and sent up the coroner's inquest and testimony. Her mother had asked the Bureau's agent at Elizabeth City about the case.Search the index · Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Endorsements Sent and Received, Vol. 131, July 1867–Dec. 1868, transcription p. 64
  95. Lt. Thomas H. Hay reports threats to turn freedmen off farms for their politics In his August 1868 report Hay wrote that threats to dismiss freedmen from plantations were sometimes made on account of their political opinions but few had been carried out. In September he knew of one dismissal for politics, in which the employer would pay; in October he found politics taking much of the freedmen's time but expected no serious trouble on election day; and on November 30 he reported the election excitement over and few such threats carried out.Search the index · Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Letters Sent, Vol. 130, July 1867–Dec. 1868, transcription p. 150
  96. Freedpeople at Bains put up a school house on their own land In August 1868 Lt. Thomas H. Hay reported a school under way at Bains, about five miles from Hillsborough, where the freedpeople had built a school house on land they owned and 35 pupils were taught by a man Hay judged incompetent; trustees led by Orange Holman asked on September 30 for $8 a month rent for a house Hay found would hold about 50. James A. Whitted was the teacher by October; in November he had 30 on the roll and 25 attending, and Hay asked help for him as a faithful man the freedmen could pay little.Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Letters Sent, Vol. 130, July 1867–Dec. 1868, transcription p. 150
  97. Raleigh ends the Hillsborough Bureau clerk's post, citing the Bureau's coming close Headquarters told Major Thomas H. Hay that George Raynes's appointment as clerk of the Hillsborough office would be revoked on September 15 and that, with the Bureau soon to close, no other clerk would be hired; Raynes was given transportation to New York City. A new clerk, Theo Josephs, was nonetheless ordered to report to Hay on September 21, and the Secretary of War revoked his appointment as of November 10 as no longer needed.Search the index · Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Letters Received, May 1866–Dec. 1868, Part 2, transcription p. 143
  98. Esther Anderson arrives to teach Hillsborough's freedmen's school Lt. Thomas H. Hay reported that Miss Anderson, the new teacher for Hillsborough sent by the Friends' Freedmen's Association of Philadelphia, arrived the night of September 25, 1868. In November he wrote on her behalf that her October salary had not come and she was behind on her board.Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Letters Sent, Vol. 130, July 1867–Dec. 1868, transcription p. 156
  99. Chapel Hill's freedmen's school gets Bureau money for repairs and desks Trustees led by Ben J. Craig reported 90 scholars on September 28, 1868, and said the Friends' Freedmen's Association of Philadelphia had paid $50 for the school and $30 toward the building, to which the Bureau had given $70. In November the teacher counted 42 day, 15 night and 50 Sunday scholars. The Bureau allowed $50, Richard Mayo did $48 of carpentry on the building, twelve desks made at Hillsborough went to the school in late December, and the trustees drew $12 a month rent.Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Register of Letters Received, Vol. 129, July 1867–Dec. 1868, transcription p. 10
  100. A freedmen's school opens at Cotton Run and closes when its teacher resigns Trustees led by Samuel Ellison wrote on October 3, 1868 that they had rented a building and engaged a teacher and would open with 35 scholars, soon 45, and asked the Bureau for $8 a month. Lt. Thomas H. Hay, who called the neighborhood very poor, recommended the aid and named Empson Moore the teacher, but on November 12 reported the school suspended because Moore had resigned.Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Register of Letters Received, Vol. 129, July 1867–Dec. 1868, transcription p. 15
  101. Lt. Thomas H. Hay cancels apprenticeships made by an earlier Bureau officer and returns children to their parents Between October and December 1868 Hay voided three sets of indentures that had bound nine Black children to Orange County masters, made by Capt. Crockett, the Bureau officer at Hillsborough in 1865-66, as improperly executed. Five children were taken from a minister near Chapel Hill and delivered to their father on October 8 after the father complained to Governor Holden, two boys were returned to their mother on November 27, and two girls were released in December.Search the index · Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Letters Sent, Vol. 130, July 1867–Dec. 1868, transcription p. 193
  102. Trustees open a freedmen's school at a chapel near Chapel Hill Trustees led by Nelson O'Kelly wrote on October 12, 1868 that they had a school building and a teacher at a chapel in Orange County and could send 40 children, and asked $8 a month for rent. Lt. Thomas H. Hay called the trustees among the most reliable Black men in the county and the teacher competent, and had offered $6 a month toward the salary of teacher John Weaver if they would board him and send 35 scholars.Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Register of Letters Received, Vol. 129, July 1867–Dec. 1868, transcription p. 26
  103. Freedpeople at New Hope rent a building and hire a teacher for a school Trustees led by Nelson Kirklin wrote from New Hope that they had rented a school building and secured a teacher and could send about 40 scholars, and asked the Bureau for $10 a month during the school season. Lt. Thomas H. Hay recommended the aid, citing the many Black children of the neighborhood and the freedmen's poverty, and visited the school in November.Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Register of Letters Received, Vol. 129, July 1867–Dec. 1868, transcription p. 23
  104. Three justices, one of them Black, investigate a fight and a shooting at Durham's Governor W. W. Holden sent Lt. Thomas H. Hay and J.P. W. F. Strayhorn the complaint of freedman Henry Goss that Samuel Rodgers, a white man, had struck him and that he struck back in self-defense. On October 30, 1868 Strayhorn, Hay and Richard Mayo, a Black justice of the peace, found an affray in which both men were to blame and Rodgers was worst hurt, and sent it to superior court; when Rodgers had been reported killed, a party set out to arrest Goss and Theophilus Chavis, and someone fired a pistol as Chavis ran, but who fired, or at whom, could not be learned, and Hay saw no need for troops at Durham's. People: W. W. HoldenSearch the index · Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Endorsements Sent and Received, Vol. 131, July 1867–Dec. 1868, transcription p. 72
  105. Georgianna Rumbley opens the freedmen's school at Cedar Grove The Friends' Freedmen's Association of Philadelphia sent Rumbley to teach at Cedar Grove, where the freedpeople guaranteed her board, fuel and light. She went reluctantly after being told the place was dull, but by October 24 Lt. Thomas H. Hay reported the school open since the first week of October and better supplied with books and maps than any in the district except Hillsborough's.Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Letters Sent, Vol. 130, July 1867–Dec. 1868, transcription p. 169
  106. New freedmen's schools open at Banocks Chapel, Cotton Run and New Hope, all with Black teachers Hay's October 1868 report counted 13 day schools in Orange and Person, adding schools at Banocks Chapel near Chapel Hill (John Weaver), Cotton Run and New Hope (London Moore) to those at Hillsborough, Chapel Hill, Durham's, Bains and Cedar Grove. All 11 teachers were Black, among them R. G. Fitzgerald and E. E. Anderson at Hillsborough, James Whitted at Bains and Georgianna Rumbley at Cedar Grove, and the freedpeople owned the schoolhouses at Banocks Chapel, Bains and Cedar Grove. People: Robert G. FitzgeraldFreedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Monthly Reports of Schools, Feb.–Dec. 1868, transcription p. 25
  107. A Cedar Grove meeting expels Samuel H. Martin from the freedmen's school committee At a meeting called by trustees Augustus Allison and Arthur Anderson, the people of Cedar Grove voted unanimously to expel Samuel H. Martin from the freedmen's school committee, elected John Clark in his place, and agreed that the teacher Georgiana Rumbley should receive the Bureau's rent check. The Bureau's superintendent of education had held back the school's $8 monthly rent in October after getting no reports from the school Martin had taught.Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Letters Received, May 1866–Dec. 1868, Part 2, transcription p. 139
  108. Freedmen around Hillsborough ask about railroad work near Raleigh Lt. Thomas H. Hay asked headquarters on November 23, 1868 about a report among local freedmen that many hands were wanted on a railroad near Raleigh, saying many would go for better wages. The reply said the president of the Chatham Railroad wanted 60 or 70 hands at once and 1,000 more before Christmas, at $10 a month and rations. On December 15 Hay asked the road's superintendent for terms for several white and Black applicants.Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Register of Letters Received, Vol. 129, July 1867–Dec. 1868, transcription p. 11
  109. Lt. Thomas H. Hay counts about 330 day pupils in Orange County's freedmen's schools Hay's table for the month ending November 30, 1868, gave enrollment at eight Orange schools: Hillsborough 71 day, 20 night and 100 Sunday scholars; Chapel Hill and Cedar Grove 56 day pupils each; Barracks Chapel 42; Durham's 35; New Hope 27; Bains 25; and Mrs. Richardson's school at Hillsborough 18, with Cotton Run lacking a teacher. The Durham's schoolhouse belonged to its Black teacher George Bradshaw, and Fannie Culver at Chapel Hill was the only white teacher in the two counties.Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Monthly Reports of Schools, Feb.–Dec. 1868, transcription p. 28
  110. Trustees vote to found a university branch for Black students near Raleigh On Victor C. Barringer's motion the Reconstruction trustees called for a school for Black students near Raleigh equal to the one at Chapel Hill, and on Albion W. Tourgee's motion made it a branch of the university, with Tod R. Caldwell moving that at least 100 acres be bought. Nothing came of it, nor of a later proposal to give Black students a third of the land-scrip money or of Tourgee's request for equal white and Black departments under one board. People: Tod Robinson Caldwell, Albion W. TourgeeDocumenting the American South: Kemp P. Battle, History of the University of North Carolina, vol. II (1912), p. 8
  111. Major Hay orders Sheriff John Turner to return two Black children held by a white man Major Thomas H. Hay ordered Orange County Sheriff John Turner to go to the house of a white man whom Hay found to be illegally holding two Black girls and to deliver them to the freedwoman who was the mother of one and aunt of the other. Deputy Sheriff W. H. Jordan served the order and handed over the children on December 18.Search the index · Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Letters Received, May 1866–Dec. 1868, Part 2, transcription p. 100
  112. Lt. Thomas H. Hay tries to talk teacher Robert G. Fitzgerald out of running for clerk Hay wrote privately to Alfred H. Jones, superintendent of the Friends' Freedmen's Association schools, that Fitzgerald, a teacher at Hillsborough, was thinking of standing for clerk at the municipal election due the next month. Hay had told him it was unwise, saying he could not do his duty to the association's school and the clerk's office both and that it did not look well for a teacher to be a politician.Search the index · Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Letters Sent, Vol. 130, July 1867–Dec. 1868, transcription p. 214
  113. The Bureau closes its Hillsborough office as Lt. Thomas H. Hay rejoins his regiment Army Special Orders No. 305 of December 22, 1868 relieved Hay from Bureau duty to rejoin the 42nd Infantry from December 31, and the assistant commissioner told him to send all the office's books, papers and property to the chief quartermaster at Raleigh. Hay transferred the property by the North Carolina Railroad on December 26 and left Hillsborough on December 31.Search the index · Freedmen's Bureau, North Carolina Field Offices, Hillsboro: Register of Letters Received, Vol. 129, July 1867–Dec. 1868, transcription p. 12
  114. Chapel Hill's Black school holds a commencement with a Fayetteville brass band The village school for Black children held its own commencement, with a procession, speeches, a dialogue and a supper, and music by a brass band from Fayetteville. Spencer printed a note on it to mock the poorly attended commencement of Pool's university.Hope Summerell Chamberlain, Old Days in Chapel Hill (1926), scan p. 190
  115. Most Black members leave the Chapel Hill Methodist church after the war When Black members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, withdrew in 1869 and 1870 to form a separate church, the Chapel Hill congregation lost nearly all of its Black membership, which had peaked at 81 in 1864 and stood at 8 in 1871.Search the index · The Chapel Hill Methodist Church: A Centennial History, 1853-1953 (1954), scan p. 21
  116. Robert Fitzgerald and his brother start a brick kiln Robert G. Fitzgerald, who came to Hillsborough in January 1868 to teach a freedmen's school, set up a brick kiln in partnership with his brother; his diaries through 1871 record its supplies and labor. His brother Richard was selling bricks in Durham by 1869. People: Robert G. FitzgeraldSearch the index · UNC Wilson Library: Fitzgerald Family Papers #4177, finding aid
  117. Thomas Fitzgerald buys Woodside, where his son Robert builds a freedmen's school In 1869 Thomas Fitzgerald, father of the freedmen's teacher Robert G. Fitzgerald, moved to Orange County from Delaware and bought a 158-acre farm for $1,200. The family place, Woodside, lay about six miles east of Hillsborough. Robert built a freedmen's school on the property, and his diaries record a tanning business and a brick kiln he set up with his brother.Search the index · NC Historic Preservation Office: Richard L. Mattson, History and Architecture of Orange County (1996), p. 36 · Also: Orange County Historical Museum blog: Robert Fitzgerald; UNC Wilson Library: Fitzgerald Family Papers #4177, finding aid; Open Orange: Woodside Farm
  118. Wilson Caldwell resigns from the university and founds a school for Black children In 1869 Wilson Caldwell, who had worked at the university as an enslaved servant and janitor, resigned and started a school for children of color in Chapel Hill. People: Wilson Swain CaldwellChapelboro: Celebrating the Life of Wilson Caldwell
  119. Fisk Brewer's sister comes to Chapel Hill to teach the Black school A sister of Fisk P. Brewer, the new professor of Greek and an outspoken supporter of Black education, came to Chapel Hill to take charge of the village school for Black children. People: Fisk P. (Fisk Parsons) BrewerHope Summerell Chamberlain, Old Days in Chapel Hill (1926), scan p. 192
  120. Mount Sinai Baptist Church is organized Black Baptists organized Mount Sinai Baptist Church in 1870 with E. H. Cole as first pastor.Lefler and Wager, Orange County, 1752-1952 (1953), p. 305
  121. St. Paul joins the African Methodist Episcopal Church Six years after it began meeting under a grape arbor in 1864, the Chapel Hill Black Methodist congregation now known as St. Paul AME received word in 1870 that it had been accepted into the African Methodist Episcopal Church, headquartered in Philadelphia.Search the index · St. Paul AME Church, Chapel Hill: Church History
  122. Trustees refuse land for a Black school in Chapel Hill The Chapel Hill school committee of Morgan Closs, W. H. Bunch and H. C. Andrews asked the trustees for two acres on the Pittsboro Road next to the Hubbard lot for a school for Black children, saying friends of education would pay for a schoolhouse. The board declined because the land was under mortgage.Documenting the American South: Kemp P. Battle, History of the University of North Carolina, vol. II (1912), p. 43
  123. The Chapel Hill Baptist Church bars the Black congregation from its building The Black members who left in 1865 had been allowed to keep using the church building for a small fee. In 1871 the white church passed a long resolution ending that use.Search the index · Almonte Charles Howell, A History of the Chapel Hill Baptist Church, 1854-1924 (1945), scan p. 24
  124. Mary Pauline Fitzgerald is baptized at St. Matthew's The seven-month-old daughter of the freedmen's teacher Robert G. Fitzgerald and his wife Cornelia was baptized at St. Matthew's, her mother standing as sponsor. As Pauline Fitzgerald Dame she later raised her niece, Pauli Murray. People: Robert G. Fitzgerald, Pauli MurrayBurwell School Historic Site Task Force: Antebellum Hillsborough, Slavery, and Enslaved and Free People of Color who Worked at the Burwell School, 1837-1857 (2019), p. 75
  125. Job Berry is named a delegate to the Republican state convention The Orange County Republican convention chose Rev. Job Berry as a Hillsborough delegate to the 1872 state convention, which backed Ulysses S. Grant and Governor Tod R. Caldwell. People: Job BerryElizabeth Keckly Center research database: Job Berry
  126. Mount Bright Baptist Church builds its church in Hillsborough Mount Bright Baptist Church, the Black Baptist congregation in Hillsborough led by Alfred Bright, erected its church building in 1875.Lefler and Wager, Orange County, 1752-1952 (1953), p. 306
  127. The Chapel Hill Baptist Church turns down the Black Baptist church's request to reunite The Black Baptist congregation asked to join the white church again. The church declined and sent a deacon to tell them as gently as he could.Search the index · Almonte Charles Howell, A History of the Chapel Hill Baptist Church, 1854-1924 (1945), scan p. 24
  128. A Presbyterian church for Hillsborough's Black members is founded More than a decade after emancipation, a Presbyterian church for people of color was established on land from the Brodie family at the corner of Orange and Wake streets.Burwell School Historic Site Task Force: Antebellum Hillsborough, Slavery, and Enslaved and Free People of Color who Worked at the Burwell School, 1837-1857 (2019), p. 8
  129. Louis H. Hackney becomes pastor of Rock Hill Baptist Church Louis H. Hackney, who had spent six years at Shaw University in the early 1870s and then taught school, became pastor of Rock Hill Baptist Church on Franklin Street in January 1877, when he was barely twenty-two. He held the pastorate for sixty years, until his death in 1937. He and his wife had married in 1876.Search the index · The Chapel Hill Weekly, August 13, 1926, p. 4 · Also: Chapel Hill Weekly, July 29, 1927, p. 6; Chapel Hill Weekly, October 22, 1926, p. 4; Chapel Hill Weekly, December 24, 1937, p. 6; Open Orange: Louis H. Hackney
  130. Hickory Grove Baptist Church is organized Black families organized Hickory Grove Baptist Church, with C. D. Hackney as first pastor.Lefler and Wager, Orange County, 1752-1952 (1953), p. 306
  131. Hillsborough's Black Presbyterians build their church on Orange Street The congregation built its church about 1878 with some help from white residents. Leading families were the Ellisons, Boldens, Morrows, Richmonds and Webbs; Bill Bolden played the organ and a Rev. White was pastor.Search the index · Pauline O. Lloyd and Allen A. Lloyd, History of the Churches of Hillsborough, N.C., ca. 1766-1962 (1963), scan p. 155
  132. Mount Zion AME Church is organized at Martinsville Lefler and Wager say five Black men, Jack Horner, Bedford Corbett, Richard Jordan, Sam McBroom and Richard Thompson, organized the church about 1878 at Martinsville, probably the Martin farm near Cedar Grove. The congregation's own history dates its first gatherings to about 1869 and says it was known as Poplar Springs, with a pastor by 1878, until it took the Mount Zion AME name about 1880. It bought an acre from S. W. and Margaret J. Hughes in 1882 and moved to its present site about 1927.Lefler and Wager, Orange County, 1752-1952 (1953), p. 304 · Also: Mt. Zion AME Church, Our History
  133. St. Paul AME buys a church lot from Benjamin and Dilsy Craig The congregation paid fifty-five dollars on April 15, 1878 for a church lot bought from Benjamin and Dilsy Craig, and was raising money in December 1879 and January 1880 to finish a church there. In 1892 it built its present church across Merritt Mill Road from the earlier one, on land the 1983 Carrboro inventory says the Hargraves and Caldwell families gave about 1890. People: Benjamin Craig, Dilsey CraigSt. Paul AME Chapel Hill: History · Also: The Chapel Hill Ledger, December 6, 1879, p. 3; Brown, McSwain and Florin, Carrboro Inventory
  134. Black residents of Chapel Hill hold a large celebration with Raleigh's Black brass band Black people of Chapel Hill and the surrounding country gathered in the village for a day of celebration, with music by Raleigh's Black brass band and marshals keeping order. In early July Black residents had met to plan a union celebration of their Sunday schools for August.The Chapel Hill Ledger, August 10, 1878, p. 3
  135. Chapel Hill's A.M.E. Sunday school reorganizes under new officers The A.M.E. Sunday school at Chapel Hill was reorganized with S. McK. Bowles as superintendent, C. E. W. Johnson as assistant superintendent and treasurer, Jesse Jones as librarian and Willis M. Nevils as secretary. The paper reported the school flourishing.The Chapel Hill Ledger, August 31, 1878, p. 3
  136. The AME Church's annual conference meets at Hillsborough An annual conference of the African Methodist Episcopal Church met at Hillsborough for about a week under Bishop John M. Brown, with fifty-five ministers attending; services were held in the town's Black church, the Presbyterian and Methodist churches were lent for Sunday, and Bishop Brown preached to a white congregation in the Methodist church.Search the index · Hillsborough Recorder, November 20, 1878, p. 3
  137. Latta Grove Baptist Church is organized Jerry M. Latta and others organized Latta Grove Baptist Church about 1879.Lefler and Wager, Orange County, 1752-1952 (1953), p. 306
  138. Toney and Nellie Strayhorn, formerly enslaved, bought thirty acres in what became Carrboro The Strayhorns bought about thirty acres and built a one-room log cabin at what is now 109 Jones Ferry Road, and their son William built the house next door at 107 in 1915. Toney Strayhorn is remembered as a founder of First Baptist Church in Chapel Hill, and the house is still owned by a great-granddaughter. People: Toney Strayhorn, William StrayhornTown of Carrboro: Our Roots Run Deep: Black History in Carrboro
  139. Chapel Hill's Black Baptist and Methodist Sunday schools hold a union celebration The Black Baptist and Methodist Sunday schools of Chapel Hill held a grand union celebration in the university grove, with the Durham brass band and a large, orderly crowd from town and country. B. J. Craig, Henry Jones and others spoke, and the pupils gave recitations and speeches.The Chapel Hill Ledger, August 30, 1879, p. 3
  140. Chapel Hill's public school for Black children opens its term under James A. Whitted The public school for Black children in Chapel Hill opened with about twenty pupils under James A. Whitted. By mid-November it had more than fifty and its schoolhouse was full, and the Ledger urged the school committee to act.The Chapel Hill Ledger, October 11, 1879, p. 3
  141. Glenn's Grove Baptist Church is organized Glenn's Grove Baptist Church, a Black congregation, was organized about 1880 with Henry Fuller as first pastor.Lefler and Wager, Orange County, 1752-1952 (1953), p. 306
  142. Mount Olive Lodge No. 86 of Prince Hall Masons is established Black Masons established Mount Olive Lodge No. 86, a Prince Hall lodge serving Chapel Hill and Carrboro. Randolph Chapter No. 185 of the Order of the Eastern Star was associated with it.Search the index · Lefler and Wager, Orange County, 1752-1952 (1953), p. 321
  143. Orange Cross Roads Baptist Church is organized Orange Cross Roads Baptist Church, a Black Baptist congregation, was organized about 1880. It built its church in 1923.Lefler and Wager, Orange County, 1752-1952 (1953), p. 306
  144. Chapel Hill's AME congregation issues a public appeal for money to finish its house of worship Rev. G. W. Offley, preacher in charge of the African Methodist Episcopal church in Chapel Hill, signed a circular dated January 5, 1880 asking the public to help the congregation complete its house of worship and naming Brother George Trice to solicit subscriptions. The Chapel Hill Ledger printed it in full on January 10, 1880. People: George TriceThe Chapel Hill Ledger, January 10, 1880, p. 3
  145. Chapel Hill's Black school counts more than eighty pupils under one teacher The Black public school at Chapel Hill enrolled more than 80 pupils with a daily average above 50, but the committee could pay only one teacher and the house held only one room's worth, so its trustees were raising money to repair the old building or put up a new one.The Chapel Hill Ledger, January 31, 1880, p. 3
  146. Supporters of Chapel Hill's Black school raise a subscription for a schoolhouse Supporters of the Black school at Chapel Hill circulated a subscription paper to help build a schoolhouse and had nearly $80 pledged, much of it from university faculty, students and other townspeople with no children in the school. A public letter of thanks urged Black families to do their utmost for it.The Chapel Hill Ledger, February 21, 1880, p. 3
  147. The Mount Zion congregation buys an acre for its first church The Black congregation then known as Poplar Springs, which had met in a schoolhouse and on members' farms, bought a one-acre lot from S. W. Hughes and Margaret J. Hughes for $10. Its first church there was a small frame building with benches made by members. People: Samuel Wellwood HughesMount Zion AME Church, Hillsborough: Our History (church website)
  148. Work begins on the Gray school and church for Black residents at Brownsville With a gift from a Mrs. Gray of California, the American Missionary Association, represented by the Rev. Alfred Connet of McLeansville, began a church and school building for Black residents at Brownsville, about a mile west of Hillsborough, at the northeast corner of Haywood Beverly's tan-yard on Lattimore Street, and $400 of the roughly $600 needed was raised by August 28. A committee of Annie Richardson, Frank Harris and Walker Whitted collected the rest, and by December the building was nearly finished, with a dedication planned for January 6, 1884.Orange County Observer (Hillsborough), September 1, 1883, p. 3
  149. Dickerson's Chapel trustees buy the old courthouse from the Philadelphia Friends Trustees of the Philadelphia Friends' association for the relief of freedmen sold the old Baptist church lot, with the former courthouse on it, to the trustees of Hillsborough's African Methodist Episcopal church for $800. The congregation had worshipped and kept school there for twenty years.Search the index · Pauline O. Lloyd and Allen A. Lloyd, History of the Churches of Hillsborough, N.C., ca. 1766-1962 (1963), scan p. 61
  150. The Hillsboro Colored Normal School opens under Hampton graduate L. C. Jenkins The Hillsboro Colored Normal School opened with Miss L. C. Jenkins, a graduate of Hampton Institute, as its teacher. By January 1888 it had enrolled forty-five pupils, and its backers were asking for help to build an academy by October 1888.Search the index · Orange County Observer (Hillsborough), January 14, 1888, p. 3
  151. Hillsborough's Black Independent Literary Society installs its officers at the A.M.E. church The Independent Literary Society, a Black society about three months old that met at the A.M.E. church in Hillsborough, installed officers with Rev. J. E. C. Barham as president and C. P. Turrentine as secretary. It set a public debate for February 6 on whether Black Americans should emigrate to a colony of their own or remain in the United States.Search the index · Orange County Observer (Hillsborough), February 11, 1888, p. 3
  152. Methodist trustees sell the old Rosemary Street church to the American Missionary Association With the Franklin Street church ready, the trustees sold the 1853 church and its lot at Rosemary and Henderson streets for $800 to W. H. Hubbard, treasurer of the American Missionary Association of New York, keeping back only the organ, clock and Bible. The building became a Congregational church that Northern friends had bought for Black worshippers. People: John H. Watson, Jones WatsonSearch the index · The Chapel Hill Methodist Church: A Centennial History, 1853-1953 (1954), scan p. 22
  153. Jesse Ruffin, coachman and stagecoach driver, dies Jesse Ruffin died in his nineties at his grandson Lindsey Faucette's house, out between Hillsborough and Durham. The Durham Sun remembered him as Judge Ruffin's servant and later Paul Cameron's, and a stagecoach driver before the railroad came; he was carried to Hillsborough by train for burial. People: Jesse RuffinBurwell School Historic Site Task Force: Antebellum Hillsborough, Slavery, and Enslaved and Free People of Color who Worked at the Burwell School, 1837-1857 (2019), p. 29
  154. Mount Bright Baptist Church's first building burns Fire destroyed Mount Bright Baptist Church's original building, on the lot Susan Graham had given the congregation. The 2014 Hillsborough Historic District documentation places that first church on South Churton Street near the Eno, before the congregation moved to West Union Street early in the twentieth century.Mount Bright Missionary Baptist Church, Our Story (Internet Archive copy, June 13, 2024) · Also: Open Orange: Mt. Bright Baptist Church; Hillsborough Historic District NR additional documentation
  155. Mount Bright Baptist Church is rebuilt Three years after the fire, Mount Bright's members raised a new church; the Rev. Alvis Whitted was then the pastor. The congregation's present church on West Union Street dates from 1979.Mount Bright Missionary Baptist Church, Our Story (Internet Archive copy, June 13, 2024) · Also: Open Orange: Mt. Bright Baptist Church; Hillsborough Historic District NR additional documentation
  156. Carrboro unveils a truth plaque naming Green Cordal and Benjamin Craig 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 GistSearch the index · Chapelboro.com: Second 'Truth Plaque' Unveiled at Former Freedmen's School in Carrboro

Places in this history

Buildings, schools, churches and other sites named in the dated events on this page, the most often named first. The map shows the 14 with a known location.

Map tiles © OpenStreetMap contributors. Site locations from the N.C. State Historic Preservation Office survey, Open Orange, Orange County GIS and OpenStreetMap; town and community pins show approximate locations.

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Research sources

Sources and research tools for this storyline.

Background 8

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Historic sites, markers, and maps

Records of the time 6

Collections and databases 10

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Local help

Background reading at OCPL

Books from OCPL’s Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection that provide broader context. They may not discuss Freedom, schools, and Black community-building after emancipation directly.

  • Background reading · Rebecca Wall Collection Their Highest Potential: An African American School Community in the Segregated South Siddle Walker, Vanessa · 1996

    Vanessa Siddle Walker's case study of the Caswell County Training School, a school for Black students in segregated Caswell County, and of the community around it. Caswell was formed from Orange County in 1777, with Yanceyville as its seat. UNC Press, 1996; 259 pages with illustrations, a map, a bibliography and an index.

    Subjects in the Library of Congress catalog record: African Americans -- Education -- North Carolina -- Caswell County -- Case studies; Community and school -- North Carolina -- Caswell County -- Case studies; Caswell County Training School (Caswell County, N.C.) OCPL call number: NC 371.979 WAL
  • Background reading · Rebecca Wall Collection Reconstruction in North Carolina Hamilton, Joseph Grégoire de Roulhac · 1964

    J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton, a Hillsborough native who taught history at the University of North Carolina from 1906, grew this political history of Reconstruction in the state out of his Columbia dissertation under William A. Dunning. Columbia issued the full text in 1914 (683 pages, with a folding map); Peter Smith reprinted it in 1964. Written from the Lost Cause outlook of the Dunning school, it went unchallenged for about fifty years.

    Subjects in the Library of Congress catalog record: Reconstruction (U.S. history, 1865-1877) -- North Carolina; North Carolina -- Politics and government OCPL call number: NC 975.6 HAM
  • Background reading · Rebecca Wall Collection North Carolinians in the Era of the Civil War and Reconstruction 2008

    Paul D. Escott edits nine essays on North Carolinians from secession through Reconstruction: Piedmont disaffection, Wild's Raid and guerrilla war in the northeast, African Americans under Union occupation, soldiers and the 1864 governor's race, the war's end as seen by Chapel Hill writer Cornelia Phillips Spencer, Zebulon Vance and university president David L. Swain, women and the law, divorce at the 1868 constitutional convention, the roots of Jim Crow, and Vance's memory. UNC Press, 2008.

    Subjects in the Library of Congress catalog record: North Carolina -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865; North Carolina -- Politics and government -- 1861-1865; North Carolina -- History -- 1865- OCPL call number: NC 973.745 NOR

Search the Wall Collection for related books →

Related themes

Orange County’s Black high schools: the Training School, Lincoln and Central →School desegregation in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, 1954–1967 →UNC & Campus Life →Chapel Hill freedom movement, 1960–1964 →

Picture: Dickerson Chapel A.M.E. Church, Hillsborough. CC BY-SA 4.0. Photograph by Willthacheerleader18; via Wikimedia Commons

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