Storyline
How Hillsborough’s public school found a home of its own: the school in the Academy in 1891, the fight over the Female Academy lot, the first schoolhouse bought in 1901, the new building of 1903, the West Hill school and the high school’s growing rolls.
In briefBy Pender's account Hillsboro had never owned a school building before 1901, though its public school had opened in the Academy building in 1891. In 1900 the town would offer only a ten-year lease on the old Hillsboro Female Academy lot, which the county board said the law did not allow, and in 1901 the school committee bought a house from E. S. Cooley for $500. Townspeople subscribed for a new schoolhouse in 1902, and in 1903 the Black contractor James Nichols began building it for the town's white children. Voters defeated a special school tax in 1908, but in 1911 the high school opened with 136 pupils, by the Observer's account its largest attendance.
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On March 16, 1891 Hillsborough's public school was set to open in the Academy building, with Miss Laws in charge. In October 1900 the county board asked the town to deed the old Hillsboro Female Academy lot to the school committee; the town offered only a ten-year lease, which the board said the law did not allow, and it told the committee to find another site. On January 14, 1901 the committee bought a house on a two-acre lot from E. S. Cooley for $500; Pender says Hillsboro had never before owned a school building. In October 1902 townspeople answered County Superintendent Charles E. Maddry's appeal with subscriptions for a new schoolhouse, and the county board pledged to match every dollar. In January 1903 the Black contractor James Nichols began building it for the white children of Hillsborough. In 1907 the board split the Hillsboro district and ordered a two-teacher school at West Hill. On May 26, 1908 voters in a special tax district covering the town defeated a special school tax, 59 voting against it. Robert McArthur Wilson was principal of the Hillsboro High School for two years and resigned in July 1911 for the Rocky Mount schools. On September 18, 1911 the high school opened with 136 pupils, which the Observer called the largest attendance in its history.
Events in this storyline, in date order. See these 10 dated events in the chronology →
Buildings, schools, churches and other sites named in the dated events on this page, the most often named first. The map shows them all.
Map tiles © OpenStreetMap contributors. Site locations from the N.C. State Historic Preservation Office survey, Open Orange, Orange County GIS, OpenStreetMap and a few other published sources named on each site’s page; town and community pins show approximate locations.
Background reading on Schools & Education. These works cover the broader subject and may not discuss this storyline. Follow a link to find a copy or view the material.
A 2026 novel set in Carrboro. Frances, thirty and grieving her mother, and her husband Ben open their marriage, and the book follows what that decision does to them and to the people closest to them. The characters include college teachers and a ghostwriter. 296 pages.
An illustrated online timeline of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Nursing, issued by the school in 2025. One page with portraits.
A 2025 history of University of North Carolina baseball from its nineteenth-century beginnings to the program's rise as an ACC power. Chapters cover the early years on campus, the building of Boshamer Stadium, and the Mike Fox era. Self-published by the author, 288 pages.
Joanna Pearson's novel of a cold case at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Karlie Richards was a nineteen-year-old student when she was murdered; decades later her onetime roommate, divorced and in middle age, finds herself drawn back to the crime as online conspiracy theories about it multiply. A psychological thriller with a Chapel Hill setting, published by Bloomsbury in 2024, 275 pages.
The 2023 issue of Carrboro High School's literary magazine, featuring fiction and poetry written by its students.
William R. Burk's history of botany at the University of North Carolina, from its early natural scientists such as Denison Olmsted and Elisha Mitchell through later figures including George Francis Atkinson, Joseph Austin Holmes and Henry Van Peters Wilson, closing with a chapter on the Department of Botany itself. Published in Fort Worth in 2023.
Willis P. Whichard's biography of David Lowry Swain, governor of North Carolina from 1832 to 1835 and president of the University of North Carolina from 1835 until his death in 1868. The subtitle ties Swain, nineteenth-century North Carolina and the university together, and the book belongs with the lives of college presidents and governors. Published in 2022.
Jim Grimsley's coming-of-age novel about Ronny, who grew up in a trailer alongside his mother and a string of stepfathers, kept his head down, earned good grades and won a scholarship to UNC in Chapel Hill. On campus he finds his first love and begins to sort out who he is. Subjects include gay college students, first loves and mothers and sons. Published by Levine Querido in 2022, 322 pages.
Scott Madry's recollections of the student tech crew at Memorial Hall, the University of North Carolina's auditorium in Chapel Hill, presented under the banner of the Carolina Union, the campus student union. Published in Chapel Hill in 2021.
Geeta Kapur's history of race at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, from the enslaved labor that built the campus through desegregation and the Black student protests that followed. Twelve chapters, with a foreword by William Barber II, move from the founding era and the Great Depression controversies to the state's response to integration and the turmoil of later decades; North Carolina Central University also figures. Published 2021 by Blair in Durham.
Tracy Deonn's young adult fantasy about an African American teenager who arrives as a student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill after her mother's death and finds a secret society bound to Arthurian legend, with demons, magic and her own family's past. Published by Margaret K. McElderry Books in 2020, 501 pages, for ages 14 and up. Winner of the 2021 Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe Award for New Talent.
Reviewed in Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books./Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books (2020).
Sylvia D. Hoffert's article on Margaret Anna Burwell, 1810 to 1871, and the work of being a Presbyterian minister's wife in North Carolina from 1835 to 1857, the years of the female school she and her husband kept in Hillsborough. Pages 245 to 275 with illustrations, facsimiles and portraits, issued by the Office of Archives and History in Raleigh in 2019.
Books in OCPL’s Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection whose titles, catalog subjects, or descriptions match this storyline. The Friends’ recommended starting points are labelled. Books marked Wider context cover the broader subject rather than this storyline itself.
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.
James B. Hunt Jr., governor of North Carolina from 1977 to 1985 and again from 1993 to 2001, lays out his views on public schools, education reform and early childhood programs, Smart Start among them, and challenges the state to build the best schools in the nation. Issued by the First in America Foundation in Raleigh in 2001, 93 pages.
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