Named event or history
Dennis Heartt’s weekly, the first newspaper west of Raleigh, and for the rest of the century the Piedmont’s printed record.
In briefDennis Heartt began the Hillsborough Recorder in February 1820 and published it for nearly fifty years, a Whig paper before the Civil War whose shop also printed books, among them George Moses Horton's poems in 1845; William W. Holden learned printing there. Heartt gave up the paper in January 1869, and John D. Cameron, its editor from 1872, moved it to Durham in 1879.
19 indexed works are connected with this event. 2 held at OCPL →
Related works found in catalogs and archives across North Carolina. Each links to the institution that holds or provides it.
Shirley Jones Mallard's abstracts of the death and marriage notices printed in the Hillsborough Recorder from 1820 to 1879 and in the Hillsboro Recorder of 1887 and 1888. Published by the compiler in Chapel Hill in 1997, 445 pages.
Why this is here: Catalog heading in the Durham record: Hillsborough Recorder (N.C.) -- Abstracts.
E. B. Munson's five-volume abstract of the marriage and death notices printed in the Hillsborough Recorder between 1820 and 1865: volume 1 covers 1820 to 1836, volume 2 1837 to 1845, volume 3 1846 to 1853, volume 4 1854 to 1859 and volume 5 1860 to 1865. The paper reported on families well beyond Hillsborough. Self-published in Greenville, N.C., 2001, 28 cm.
Why this is here: Its title names this subject.
Shirley Jones Mallard gathered the death and marriage notices printed in the Hillsborough Recorder from 1820 to 1879 and in the Hillsboro Recorder for 1887 and 1888. Published by the compiler in 1997, 445 pages.
Why this is here: Catalog heading in the NC Cardinal record: American newspapers -- North Carolina -- Hillsborough -- Abstracts.
Shirley Jones Mallard's compilation of the death and marriage notices published in the Hillsborough Recorder between 1820 and 1879, issued by the compiler in 1997 at 29 centimeters. The notices name brides, grooms and the dead across six decades of the county seat's newspaper.
Why this is here: Its title names this subject.
An index on cards to mentions of Chapel Hill and the University of North Carolina in surviving issues of the Hillsborough Recorder between 1820 and 1879. Helen D. Allen compiled the entries by hand in 1970, and they fill one file box of four by six inch cards.
Why this is here: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Hillsborough recorder (Hillsborough, N.C. : 1820).
Marian Camper Fuller's abstracts of marriage and death notices printed in the Hillsborough Recorder, covering 1820 to 1829, 1834 to 1858, 1860 to 1869, and the years 1873 and 1877, with gaps in coverage. Prepared in 1946 as a typescript, 130 pages and 81 leaves. A first stop for family historians working Orange County names in the nineteenth century.
Why this is here: Its title names this subject.
J. D. Cameron issued this single sheet in 1872 to announce the terms and the plan of the Hillsborough Recorder, the town's newspaper, and signed it at the end. The prospectus measures 42 by 10 cm. Evidence of how a county paper solicited subscribers after the Civil War.
Why this is here: Catalog heading in the UNC record: American newspapers -- North Carolina -- Hillsborough.
The weekly newspaper Dennis Heartt began at Hillsborough in 1820, printed in large format and carrying county and state news. Publishers varied across the run; the paper was Democratic in its politics. Later compilers abstracted its death and marriage notices, which is how much of Orange County genealogy reaches back into the period.
Why this is here: Its title names this subject.
Dennis Heartt's Hillsborough Recorder, a Democratic weekly for Orange County that ran from 1820 to 1879. Publication was suspended twice in the spring of 1865, from 19 April to 3 May and from 17 May to 26 June. Part of the Chronicling America newspaper collection.
Why this is here: Its title names this subject.
The Hillsborough Recorder was the town's long running weekly newspaper, begun in 1820 by the printer Dennis Heartt, whose shop also produced many of the Hillsborough imprints of that period.
Why this is here: Its title names this subject.
George A. Williams of the 7th North Carolina Infantry wrote his parents and children on 5 April 1864 that he was safely back in camp and the men were faring well. He reports days of cold, rain and snow and hopes for a move to Camp Holmes. Governor Vance, W. W. Holden, food, health and talk of peace also come up.
Why this is here: The record names this subject alongside a heading for the county or its towns.
NC Digital Collections record courtesy of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
Statewide Civil War collection of the State Archives of North Carolina, dated 1860 to 1965. It gathers pardon petitions, bounty payrolls, quartermaster vouchers and supply papers, disabled veterans' claims and letters about artificial limbs, regimental and unit papers, muster rolls, diaries, reminiscences, clippings and sheet music. Orange County is one of the many North Carolina counties represented.
Why this is here: The record names this subject alongside a heading for the county or its towns.
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. Books marked Wider context cover the broader subject rather than this event itself.
Shirley Jones Mallard's abstracts of the death and marriage notices printed in the Hillsborough Recorder from 1820 to 1879 and in the Hillsboro Recorder of 1887 and 1888. Published by the compiler in Chapel Hill in 1997, 445 pages.
Printing in North Carolina from James Davis's arrival in 1749, in George Washington Paschal's history, which centers on the pioneer printers to 1800 and the Raleigh firm of Edwards and Broughton from 1871 to 1946, with a shorter account of the years between. Josephus Daniels wrote the introduction. Paschal taught Greek at Wake Forest and wrote Baptist history; 313 pages with plates, facsimiles, a partial list of the firm's imprints and a bibliography.
Two early Raleigh newspapers, the Minerva and the Star, supplied the marriage and death notices gathered here for 1796 to 1826, with a bride index for each paper's marriages. Jane Cutler Bahnsen, Elizabeth Henderson Cotten and Helen Dortch Harrison of the North Carolina Collection at the University of North Carolina prepared the indexes in the 1950s; Southern Historical Press published them in 1977, 164 pages. Some notices concern South Carolinians.
Dated events connected with this event: sixteen of 27, the highlights and a sample of the rest spread across the years, in date order. See all 27 dated events in the chronology →
Dennis Heartt began publishing the weekly Hillsborough Recorder in February 1820, at three dollars a year. The paper ran until 1879, and its surviving issues are a main record of nineteenth-century Hillsborough and Orange County.
People: Dennis Heartt
Subject: Hillsborough Recorder
The Hillsborough Recorder moved its printing office to the house opposite Dr. Smith's office, about 150 yards west of the market house.
People: Dennis Heartt
Subject: Hillsborough Recorder
Editor Dennis Heartt wrote that slavery harmed the state but argued against freeing people to remain in North Carolina. He proposed sending free Black people to Africa at public expense and asked the legislature to act.
People: Dennis Heartt
Subject: Hillsborough Recorder
At about age ten Holden was apprenticed as a printer's devil to Dennis Heartt, editor of the Hillsborough Recorder, who was responsible for his early education and political views. He struck out on his own at about sixteen, working first for the Milton Chronicle.
People: Dennis Heartt
Subject: Hillsborough Recorder
Dennis Heartt's Recorder proposed that the state's newspaper editors meet in convention at Raleigh on the first Monday in September to agree on rules for their trade; within two weeks the Raleigh editors took up the proposal and invited their brethren.
People: Dennis Heartt
Subject: Hillsborough Recorder
Dennis Heartt printed The Poetical Works of George M. Horton, the Colored Bard of North-Carolina at Hillsborough in 1845, with Horton's autobiography prefixed to the poems. It was the second book by Horton, who was still enslaved when it appeared.
People: George Moses Horton
Subject: Hillsborough Recorder
The 1850 census listed editor Dennis Heartt's household at Heartsease with his two daughters, his son Edwin with his wife and small daughter, two young printers, and four boys aged eleven to eighteen entered as students who were probably apprentices at the Hillsborough Recorder.
People: Dennis Heartt
Subject: Heartsease
An editorial regretted that no one had asked the last legislature to charter a company to build a plank road from Hillsborough to Milton by way of Roxboro or Yanceyville. It hoped a stock company would form under the general act of 1850-51 while a charter was sought.
Subject: Hillsborough Recorder
Edwin A. Heartt, son and partner of Recorder editor Dennis Heartt, died in late August. The Court of Wardens, whose secretary he was, the Hillsborough town commissioners, whom he also served as secretary, and Eagle Lodge No. 71, where he was an officer, passed resolutions of mourning.
Subject: Hillsborough Recorder
Dennis Heartt printed resolutions from the men of Dickson's Battery backing Governor Vance but left out two: one that denounced W. W. Holden and one he read as scorning every man not in the army as a coward. He wrote that Holden sought an honorable peace and that no evidence made him a traitor, and he kept that stand when Raleigh papers objected.
People: Dennis Heartt · W. W. Holden · Zebulon B. Vance
Subject: Hillsborough Recorder
In the Recorder of January 11, 1869, Dennis Heartt announced that his connection with the paper would end with that number, thirteen months short of fifty years after its first issue. An 1899 history of the paper says he sold it to Capt. C. N. B. Evans of the Milton Chronicle.
Subject: Hillsborough Recorder
C. N. B. Evans, who had closed his Milton Chronicle, became associate editor and publisher of the Hillsborough Recorder with his son, Capt. T. C. Evans.
Subject: Hillsborough Recorder
John Donald Cameron took over the Recorder from the Evans family, who kept only their Milton Chronicle. His masthead in January 1879 read 'J. D. Cameron, Editor and Proprietor', New Series Vol. 7, Old Series Vol. 58.
Subject: Hillsborough Recorder
Cameron carried the paper fifteen miles east to the tobacco town, where it continued as the Durham Recorder, published every Wednesday. The last issue under the Hillsborough title in the digitized run is March 5, 1879; the first Durham issue there is July 2, 1879.
Subject: Hillsborough Recorder
On 10 August 1887 Strudwick and C. E. Parish became co-owners and editors of the Hillsborough Recorder. Their first issue promised a firm and conservative stand on matters of public welfare and a thoroughly Democratic line in politics. Strudwick left the paper after the issue of 8 March 1888.
People: Calvin E. Parish
Subject: Hillsborough Recorder
A fire before dawn burned Postmaster Harry L. Parish's brick building, which held the post office, his store and the Hillsboro Recorder's printing office, then spread to the three-story Berry building next door. The Recorder lost its press, type and subscription books.
People: Calvin E. Parish
Subject: Hillsborough Recorder
Buildings, schools, churches and other sites named in the dated events on this page, the most often named first. The map shows the 2 with a known location.
Map tiles © OpenStreetMap contributors. Site locations from the N.C. State Historic Preservation Office survey, Open Orange and OpenStreetMap; town and community pins mark the middle of their mapped buildings.
Resources picked for this event, each with a note on what it holds.
Picture: The Hillsborough Recorder of 1 March 1820. Public domain. via Wikimedia Commons
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