Theme
The courthouse at Hillsborough, its judges and lawyers, the trials that drew crowds, and the jail behind them.
In briefThe courthouse at Hillsborough saw the Regulators riot in 1770 and hang in 1771, Thomas Ruffin’s State v. Mann decision, the Kirk-Holden War arrests and lynchings that never came to trial, and in the 20th century the desegregation suits, Dickson v. Sitterson and the killing of James Cates. The storylines follow those cases and the jail behind them.
714 indexed works are connected with this theme. 32 held at OCPL →
Named events and episodes the index follows in detail. Each has its own page.
Related works found in catalogs and archives across North Carolina, the most widely held first, novels aside. Each links to the institution that holds or provides it.
Narrow these works. Each link opens the search already limited to this theme. Counts are indexed works, not copies on a shelf; a work can carry more than one period or place.
Rick Jackson's true crime history of Chapel Hill, published by The History Press in 2023, in 28 short chapters. Cases include the Efland bank robbery, the execution of John Henry Breeze, the unsolved murder of Suellen Evans, the killing at the Internationalist Bookstore and the death of Eve Carson.
Why this is here: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Murder.
Albert Coates's own account of the Institute of Government at the University of North Carolina, which he founded, subtitled 'out of a classroom in Chapel Hill' and published in 1981. The 303 pages trace the institute's history and its role in educating North Carolina's public officials.
Why this is here: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Coates, Albert, 1896-1989.
Kemp Plummer Battle's memoir, published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1945, 296 pages with plates and portraits. Battle, a lawyer, state treasurer and president of the university from 1876 to 1891, recalls North Carolina manners, customs and public life across the nineteenth century, with Chapel Hill and the university's reopening after Reconstruction at the center.
Why this is here: Catalog heading in the NC Cardinal record: Lawyers -- North Carolina -- Biography.
Reviewed in Journal of American History (1946), The Journal of Southern History (1946).
William J. Billingsley's history of the Speaker Ban Law, the 1963 North Carolina statute that barred known Communists from speaking on state campuses, and the fight over it at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. The subtitle sets the scope: race, politics and the public university in sixties North Carolina. It treats academic freedom, anti-communist movements and free speech in the state. University of Georgia Press, 1999, 308 pages with eight pages of plates.
Why this is here: Catalog heading in the NCCU record: Universities and colleges -- Law and legislation.
Reviewed in Academe (2000), The American Historical Review (2001), The Journal of Southern History (2001), Journal of American History (2001), The Journal of Politics (2001).
Francis Nash's history of Hillsborough in colonial and Revolutionary times, first published in 1903 and reprinted in 1953 by Edwards & Broughton with an index and a sketch of the author. Topics include the Regulator Insurrection of 1766 to 1771, the Revolution and local genealogy.
Why this is here: The record names this subject alongside a heading for the county or its towns.
Howard E. Covington Jr.'s biography of Albert Coates (1896-1989), the law professor who founded the Institute of Government at the University of North Carolina and led it through its early years. Topics include Coates as a law teacher and the institute's history as a center for the study of public administration in Chapel Hill. Published in 2010 by the University Library at Chapel Hill, 322 pages with 32 pages of plates.
Why this is here: Catalog heading in the Durham record: Coates, Albert, 1896-1989.
Jean Bolduc's collection of oral history interviews with Black residents of Durham and Orange counties, published by The History Press in 2016, 125 pages with photographs and portraits. The narrators are the poet Jaki Shelton Green, civil rights lawyer Floyd McKissick, Walter Jackson, Nate Davis, Brenda Stephens, Diane Wright, Jackie Wagstaff and Michelle Johnson, and a closing chapter deals with the Ku Klux Klan. The interviews document Black life and race relations in the two counties across the twentieth century.
Why this is here: The record names this subject alongside a heading for the county or its towns.
Abstracts of the minutes of Orange County's Inferior Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions for 1777 to 1788, the county court of justices of the peace in the Revolutionary years. The abstracts name the people who came before the court. First published in Charlotte in 1966 and later reprinted from Greenville, South Carolina, in three paginated sections with a map.
Why this is here: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Court records.
Recently indexed: Biographical sketch of Hon. T.C. Manning (1886) · [Campus conversation on sexual assault website archives] · Charter, constitution, by-laws and proceedings of the meeting of organization of the North Carolina Bar Association : February, 1899 (1899) · Chief Justice Gale, of North Carolina (1893) · Chief Justice Little : with some account of his descendants (1895) · Consumer rights handbook : a student's guide to the law (1981)
Books in OCPL’s Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection whose titles, catalog subjects, or descriptions match this theme. The Friends’ recommended starting points are labelled.
Weynette Parks Haun's edition of the Orange County court minutes, published by the compiler in Durham in 1991 in five books covering 1752 to 1761, 1762 to 1766, 1777 to 1786, 1787 to 1793 and 1794 to 1797, with maps. Minutes of the colonial and early federal county court give the names of jurors, officers, litigants, road hands, apprentices and estate administrators.
Abstracts of the minutes of Orange County's Inferior Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions for 1777 to 1788, the county court of justices of the peace in the Revolutionary years. The abstracts name the people who came before the court. First published in Charlotte in 1966 and later reprinted from Greenville, South Carolina, in three paginated sections with a map.
Stewart E. Dunaway's abstracts of civil suits over land heard in the Hillsborough District Superior Court between 1778 and 1806. The district covered Orange, Wake, Granville, Caswell, Person, Chatham and Randolph counties, and the papers concern boundaries, ownership and disputed tracts. Published through Lulu in 2011, 337 pages with illustrations, maps and facsimiles.
Abstracts of civil actions concerning land heard in the Orange County Superior Court between 1778 and 1832, the disputes over grants, titles and boundaries that followed the Revolution. Published in 2011. Suits of this kind name parties, neighbors and watercourses.
Weynette Parks Haun's edition of the minutes of the Superior Court of Law and Equity for the Hillsborough District, the court that sat at Hillsborough and heard cases from several surrounding counties in the colonial and early statehood years. Three books cover 1768 to 1791, 1789 to 1798 and 1794 to 1802, and the names recorded make the set a source for Orange County genealogy. Self-published in 1993 in three volumes.
An index to the town lots of Hillsborough, Orange County, compiled in 1982 as a guide to the deeds and court records that trace each lot's ownership.
Second volume of abstracts of civil actions concerning land in the Orange County Superior Court, covering 1835 to 1869, published in 2012. Suits over titles, grants and boundaries name parties, tracts and neighbors.
Deed transcripts for the town lots of Chapel Hill and adjoining land from 1790 to the 1930s, compiled by Stewart E. Dunaway. Each transcript keeps only the working facts: grantor and grantee, price, acreage and the metes and bounds of the parcel. Self-published in 2014 as Issue 1G, 702 pages with maps and facsimiles.
Stewart E. Dunaway worked through Hillsborough, N.C., lot by lot, giving each town lot a synopsis of its history, a plat showing where it sits and transcripts of the deeds he could locate for it. The second issue runs to 720 pages with illustrations, maps and facsimiles.
Other storylines that include this theme, earliest first. Each has its own page.
Dated events connected with this theme: twelve of 983, the highlights and a sample of the rest spread across the years, in date order. See all 983 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 the 52 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 theme, each with a note on what it holds.
Held in OCPL’s Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection. Selected because their titles or catalog subjects provide wider historical context for this theme; they may not discuss the Orange County theme directly.
Chapel Hill writer Manly Wade Wellman retells ten notorious North Carolina murders committed between 1808 and 1914, among them the case of Tom Dula, the Tom Dooley of the ballad. The victims range from a Confederate general and an orphan girl to a small boy and a political boss. Published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1954, 190 pages, it won the Edgar Award for best fact crime book.
Subjects in the Library of Congress catalog record: Murder -- North Carolina; Crime -- North Carolina OCPL call number: NC 364 WELGriffith J. McRee's life of James Iredell, the North Carolinian whom George Washington appointed to the first United States Supreme Court, where he served from 1790 until his death in 1799, combining a narrative of his career with his correspondence. Published by D. Appleton of New York in two volumes, the first dated 1857.
Subjects in the Library of Congress catalog record: Iredell, James, 1751-1799 OCPL call number: NC BIO IREDELL MCRPaul M. McCain traces North Carolina's county courts from the founding of the colony to 1750, including the years when counties were still called precincts. The courts governed the counties as well as judging cases. Duke University Press published the study in 1954 as series 31 of the Trinity College Historical Society's Historical Papers; 163 pages with a map and a bibliography.
Subjects in the Library of Congress catalog record: North Carolina -- County courts OCPL call number: NC 347.756 MCCMinutes of the Wake County Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions from 1771 to 1811, published by Weynette Parks Haun of Durham in eight books between 1977 and 1995, with a gap for 1785 and 1786; each book is indexed. Wake was cut from Cumberland, Johnston and Orange counties in 1771, and its first court met that same year.
Subjects in the Library of Congress catalog record: Court records -- North Carolina -- Wake County OCPL call number: NC 347.756 NORTHPicture: Library of Congress photograph, late 1930s; public domain. Image credits →
More to discover
The Friends connect people with new library materials, local writers and publishers, and resources documenting Orange County.
