Storyline
The 1898 election in Orange County as the papers reported it: the Populists’ silver union, the Democratic and Populist tickets, the lynching of Manly McCauley near Chapel Hill, the new voters registered, and the Democrats’ white supremacy appeal on election eve.
In briefOrange County's 1898 election came during the Democrats' white supremacy campaign, and in its last weeks masked men lynched a young Black farmhand west of Chapel Hill. Populists nominated Devereux Turner for the state Senate, and the Democrats ran Samuel M. Gattis for the House. On October 26 Manly McCauley, 18, left Milton Brewer's farm with Brewer's wife; a posse overtook them, and as the officer Jesse King brought McCauley back alone, masked men took him and lynched him. His body was found on November 6. On election eve W. A. Guthrie appealed to white voters at Chapel Hill. King was later tried for letting the mob take his prisoner and was acquitted.
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On May 7, 1898 the Orange County Populist convention, with R. L. Strowd in the chair, voted unanimously to endorse the call to unite the silver forces, the parties that favored the free coinage of silver. By late September the Democrats had named their county ticket, with Samuel M. Gattis for the House, and on September 24 Populists of the 18th Senatorial District, meeting at Hillsborough, nominated Devereux Turner of Orange for the state Senate. On October 26 Manly McCauley, an 18-year-old Black farmhand, left Milton Brewer's farm west of Chapel Hill with Brewer's wife. A posse of eighteen men led by Brewer overtook them beyond Jonesboro, and as the officer Jesse King brought McCauley back alone, masked men took him and lynched him. By November 4 registration had added 117 new voters at Chapel Hill, 88 white and 29 Black, and the News printed the count in an issue given over to the Democrats' white supremacy campaign. On November 6 a farmer found McCauley's body hanging from a dogwood about three miles west of Chapel Hill. On election eve, November 7, Major W. A. Guthrie spoke at Chapel Hill, appealing to white voters to cast their ballots for the party of white supremacy, and A. L. Brooks, the Democratic candidate for solicitor, followed him. King was later tried at Hillsboro for letting the mob take his prisoner and was acquitted.
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An Alex Cross thriller by James Patterson with Chapel Hill among its settings alongside Washington, D.C. Bombings, a kidnapping, a missing-persons investigation, terrorism and fathers and sons are its subjects; the Sampson of the title is Cross's longtime partner John Sampson. Published by Little, Brown in 2026.
Theodore Parrish's memoir of a Black life in Chapel Hill and of gentrification in the town, subtitled race, gentrification, and the path of my own life. Published by the Chapel Hill Historical Society in August 2025, 243 pages with illustrations. Subjects include African Americans in Chapel Hill, race relations and gentrification in North Carolina.
Sylvia D. Hoffert's study of gossip, rumor and reputation in nineteenth-century Hillsborough, using the town as a case study of how talk shaped social standing and race relations in a small Southern place. Chapters take up the workings of idle chatter, people living on the edge of freedom under slavery, schooling, daily labor, and a period of fear over madness in the community. Published 2025 by the University of Georgia Press.
Beverly A. Scarlett's 2024 study of a free community of color in nineteenth-century Orange County, drawing on apprenticeship and freedmen's records among other county sources.
Brian Burns's collection of lesser-known episodes from Chapel Hill's past, published by The History Press of Charleston, South Carolina, in 2023. Topics include the town's history, its buildings and structures, and the history of civil rights in Chapel Hill. 158 pages with illustrations and portraits.
Tracy Deonn's young adult fantasy novel set around the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Bree, an African American teenager with newly awakened powers she cannot yet control, learns that the leaders of the secret Order mean to hide the coming demon war, and she and her friends flee so that she can find her own training. Subjects include magic, secret societies, imaginary wars and psychic trauma. Published by Simon & Schuster in 2022, 561 pages.
Reviewed in Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books./Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books (2022).
Picture book by Courtney Soling Smith, published by the Orange County Historical Museum in Hillsborough in 2022, about a collie named Minnie and an African American family in Cedar Grove Township. Twenty-nine unnumbered pages, chiefly color illustrations, with portraits that point to a real family behind the story.
Companion picture book about Minnie the collie by Courtney Soling Smith, again from the Orange County Historical Museum in 2022, following an African American farm family in Cedar Grove Township. Thirty-seven unnumbered pages, chiefly color illustrations, with a facsimile. Written for children, with the museum's local history interest behind it.
Adam Lucas's account of the 2021-2022 Carolina men's basketball season, Hubert Davis's first as head coach. Davis, appointed in April 2021, was the first Black head coach in the program's history, and the season ended at the NCAA tournament in New Orleans. Published 2022 by the UNC Department of Athletics, 155 pages with color illustrations. Topics include the Tar Heels, Davis, and college basketball in Chapel Hill in the twenty-first century.
A folded walking tour map of Northside, the historically African American neighborhood near downtown Chapel Hill, produced by Alexander Stephens for the Marian Cheek Jackson Center for Saving and Making History in 2021. One illustrated sheet, 43 by 28 centimeters, folded to pocket size. The walk introduces the neighborhood through its residents' own histories of home.
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.
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.
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