People & Places

Barns (Occoneechee Farm)

All the barns on Occoneechee Farm were built in the early 1890's. The main barns were: A three-story horse barn with a slate roof, oak floors, stalls for 36 horses, and a basement for mules; a two-story dairy barn (built first) with a concrete floor and 56 milking stanchions (designed by a Professor Benjamin Irby of North Carolina College of...

Excerpt from the 1863 Plan of the Town of Hillsboro, by S.T. Alderman

Thompson's Mill / Crawford's Mill

By the 1840s, what was known as the Thompson Mill (owned and operated by and located on the property of the Thompson family) was in operation. The mill (a gristmill, for grinding corn) and its pond and race were located on the mill branch/creek that flows into the Eno River to the west of present-day Churton Street. When the NCRR survey was...

Bingham House / Midlawn

This structure was built in mid-1882 [1]. T.C. Oakley of Durham was the contractor [2]. It was the school president's home. An addition to the rear of the structure was moved east of Mebane in 1943 [3]. Midlawn was demolished in the 1970s. Circa 1905 Circa 1909 Midlawn in the background, 1909 View north, 1972 View ?, 1972 Exterior, architectural...

Banks Of The Eno / Norwood Hill / Poplar Hill

Originally the house of James Hogg. Mary Alves, age eight, was accidentally killed (shot) by her brother in this house in 1806. In 1891, the house and farm were purchased by Industrialist Julian Carr.

Henderson Faribault House

December 2015 (TMLS) It appears from a brief perusal of the online deed records that this property and those immediately adjacent were owned by Henderson Faribault, 1843-1902, who appears to be buried in the Margaret Lane cemetery. Per Rosetta Moore in "The Impact of Slavery On the Education of Blacks in Orange County, North Carolina: 1619-1970,"...

Frederick Nash House / Nash And Kollock School

Late 1800s (from History of the Town of Hillsborough) In ~1801, Duncan Cameron purchased two lots on the south side of Margaret Lane from two of his great uncles, Abner and Francis Nash. There he built a story-and-a-half house for himself and an adjacent law office as well as a kitchen, corn crib, dairy, well-house, smokehouse, wagon house, barn...

Harris Grove Church, July 1977 (photo by Robert Blake)

Harris Grove AME Church

The property was purchased by trustees of the church in 1882 (see OC Deed Book 52, Page 334), and the church was built sometime between then and 1890. It is located in Little River Township, somewhat near the Durham County line. Harris Grove Church, 1970 (photo by Robert Blake) Harris Grove Church, July 1977 (photo by Robert Blake) Harris Grove...

The following 1970's photos are of the "Mason Hall House," by Jean Bradley Anderson (via NCC, Durham Library)

MASON HALL EAGLE LODGE / PROCTOR HOUSE

The following is an excerpt from "Deciphering Mason Hall," by Jean Bradley Anderson: Mason Hall can no longer be found on the map of Orange County, N.C., but it existed as a geographic reality for most of the 19th century. The Tate Map of 1891 showed it as a post office—probably the only certainty in the puzzling history of the name—located on the...

Hillsborough Academy

From NCPedia, by Jean Anderson Hillsborough Academy was the name given various schools established by prominent citizens of the town of Hillsborough over a period of 80 years. A school chartered in 1779 as Science Hall seems to have evolved into Hillsborough Academy by the time it opened in 1785. Subscriptions were raised among a number of North...

Twin Chimneys

Twin Chimneys is reputedly a pre-Revolutionary house, however the exact date of construction is not known. The twin pairs of chimneys, for which the house is named, were constructed by Reverend John Knox Witherspoon between 1817 and 1832 and are laid in a Flemish bond.