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Preserving Chapel Hill's Past for Future Generations
The name Chapel Hill Historical Society suggests a focus upon
the town of Chapel Hill, but the organization actually is equally
concerned with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,
for the two are inseparable. The minutes of the Board of Trustees
of the University from December 12, 1973, record the creation
of the town:
The Commissioners met ... on the 10th day of August, and ...
proceeded to lay off the ground to erect the buildings on; the
particular sites, ... avenues, and ornamental grounds; ... They
next proceeded to lay off a town adjacent ....
The town and the University have grown together, although most
Chapel Hill residents still like to describe their town as a
quiet village on a hill. Despite the serenity, Chapel Hill has
been the site of numerous events that are significant for their
intellectual, ideological, cultural, scientific, and historical
impact on North Carolina and the world.
The Chapel Hill Historical Society
In the spring of 1966, several Chapel Hill citizens, discussing
the increasing number of historic landmarks that were being
destroyed, discovered that they shared a sense of alarm. From
this nucleus of concerned citizens, the Chapel Hill Historical
Society emerged. On October 27th, the steering committee was
ready for the first open general meeting, held in Ackland Art
Center on the University campus. The first officers and five
board members were elected at that meeting. On November 3rd,
they met as an Executive Board in the North Carolina Collection
in Wilson Library, where they formally received the state charter,
adopted the constitution and by-laws, and authorized the opening
of a bank account.
By June 30, 1967, the cut-off date for charter membership, 97
people had paid dues, and the Chapel Hill Historical Society
was a recognized organization with a declared mission to:
- Investigate, preserve, and make available, knowledge of the
history of Chapel Hill and its environs and of the inhabitants
thereof;
-
Discover, collect, and preserve materials
establishing this history of whatever nature, such as material
objects, relics, pictures, manuscripts, or published works;
-
Reproduce, summarize, index, or catalogue
material not available for its collections;
-
Disseminate this knowledge by means of publications,
meetings, lectures, tours, or other appropriate means;
-
Encourage, promote, and assist the preservation
of historic sites, monuments, buildings, and records, and
to encourage appropriate marking of such places or things
to aid the public in finding, identifying, and appreciating
them;
-
Encourage the preservation and maintenance
of the historic character, dignity, and cherished natural
beauty of Chapel Hill by appropriate means;
-
When possible, to acquire, restore and maintain
sites, places, and buildings of significant historical, architectural,
scenic, and aesthetic value;
-
Cooperate with other State-wide and local
organizations and agencies, public and private, with similar
aims and objectives; and
-
Undertake such other related programs of
research, education, promotion, and preservation as may reasonably
be calculated to accomplish the objectives set forth herein.
Society's Location
The Chapel Hill Historical Society is located at the Boundary Street
entrance of the Chapel Hill Museum, 523 East Franklin Street, in
the Historic District near the campus and downtown area. Monthly
programs, which are open to the public, are often held in the Society
Office. Members of the community are invited to visit the Office
during the annual Open House, held in December during the Preservation
Society House Tour. Because the Chapel Hill Historical Society is
a volunteer organization and there are no permanent staff members,
the Office is not open on a regular basis. Arrangements can be made
to visit the Office and use the resource materials and historical
files.
A Brief History of Chapel Hill
By Elizabeth Shreve Ryan
Chapel Hill and the University of North Carolina share a joint birthday
- October 12, 1793. On that day the first lots were sold for the
town that became Chapel Hill and the cornerstone was laid for the
first building of the university, subsequently known as Old East.
The histories of the town and university have been intertwined for
over two centuries. The search for a site for the university, after
it was chartered by the state in 1789, led to the granite plateau
in southern Orange County on which a small Anglican chapel stood
near the intersection of two major roads in the North Carolina Piedmont.
The area known as New Hope Chapel Hill, from the chapel and the
name of the cr eek
that meandered through the surrounding countryside, was chosen because
of its access to the roads, central location in the settled portions
of the state, and offers of gifts of land to the university by local
landowners. The location of the chapel was in the vicinity of the
Carolina! Inn, beside the street originally known as Pittsboro Road
- now Columbia Street.
1793-1840 The Early Years
A village of a few hundred residents was gradually built along
Pittsboro Road and Franklin Street, the lane originally called Front
Street that faced the wooded site chosen for the university. This
fledgling institution, the nation's first state university to open
its doors, welcomed it first student in 1795. The sparse accommodations
on the campus and boarding houses in the town provided for the students
and the faculty built homes on Franklin Street, to the east of the
town center. The two oldest surviving residences, the "Widow
Puckett's" House at 501 East Franklin and the Hooper-Kyser
House at 504 East Franklin, date from the 1810s. Both town and university
grew very slowly in the four decades after their founding. North
Carolina suffered years of economic depression and the majority
of its citizens had little interest in education. The combined faculty
and student body often numbered less than100 through the 1830s.
The university survived through the devotion of its first president,
Joseph Caldwell, and gifts and leadership from a few dedicated citizens.
Chapel Hill remained a small village without churches or a public
school.
1840 - 1875 Flourishing and Floundering
In the mid-19th century, economic recovery and the reforms of the
political party known as the Whigs brought a new level prosperity
and progressivism to the state. Former Governor David L. Swain,
a leader in the Whig Party, succeeded Joseph Caldwell as president
of the university after Caldwell's death in 1835. The years preceding
the Civil War were marked by increases in the number of buildings,
faculty and students, attracting new residents and investment to
the town. Residential areas developed beyond the small nucleus on
East Franklin Street and Pittsboro Road and local congregations
built churches - Chapel of the Cross (Episcopal) in 1848, Chapel
Hill Presbyterian in 1849, and Chapel Hill Methodist in 1853. The
combined population of university and town reached a thousand by
the 1850s and the town was given a charter for self-government.
However, prosperity and growth were halted in 1861 when the Civil
War began and Chapel Hill virtually became a deserted village as
most of its male population left for the battlefields. President
Swain kept the university open until he was removed from office
by the Reconstruction governor in 1868 and the institution was closed
in 1871. Town residents, led by Cornelia Phillips Spenser, and outstanding
alumni persuaded the state to reopen the university in 1875.
1876-1940 Recovery, Prosperity, and Depression
The town began to recover when the university re-opened with the
vigorous leadership of its new president, Kemp P. Battle, who lived
up to his name as he fought for increased state funding. Chapel
Hill attracted a growing number of merchants, land developers and
professional men. The former slaves built a community, now known
as Northside, and entered the political and economic life of the
town. A rail spur to the western edge of town was completed in 1882,
increasing the area's economic attractions. During the first four
decades of the twentieth century, Chapel Hill gradually changed
from a village to a town, with a population of 1,623 in 1900 increasing
to 7,995 in 1940. Muddy lanes were gradually turned into paved street
as automobiles increased in popularity. The need for new homes for
the growing population was met by enterprising town residents and
several university professors, who laid out developments on both
the east and west sides of town. A public school was organized and
in the 1920s handsome new church buildings were erected. In 1920
the university launched a major building campaign that for the first
time extended the campus to the south of Cameron Avenue. The national
stock market crash of 1929 brought an end to the growth of the "Roaring
Twenties" and Chapel Hill joined a stunned America in the Great
Depression.
1940-2000 Rebounding and Growing Steadily
Recovery began in the late 1930s with an infusion of federal funds
for new buildings, including the post office at Franklin and Henderson
Streets, and the university's resumption of its construction program.
During the World War years both the town and university were enlivened
as successive waves of servicemen were sent to the university for
training. After the war ended in 1945, the GI Bill brought thousands
of veterans to study at the university and live in the town. In
the second half of the twentieth century, the university enrollment
increased from approximately 6,000 to 25,000 and the woodlands surrounding
the campus were filled with classroom buildings, dormitories, and
the new medical center. Real estate development proliferated as
university related growth was augmented by Chapel Hill's attraction
to the employees of the Research Triangle Park. In 1950 the town
boundaries were extended for the first time since they had been
established a century earlier and they have continued to be extended
as the population passed 50,000 in the early twenty-first century.
Concern over demolition of nineteenth century structures led to
the founding of the Chapel Hill Historical Society in 1966 and to
the creation of historic districts by the Town Council. The village
that liked to be called "the southern part of heaven"
became a town and then a small city, with an increasingly complex
population and public life.
Elizabeth Shreve Ryan, Author of Orange County Trio: Histories and
Tour Guides of Hillsborough, Chapel Hill and the University
By, Elizabeth Shreve Ryan
Author of Orange County Trio: Histories and Tour Guides of Hillsborough,
Chapel Hill and the University of North Carolina, and Carrboro,
The Chapel Hill Press, 2004 |