The Chapel Hill Historical Society

          P.O. Box 9032 Chapel Hill, NC 27515-9032   |   Phone: (919) 929-1793

 

 


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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 creek 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