Orange County Courthouse in Hillsborough, North Carolina

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Courthouse Information

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Wikipedia says the following about the courthouse:

Old Orange County Courthouse is a historic courthouse building located at Hillsborough, Orange County, North Carolina. It was built in 1845, and is a two-story, Greek Revival style, temple-form brick structure. The front facade features a Doric order tetrastyle pedimented portico and two-stage clock tower. The building served as the seat of Orange County's government until 1954 when a new building was completed.

It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971. It is located in the Hillsborough Historic District.

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County Information

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The North Carolina History Project lists the following information for this county:

Orange County, annexed from Bladen, Granville, and Johnston in 1752, was named in honor of William the Fifth of Orange; King George III was William's grandfather. The county seat, Hillsborough, was originally known as Childsburgh, after Attorney General Thomas Childs, and it was incorporated in 1759. However, the seat's name was later changed in honor of the Earl of Hillsborough, Wills Hill. Other communities within Orange County include Caldwell, Chapel Hill, Carrboro, Carr, Cedar Grove, and Efland. In addition to these towns, a portion of the town of Mebane stretches into Orange.

The Occaneechi, Haw, and Eno were the first Native Americans to live within present-day Orange County. As European surveyors and explorers traversed the new colony of North Carolina in the early 1700s, John Lawson encountered the Occaneechi tribe in 1701 while traveling along the Great Trading Path. The Occannechi's location offered economic and political power, notably in the area of deerskin exchange among the tribes connected by the Trading Path. Archaeologists estimate that the Occaneechi inhabited the village between 1680 and 1710. After several concentrated digs, the site was declared as "some of the best preserved and scientifically most significant archaeological sites in southeastern North America."

By the early eighteenth century, the Occaneechi had vanished from present-day Orange County because of disease, rum, and warfare had been detrimental to the Piedmont tribes. Yet, as the Native Americans died out, English, Scotch-Irish, German, and Welsh settlers began immigrating to the land, and most were farmers and yeomen. The largest Scotch-Irish community developed around Eno, east of the Haw River. The Germans moved to the west side of the Haw. North of Hillsborough, a concentration of Quakers developed and settled in the region, but most had moved to the Alamance, Guilford, Randolph, and Chatham counties. Orange County was organized in 1752 due to the great population influx from 1740 until 1752. The General Assembly decided to establish a new county because the residents wanted a more convenient road system, an easier way to access their county seat and court.

After the War of the Regulation (1764-1771) and a series of confrontations in Orange County, Hillsborough was the site of a hanging on June 19, 1771. Governor Tryon's oppressive rule of the North Carolina colony had unsettled many residents in the colony. The Currency Act of 1764 and the Stamp Act of 1765, along with higher taxes, caused farmers to petition the government. North Carolina farmers urged the British governor to approve tobacco, wheat, and other crops as tax payment, but Governor Tryon refused, sparking protests across the colony. Nearly 900 protestors, known as Regulators, had gathered in Orange County, and other counties joined the fray as well, including Anson, Dobbs, Halifax, and Rowan. By the 1768, protesters had become rebels, rioting throughout the back country, and Governor Tryon soon mobilized troops to quell the surging revolt. Even though the Regulators attempted to avoid an insurgence with Tryon by offering him another petition, the Royal Governor refused, and the Battle of Alamance ensued on May 14, 1771. The Regulators eventually resigned from the battlefield, and twelve Regulators were arrested and taken to Hillsborough for trial. Tryon decided to pardon half the group, but the other six were hanged on June 19. A memorial is located at the present lot where the men were executed, although the burial site of the six Regulators remains unknown. Some historians believe that the graves lie the present Cameron Park School near the Eno River.

The town of Chapel Hill lies within Orange County and is home to the state's flagship university: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. UNC-Chapel Hill is the oldest public institution in the United States. Formerly chartered by the North Carolina legislature in 1789, the University has long remained an important institution of historical, cultural, and educational importance. Several historical anthologies and collections rest in the libraries across the campus, and the Carolina Playmakers and Paul Green Theater, the Ackland Art Museum, and the Morehead Plantation are other vital aspects of the campus. Other historic sites outside of the campus include the Episcopal Chapel of the Cross and the Horace Williams House, while some cultural institutions are the Jewish Heritage Foundation and the ArtsCenter in Carrboro.

Born in 1820 as a slave in Virginia, Elizabeth Keckly (1820-1907) lived in the Hillsborough region in the 1830s. Keckly, who eventually bought her freedom became a prominent dressmaker in Washington, D.C., wrote a memoir which detailed her experiences in Hillsborough, specifically the birth of her illegitimate son. As she made dresses for the wives of politicians she eventually befriended Mary Todd Lincoln, and a deep friendship developed. Keckly, referred to as Mary Lincoln's "best and kindest friend" in letters between the two, penned Behind the Scenes which has been cited and researched by numerous Lincoln scholars.

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Our Experience

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This is a nice downtown. The old and new courthouses are adjacent to each other. There are large mature trees that provide pleasant shade from the sun.

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Google Map Track Log

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