HILLSBORO HISTORY.
It would require a volume to do justice to the his
tory centering about Hillsboro. Accordingly, this
article comprises mere glances at it. For more than
a century the citizens the old village' frequently
dominated the policies of the State, were powerful
in National councils, and even won international
fame. The opinions of Chief Justice Thomas Ruffin
are of internatiopal renown. A roll of th? citizens
of Hillsboro who. have figured: prominently in §tate
and Nation itself would be impressive, several of
whom would each require an article as long as this
can be to sef forth their services to the State and
Nation, and to reveal their exalted characters.
Hie. Geographical Setting.
Orange County Jiao been whittled down till it is.
only a mere slice of its original area. In its earlier
history it embraced a great area in the northern cen
tral section of . the State; Chatham and Alamance
which we now eonceive to have been the scene of
the Regulator activities were parts of Orange. The
Battle of Alamance gets its .name from that of the
Creek near which it was fought, as does the county.
The Regulator trouble became a reason for the close
trimming of the county’s size, Chatham, for instance,
being cut off the very year of the Battle of the Ala
mance. Orange was formed in 1751 from parts of
Johnston, Granville, and Bladen.
It was the first of the truly ; piedmont counties.
It will intrigue the reader, to attempt to picture the
virgin forests into which the settlers.of the first half;?
of the loth century had penetrated to mate their
homes. They had trekked from eastern North Caro
lina and Virginia, leaving behind all means of water
transportation and all touch with the old. country
and the
p-,
or along the ha
ime:
;af>l<T
into through' ^htch^^^
Haw, the Deep, tte up^r ^y aM-^heir tributaries '
flowed, a land of beautiful hills and lovely valleys. 7
The Virgin Forests
We can find scarcely anywhere in the State forest
land to compare in appearance with that which then
extended from the foothills to the mountain tops. It
was of forest area of great oaks, scattering chestnuts,
poplars, and towering pines, punctuated with maple,
gum, and dogwood, with here and there open areas
dominated largely by the wild pea, somewhat akin to
milady’s sweetpew of the spring garden. The ax©
had not done anybf its deadly and transforming
work. Almost every tree was a seedling and so
nearly of the same planting period that'they domi
nated the soil and prevented a younger growth which
would have impeded the vision of the traveler. When
fire destroyed such a growth, the whole tree died,
and there were no clustering Sprouts. ' Only fire and
natural death removed the forest giants. No axe
chopped down young or old oak to leave a stump
which would send up a cluster of sprouts. I ami in
clined to believe that the prevalent cedar of the area
is an interloper with the early settlers, and not in
digenous. it was an open country and much more
easily cleared for tillage than the virgin lands of
today are.
Consequently, the early settler soQn had an area of
trees girdled and the beginning oi| a plantation es
tablished. •
Much of the land of greater Orange is of flinty
surface, the bright tobacco type of the belt. But
across the present Chatham, from Pittsboro west
ward, extended a streak of heavy red soil. Either,
was fertile when covered with the virgin stratum
of humus, but both types of soil, because of the pre
valence of hills and dales; were easily worn out and
gullied. Accordingly, it is presumable that the set
tlers at first had a comparatively easy task to make
the food needed. But money was almost as scarce
as hens’ teeth, and was hard to get to pay the taxes
levied. When Edmund Panning, register of deeds
for Orange, began to burden further the hard-pressed
settlers, by extortionate demands, we see the begin
nings of the smouldering fire which broke out into
the Regulator war. •
The Beginnings of HilUboro.
I do not know whether the name Orange was first
applied to this area during the reign of William of
Orange or was suggested by one or some of the
Scotch-Irish settlers that came from north Ireland,
to which section the name Orange is applied because
of Williams’s settling those Scotch over there* Any
way, the county gets its name from that champion of
Dutch and English freedom—in’ some respects Eng
land’s greatest king and soldier. In the Alamance
and west Chatham section many of the “Pennsyl
vania Dutch” (Gomans).Jbad located. Altogether,
the settlers w©re of types to resent tyranny.
The site of the new town was located on the north
bank of the Eno river, a branch of the Tar, I be
lieve. One of the first settlers was William Churton,
a surveyor for the Lords Proprietors (My authority
says for Lord Granville, but I am not sure that the
Proprietors had made any separate allotments of ter
ritory to. each other. Lord Granville got an eighth
of . the territory of both Carollnas oh the surrender
of their interests to the king by the other seven
proprietors in 1663.) Churton laid out the town.
Main street is named for him. ’
Now consider the great city of Rochester, N. Y.,
and the still village-like Hilsboro and marvel that
the former gets its name from one of the earlier in
habitants of Hillsboro, Nathaniel Rochester, who
bought a largd tract on. Cates Creek. In 1783, Ro
chester, left Hillsboro and moved to Hagerstown,
Md., and from.there to the present site of Roches
ter, N. Y., That was in 1783. The town that sprang
up on his New York lands was named fOr him.
How Hillsboro Was Named.
The new town started off 'as Corbinton, next be
coming Childsburg, in honor of Lofd Ckilds, attor
ney generhl of the colony. His unpopularity caused
another change of name, to Hillsborough in honor
of Lord Hillsborough, secM^r^^ stahipio^l^^Mi^
lenf.’.
As the county-seal of Orange,"iJills'l:
cornmericially and, politically the mdst iniportant
town in central North Carolina. Salisbury will soon
be looming up as a more westward center of influ
ence and Charlotte as another. Salem, the ereation
of the Moravians, follows suit. Greensboro, Durham,
Winston, etc., are still irf the womb of the future.
Pittsboro has its beginning 20 years later than Hills
borough.
The War of the Regulation.
If the reader is not informed in any measure as
to the history of the Regulators, I refer him'to the
histories of the State. But he will there find two
views—one that the Regulator movement is utterly
unrelated to the Revolutionary movement' which
followed four years later. Unfortunately, the lead
ers of the colony were not--only in-'sympathy with
the course of Governor. TryOn but several of them
w.ere officers of the troops which Tryon led to
Orange to smash the Regulators. Later when those
leaders themselves became revolutionary and resist
ed the same oppression that the Regulators had ear
lier resisted, they were in no position to acknowl
edge the justice of the Regulators’ cause. Some of
the Regulators, after being harried by the troops led
by the leaders of the Revolution, could not have
been forced by any means to join with their former
persecutors in the new movement. Some did, and
it may be recalled that Dr. Geo. W. Paschal stated
in' this paper last summer that one of his own an
cestors was both a Regulator, and a Patriot during
the Revolution.
A Conflict of View* No* Likely.
The second school of thought is that the Regulator
movement was preliminary to the Revolution, and
that the Regulators, should be esteemed as beginners
of the Revolution, or at least of a still-born revolu
tionary movement just as justifiable as the later
one. Unfortunately, the descendants of the Regula
tors, till Dr. Paschal comes upon the scene, have
not been writers of history; the descendants of the
Revolutionary leaders, largely harassers of the Reg
ulators, have been historically-minded and also
alertly interested in sustaining the infallibility of
their progenitors. :
Right now a movement, headed by Attorney B .O.
Everett, president of the Historical Society of Dur
ham and Orange counties, sis afoot to secure a. rec
ognition by the National government of the fflace of
the Alamance Battle in thp Patriot effort® of Colo
nial days, and an appropriation for a National park
- abont the site of the battle. It is not hard to foresee
resistance on the part of descendants of the friends
of . Governor Tryon in 1771. , , 'Z
Hillsborough the Scene of Bough Houses by ^
'...'Both Parties.
. . , ■ - '■ v-' ' ■ ’• ;'J
Anywa^, 'Hillsboro was the scene of the acts ,
'which led Governor Tryon .to lead an army against
the Regulators. Fanning was. seized and beaten. \
The court was broken up and the records marred.
And after the battle, it was here reprisal was taken
by the Governor. .Here'Few and Pugh, and Others
. were hanged, for participation in the Regulatory die- .
orders and. in the battle. . ;
A few. years later another Fanning, David, is to
harrass the ill-fated area with his, Tories. Edmund
r Fanning, who hadcome to Hillsboro from New York,
was a Yale graduate and a lawyer. After the trouble
he moved back to. New York, There seems no asso- .
elation between the two Fannings. ;
dames Few, the leader who was hanged, was a na- ,
tivq of Maryland. His parents brought him to the
Hillsboro community when he, was 13 yearB. old. He .
was married in 1770, a year before he was hanged.
It is possible -that descendants of his are living^
Whether the Few family which has furnished a Uni
versity president are descendants of the same &ary-. .
land family is a question I should like to have ans
. wered. 1 ...
' 1+
- * The Third Provincial Congress.
The second Provincial Congress and the Constitu
tional - Convention/ had-been held at-Halifax inl776.
i The Third Congress, part of -the business of whieh
-Uite Rill
i of the S|;ate»- j&s djsti&gui ?hdd from the Colonial
>> gp^noFs? -This ^pas governor Burke,. a yeUEtgSjb* 5
of eiily 30 or 31 yedrs^ lCaptja^Od,, by David fanning,.;
he was imprisoed in Wilmington, but escaped; an^.t'
• contrary to an oath of parole he had. given, return*
ed to Hillsboro and resumed the governorship. . ;
Constitutional Convention of 1788
When the constitution of the* United States had
..been formulated it was offered to the states for rat*
ideation. North Carolina’s convention to consider
th© matter was held at Hillsborough in 1788. That
convention declined to ratify till a bill of rights, in
cluding religious freedom, should be inserted. Thus
it was that North Carolina had no part in the first
several months of the history of the United States—
no part in the first election of ■George Washington
as, president The convention held in Fayetteville
later, given assurance of the requisite amendment
of the constitution, did ratify. Rhode Island held
out even longer. Through the act of that Hillsr
borough convention, North Carolina set a precedent
which it is still willing to follow. She canhot bo
stampeded into secession, or other attitudes toward
the constitution by the stampede of other states. No
vember 7 last furnished the latest example of ,thls
State’s determination to stand alone, if necessary, +
for principle’s sake.
Hillsborough, thus it is seen. played a considera
ble role as capital of the State before Raleigh was
even conceived, as did Halifax, New Bern, and Fay
etteville. . • - •• • - :
Hillsboro’s Worthies*
If North Carolina should make a- roster of its
worthies, as King David did of his^citisens, if not
natives, of Hillsboro, would form no inconsiderable
portion of. the whole list.
William Hooper, one of North Carolina's three
signers of the Declaration of Independence, lived
there and wap clerk of the courts of several coun
ties comprising the judicial district. Records in his
: hand may be seen at Pittsboro, of which court he was
the first clerk. Blooper was originally from New
Hanover, and one of his sons seems to have remain
ed down there, becoming the father of the youngster
who married Edward Jdhes’ daughter, who in turn
became the father of the second president of Wake
Forest CoUege, who is the grandfather of Mry
Graves, mother of Louis Graves of the Chapel Hitt
Weekly* ' r, ri':r”^V --}?■ ■'w
Here lived Governor Aimer -Nfshjrhere renuuned:!
part of his descent to become useful and worthy
(Continued on pace two£
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