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NPS Form 10-900
(Oct. 1990)
United States Department of the Interior
National Park Service
National Register of Historic Places
Registration Form
1. Name of Property
Historic name: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery
Other name: College Graveyard
2. Location
NW corner NC 54 & Country Club Rd, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599
Orange County, Code 135
3. State/Federal Agency Certification
Statewide significance
4. National Park Service Certification
N/A
5. Classification
Ownership of Property: public-local
Category of Property: district
Number of Resources within Property: 1 noncontributing building, 1 contributing site, 4 contributing and 1 noncontributing structures, 16 contributing and 1 noncontributing objects, 21 contributing and 3 noncontributing total.
6. Function or Use
Historic Functions: Funerary/cemetery
Current Functions: Funerary/cemetery
7. Description
Materials/other: gravemarkers, marble, granite
8. Statement of Significance
Applicable National Register Criteria
A. Property is associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the board patterns of our history.
C. Property embodies the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction or represents the work of a master, or possesses high artistic values, or represents a significant and distinguishable entity whose components lack individual distinction.
Criteria Considerations
D. a cemetery
Areas of Significance
Social History, Ethnic Heritage: black, Other; Funerary Art
Period of Significance
1798-1944
Significant Dates
1798
Narrative Statement of Significance
Explained on continuation sheets.
9. Major Bibliographic References
Primary location of additional data: State Historic Preservation Office
10. Geographical Data
Acreage of Property: 6.98 acres
UTM References
Zone 17 Easting 676650 Northing 3975600Verbal Boundary Description and Boundary Justification on continuation sheets
11. Form Prepared By
Betsy Baten and Ruth Little
Jan. 28, 1994
Longleaf Historic Resources
2709 Bedford Avenue
Raleigh, NC
919-836-8128
United States Department of the Interior
National Park Service
National Register of Historic Places
Continuation Sheet
Old Chapel Hill Cemetery, Orange Co.; NC
Section 7: Description
The Old Chapel Hill Cemetery was established as a burying ground for the University of North Carolina and the village of Chapel Hill in the late eighteenth century. It was located one-quarter mile southeast of the then-small campus on a portion of the 125-acre tract of land sold by Hardy Morgan to “Alfred More [sic] and other trustees of the State of North Carolina" for five shillings on October 21, 1776 [Orange County D.B. 5, 660-61]. No recorded action designated a cemetery at that site and its selection may have taken place on short notice when George Clarke, a nineteen-year-old student, died unexpectedly on September 28, 1798, three years after the new university opened. Clarke’s grave, in Section I, is assumed to be the earliest interment and likely formed a nucleus around which the cemetery grew during the next 196 years to include 6.98 acres and 1,621 marked burials. Almost certainly there are more; scant records were kept through the years and visual evidence of an unknown number of nineteenth and early-twentieth century grave sites has disappeared.
Today the University of North Carolina campus has surrounded the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery on the north, west and south sides. Mature oaks, hickories, gums, cedars, maples and pines shelter rows of gravemarkers or family plots and create an informal setting. Scattered shrubs, including boxwoods, azaleas, nandinas, and crape myrtles reinforce a park-like feeling. English ivy and vinca overgrow a number of individual plots, in some cases obscuring the grave sites and markers within.
Low rubblestone walls surround the cemetery, setting it apart from dormitories and tennis courts on the north side. The walls follow the University’s Tennis Court Drive on the north, and follow the edge of a wooded grove adjacent to Country Club Drive on the east, then along South Road (NC 54) on the south and parallel to several dormitories on the west. Five paved access drives punctuate the walls on the north and south, dividing the cemetery into six approximately equal sections according to race and time of interment. These are designated as Sections A, B, I, II, III, and IV (see Exhibit A). The following description treats Section I, the oldest area, first. Sections A and B on the west, the African-American area, are treated secondly, and finally the more recent white sections II, III, and IV to the east. Section I burials are primarily nineteenth century. Section B was the slave cemetery: the earliest inscribed stone has a death date of 1853, but it was probably in use before this. Section A came into general use by Chapel Hill’s African-Americans in the mid-1880s. Section II contains only a few nineteenth century burials and did not come into general use until the early twentieth century. Likewise Section III had sporadic burials before it came into general use in the late 1920s. Section IV contains several early twentieth century burials and came into general use in 1930.
The Old Chapel Hill Cemetery contains a wide variety of stone monuments dating to the present. The following percentages represent the number of monuments, not including uninscribed fieldstones, since these cannot be dated, that predate 1945: Section A, 66%; Section B, 40%; Section I, 62%; Section II, 45%; Section III, 15%; Section IV, 12%. Altogether, 37% of the monuments date from the period of significance, 1798-1944. Although this represents less than a majority of the monuments, the post-1945 monuments are primarily small tablets, set nearly flush with the ground, and are not visually intrusive. The entire cemetery was platted during the period of significance and surrounded by a stone rubble wall, and has integrity of feeling because of the visual dominance of the historic monuments. Furthermore, many of the significant individuals mentioned in this nomination are buried in Sections II, III, and IV. During the antebellum period, the types of monuments represented are uninscribed fieldstones, headstones, ledgers, box-tombs, tomb-tables, and obelisks. Monuments from the 1860s to the 1940s consist of headstones, obelisks, and family monuments with smaller tablets marking individual graves. Post-1945 monuments also consist of family monuments with individual tablets. Primary materials are marble and granite, but a few of the antebellum monuments are of local stone and some of the later are of concrete. Only the most significant monuments and walls or fences, and the utility shed and gazebo, are counted as resources noted in bold type and keyed to the map, Exhibit A, by referencing their location on the grid. The stone enclosure walls are counted as one contributing structure, the overall site is contributing, and all non-contributing monuments are counted collectively as one non-contributing object.
Section I
In the center of the cemetery, in the midst of cedars and evergreen ground covers at the high point of the land, is the oldest section of the cemetery. It is obvious from the cemetery plot map (Exhibit A) that this section was not originally platted into family plots but evolved over time. The arrangement of graves is loosely by family, and a number of family plots are enclosed by low concrete curbs, low brick walls, and, in a few instances, low stone walls. A few of the plots have iron fences. One of the most ornate is the cast-iron fence for the W.S. Guthrie plot (contributing structure: EE15). The gate has the family name, the date 1892; and a mourning tableau of a willow tree shading two reclining lambs. The railing consists of heavy woven wire with finial accents along the top. A new cross-gabled gazebo of wood (non-contributing structure: CC26) with a metal roof was recently built at the southwest edge of this section.
The earliest monument in the cemetery appears to be the marble headstone of Baroque style for Margaritta Chapman, died 1814 (contributing object: NN7), aged sixteen. George Clarke, who died in 1798, is the first known individual buried here, but the marble ledger for George Clarke (contributing object: PPl2) appears to have been installed a number of years after his death.
The ledger has floral decoration characteristic of late nineteenth century gravestones, and is probably a replacement of the original and perhaps temporary marker erected by the Philanthropic Society.
The fenced plots of the Dialectic Society and the Philanthropic Society, located close together in the north central portion of Section I, have extremely ornate cast-iron fences, indicating that these organizations went to great expense to honor their deceased members. The Philanthropic Society fence (contributing structure: LL7) encloses a rectangular plot approximately 15 x 30 feet, and contains six monuments. The fence rests on a neatly chiseled brownstone base. At the south end is a gate containing the society name. The fence is of ornate rectilinear Gothic Revival style characteristic of the mid-nineteenth century, with posts containing pointed arch detailing and a railing with a lower band of geometric design and pickets ending in fleur-de-lis. The Dialectic Society plot, of approximately the same size; contains five monuments. The Dialectic Society cast-iron fence (contributing structure: PP11) is of ornate Gothic Revival style, set on a brownstone base, and has a south gate with the society’s name and their date of establishment, 1795, as well. The curvilinear floral design, Eastlake Gothic in character, features posts that are clustered colonnettes and a railing with a lower quatrefoil border and elliptical-patterned rails topped by fleur-de-lis finials. This fence was probably erected in the 1880s.
The so-called "Di" and "Phi" monuments are not only among the earliest monuments in the cemetery, but are also the most artistically significant. The large size and elegant carving of these marble headstones, ledgers and obelisks indicate that the families or friends of these students spent lavishly to provide a handsome memorial. These are among the few monuments in the entire cemetery which have stonecutters’ signatures, indicating that these were specimen examples of these artisans’ work. The earliest society burial, and the original burial in the cemetery, for George Clarke in 1798, is outside of the Dialectic Society fence. The earliest dated monument within the fences is the monument in the Philanthropic Society plot for James N. Neal, 1809-1832 (contributing object: LL7). This is a marble ledger supported on marble posts of classical design, and was an expensive monument favored by fluent antebellum families. In the Dialectic Society Plot, the tomb-table (a marble ledger on a brick base) for Lewis Bowen Holt, died 1842 (contributing object: PP11), is a fine example of the sculptural skill of Fayetteville stonecutter George Lauder. Holt’s ledger contains a tableau depicting, in consummate illusionism, a fountain, cistern, and broken objects set in a desert landscape. This scene is described in a Biblical passage from Ecclesiastes XII, of which part is included in the epitaph: "Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was; and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it." Lauder did not sign this monument, but did sign a nearly identical monument in Cross Creek Cemetery in Fayetteville, enabling the Holt monument to be attributed to Lauder. Lauder signed the ornate marble obelisk of John Alexander Smith, 1836-1855 (contributing object: PP11) in the Dialectic plot. He signed two marble obelisks in the Philanthropic plot, for David White Fisher, died 1850 (contributing object: LL7) and for Mark Bennett, died 1851 (contributing object: LL7). The Raleigh stonecutting firm of Maunder & Campbell, active in the later nineteenth century, signed the obelisk of Joshua P. Perry, died 1856 (contributing object:LL7) in the Philanthropic plot.
Among the early stones outside the Philanthropic plot is the tall marble headstone for Charles A. Brewster, died 1815 (contributing object: MM6). He was apparently from New York City, and the inscription reveals that the Assistant Missionary Society of New York erected the monument "as a testament to his memory." This stone was probably imported from New York. An early signed monument is a marble headstone with an urn-and-willow scene for Mary Jane Wilson, died 1842 (contributing object: MM6), also just outside the Phi plot. It is signed by a New York stonecutter, "R.I. Brown, N.Y."
Scattered among the commercially-carved monuments in Section I are a number of uninscribed fieldstones erected by families who did not have the money to purchase a gravestone. Such markers, salvaged from the rocky fields of the area, are one of the most common types of gravemarkers in the North Carolina piedmont during the antebellum period. The dates of these markers are unknown, but they probably represent burials throughout the nineteenth century.
A recent stone in Section I with a humorous epitaph perhaps attracts the most attention. The monument of Jane Tenney Gilbert (BB01) announces:
I was a Tar Heel born
and a Tar Heel bred
and Here I lie
A Tar Heel dead
Born Jan.2, 1896
And still here, 1980
Sections A and B: African-American Sections
These two western sections contain African-American graves. Pines, cedars and gums grow tall among the gravestones on a lawn covering made sparse by deep year-round shade. A mixture of fieldstones, headstones, tablets and family markers are set in plots or placed in loosely organized rows, and significant areas of these sections appear to be empty. The southern portions of these sections are dominated by family monuments from a later date, while the central and northern portions contain primarily individual gravestones. The cemetery is maintained by the town of Chapel Hill, and, in the past several years, emphasis has been placed on restoring and caring for vegetation, but Sections A and B show the most obvious effects of vandalism to gravemarkers. Many are broken or have been toppled from their bases and placed against boundary walls or cast aside.
A north-south paved drive separates the older Section B from Section A. At the east edge of B, a crumbling stone rubble wall along another paved drive forms a racial boundary, dividing the historically black section from the historically white Section I. Midway within the wall a small one-story brick utility shed (noncontributing building:W18), built in 1949, holds groundskeeper’s implements.
As might be expected, monuments in Section B, which began as the slave section, are primarily uninscribed fieldstones. Since these have no inscriptions, both the identity and date of death of the interred are unknown. Some probably mark slave burials; some probably mark later African-American graves. There are, however, three well-crafted antebellum gravestones for African-Americans in this section. The earliest is for Ellington Burnett, 1831-1853 (contributing object: Q24). His brownstone ledger is broken, and lies in pieces on the ground, but the inscription notes that he was the son of Cornelius & Caroline Burnett. Also in Section B are two brownstone headstones: for Thomas Fletcher, 1838-1862 (contributing object: O6) and George, son of Samuel Barbee, no dates (contributing object: P19). These have the discoid shape, with matching monogrammed footstone, that was popular during the antebellum period, although the choice of brownstone (probably local) and the relatively rough shaping of the stones indicates that the artisan was probably not a commercial stonecutter but perhaps a stonemason who cut gravestones as a sideline.
Certainly the most significant monument in the African-American sections is the tall sandstone obelisk for Wilson Swain Caldwell (contributing object: R25), an African-American servant at the University who died in 1891. This stands in the center of Section B. The marble plaque mounted in its base also contains the names of three other African-American university servants "who served the university faithfully," but they are apparently only commemorated, not buried here. The imposing, severe shaft was erected over the main campus grave of Joseph Caldwell, first president of the university, who died in 1835. After a new Caldwell Monument of marble replaced this sandstone obelisk, it was moved here and reused for these four servants in 1907.
The small granite headstone of Dilsey Craig, 1802-1894 (contributing object: W8), located in the north end of Section B, is another monument that was actually ordered by the white family for whom she was a servant. The material and design of the stone indicate that it was erected many years after Dilsey’s death, probably in the 1930s. The inscription reads:
60 years a slave
chiefly in the home of Dr. James Phillips
whose grandchild erects this in grateful memory
Well done good and faithful servant.
Always remembered.
The rest of the gravestones in the African-American sections are headstones of either concrete or marble, and family monuments of granite which date from the 1880s to the present. A number of the early twentieth century headstones are of concrete, and several of these, such as that of Eliza Jones, died 1927 (contributing object: E15) have an anchor entwined by ivy ornamenting the top. Such commercially cast concrete markers were sold all over North Carolina during this period, and were an inexpensive alternative to marble monuments. They are especially numerous in African-American cemeteries, and have withstood weathering surprisingly well.
Sections II, III, IV
This area comprises the eastern half of the cemetery. Large specimen oak trees, small ornamental trees, and flowering shrubs grow in the grassy lawn of these sections. Section II is divided into rectangular family plots with a driveway running north-south through the center. There are scattered graves with death dates of 1829, 1843, 1862 and 1872, apparently made by families prior to the platting of these sections. Regular interments did not begin in Section II until the early twentieth century. In 1903 plat a plot enlarging the cemetery by one and one-third acre on the east side, apparently for Section II, was presented to the town of Chapel Hill. The majority of monuments are post-1900 marble or granite family monuments surrounded by smaller tablets marking individual family members, set generally in rows with no borders marking family plots.
Sections III and IV, approximately one and one-third acres in size, were apparently platted on the two acres added to the east side of the cemetery in 1928. Family plots are smaller, square-in-shape, and oriented on a different axis from Section II. As in Section II, there are scattered earlier burials made prior to platting, for example, in 1882, 1890, 1915 and 1916. Burials have been constant in these sections beginning in 1928. Like Section II, these sections contain family monuments, generally of granite, with smaller tablets for individual burials. Family plots generally have no borders.
Section 8: Statement of Significance
The Old Chapel Hill Cemetery, a generally rectangular 6.98-acre parcel enclosed by a traditional rubblestone wall characteristic of early campus landscaping and dotted with old cedars and hardwood trees, is located at the east edge of the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill along NC 54 and Country Club Drive.
The cemetery meets Criteria consideration D for the significant collection of persons buried there and for its distinctive design features. The cemetery is eligible for the National Register under Criterion A in the area of social history as a collection of graves of many distinguished persons associated with the development of the University of North Carolina and the town of Chapel Hill who were buried there during the period of significance between 1798 when the cemetery was founded and 1944, the last year in which the cemetery meets the fifty-year age requirement for significance.
A burying ground at the University of North Carolina was required when George Clarke, a member of the Philanthropic Society, died suddenly in 1798. The area around Clarke’s burial, east of the campus, was gradually surrounded by more interments during the nineteenth century until, by the early twentieth century, it became the preferred cemetery of the university and town communities.
Because of the University’s preeminent position as the first public university opened in the United States and the major public institution of higher learning in North Carolina, the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery has one of the most distinguished groups of individuals of statewide and local significance of any cemetery in North Carolina. Among those buried there are eminent educators, mathematicians, physicians, engineers, geologists, philosophers, literary figures, and dramatists. Burials of much-beloved Chapel Hill townspeople, men and women, white and black, who operated popular hotels, boarding houses, restaurants, served in town government, and were public policy crusaders, are present there also, and have local significance.
The Old Chapel Hill Cemetery, now almost filled, is also eligible for the National Register under Criterion C for its distinctive collection of nineteenth-century monuments that reflect the craftsmanship of both known and anonymous stonecutters of North Carolina and other states, including George Lauder and Maunder & Campbell of Raleigh. The cemetery contains examples of ornate headstones, tomb-tables, and obelisks favored by affluent whites, as well as uninscribed fieldstones and modestly stylish headstones of local brownstone erected for slaves and possibly free blacks who were part of the university community. In addition, the low stone or brick borders and ornate cast-iron fences that enclose a number of the family plots and the plots of the Dialectic Society and the Philanthropic Society are characteristic of elite antebellum cemeteries in North Carolina.
Historical Background
The early history of the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery is poorly recorded. There are brief references, mostly to specific interments, in late-eighteenth and nineteenth-century documents in the University archives and in histories written about the University, but little information about the cemetery is to be had until the early-twentieth century. Then records in the University archives and Chapel Hill town offices are more numerous, but they are sporadic and reflect quandaries about size, ownership, and upkeep. Thus, the history given here is a sequential anecdotal narrative drawn from the records available and placed within a context of events as appropriate.
The origin of the cemetery seems linked to the University’s two literary societies which were organized in 1795. The "Debating Society" was organized first, by Charles Wilson Harris of Cabarrus County, for the cultivation of lasting friendships and the promotion of useful knowledge. It was patterned after the Whig Society at Princeton where Harris had been a student before coming to the new university in North Carolina as a tutor. The "Debating Society" had been in existence for three short weeks when Maurice Moore of Brunswick County moved that it be divided. A possible difference of political opinion may have brought this about though reasons are not given. Moore’s motion was approved, after which the "Concord Society" was formed. Within several months, the names of both societies were changed; the "Debating Society" became the "Dialectic Society" or the "Di" and the "Concord Society" became the "Philanthropic Society" or the “Phi.” 1 It became a campus tradition to require that students whose homes were east of Raleigh join the Philanthropic Society and students whose homes were west of Raleigh join the Dialectic Society. This was continued until after the Civil War when students were no longer required to join the Literary Societies.
The first interment in the cemetery is thought to be that of George Clarke, a nineteen-year-old student from Bertie County and a member of the Philanthropic Society. His death on September 28, 1798, was surely unexpected, for the Society’s minutes note his participation in a meeting held on September 11, 1798. Before adjournment, a topic for debate at the next meeting was selected as if members expected to reconvene the following week as was their custom. 2 However, no additional minutes of the Philanthropic Society or of the Dialectic Society as well, are available until the middle of January, 1799. This four-month hiatus is not explained when either record resumes and, though it may not be related to Clarke’s demise, the timing is curiously coincidental. No notation concerning Clarke’s death is found in the trustees’ minutes, the faculty records, or the University correspondence, all of which continue during this period. The site for George Clarke’s burial was probably chosen quickly to facilitate the speedy disposal of a body suspected of harboring a contagious and fatal disease.
When the Philanthropic Society minutes began again in January 1799, George Long, of Halifax County, is recorded as suggesting that the membership should claim "as a privilege to pay the duties of respect and esteem to the remains of such of those fellow members as shall be deposited in this place." Long moved that "remains shall be enclosed and the name or names of the person or persons shall be inscribed upon some lasting wood together with the dates" and "each member of the society shall after the life of a fellow member, wear some badge of distinction as the committee shall ordain." The motions were approved and a five-member committee was appointed to make recommendations. 3
Three weeks later, the committee returned to advise that burials be enclosed by "railings to be erected in the form of a parallelogram nine feet in length and four feet in breadth to be planed [sic] and painted black except three inches at the upper ends to be white. They shall be a foot in breadth, three inches on thickness and of such length that the one at the head of the grave shall appear two and a half feet above the surface of the earth, and at the foot, only two. The wood of the pieces shall be of the heart of oak or yellow poplar. The name of the person departed shall be in white letters on the piece at the head of the grave as well as the date of his decease and the name of the Philanthropic Society." It was further proposed that a grave be covered with turf and that each member of the society wear one yard of black ribbon three-quarters of an inch wide above the elbow for a period of three months following the death of any member. 4 If such a structure was built to honor George Clarke or anyone else, it is not noted in the record.
Several additional interments were made around Clarke’s grave in the early nineteenth century. Documentation of this occurs in a letter written by Florida Governor William Dunn Mosley. 5
Although the letter is dated 1853, it describes the village of Chapel Hill as it appeared in 1815-1818 during Moseley’s student days at the University. Among his recollections was that there were "some half dozen graves" in "the graveyard," a number more or less consistent with early- nineteenth-century markers placed subsequently to Clarke’s in Section I which denote the burials of D.S.E. in 1806, Margaretta Blanche Chapman in 1814, and Charles A. Brewster in 1815. There is no information available about who these people were or the reasons for their deaths.
Six additional identifiable interments had been made, including Philanthropic and Dialectic Society members James Neal and James Smith in Section I, when the Trustees allotted $64.41 to build a stone wall around the cemetery. 6 This took place in 1835, several months before the interment of Joseph Caldwell, the first man to be titled "President" of the university. Writing in 1907, historian Kemp Plummer Battle described this burial as being "in the middle of the village cemetery which was originally designed for the use of faculty and students of the University as well as inhabitants of Chapel Hill." Caldwell is reported to have been ill for some time before his death and to have designed the enclosure of his grave. 7
Whether through its lack of church affiliation or for other reasons, the cemetery had infrequent burials during the next nine years, the presence of Joseph Caldwell’s grave notwithstanding. After Judge William Gaston, a long-time Trustee of the University, passed away in 1844, several members of the faculty proposed the establishment of another burying ground. This was to be a "Fames Acre" for eminent men associated with the University’s development. Permission was requested from the Board of Trustees to consecrate land in sight of the campus buildings and to fund transportation of Judge Gaston’s body from Raleigh for interment there. It was thought that the remains of other prominent men might also be moved to this cemetery "with the high and noble object of keeping before the youths of the institution such ever present remembrances of the great as may incite them to a vigorous prosecution of their studies and assiduous cultivation of their hearts." The Trustees allowed the petition to lapse without action, choosing instead to rename the cemetery. In June 1845, it was designated the ''College Graveyard." 8
Despite this, Joseph Caldwell’s remains were exhumed and reinterred on the main campus within the year. Two faculty members were assigned the task of selecting an appropriate monument and after several designs by regional artisans had been considered, a simple obelisk was chosen. It was cut from local sandstone and was to have had a marble plaque with an inscription in Latin inserted on its eastern face. The stone mason misaligned and misspelled the inscription so badly that Professor William McPheeters, its author, “seized a hammer and smashed the offending marble [plaque] into fragments.” 9 The obelisk, without identification, stood for almost 58 years afterward near the present site of New West Building. It became a custom for graduates to recognize the monument by tipping their hats as they passed before it in commencement processions. 10
The first dated African-American interment in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery, that of Ellington Burnett, was made in 1853 in Section B. No surviving record indicates who Burnett was or when the African-American sector was created and interments began. Almost certainly there were other interments before Burnett’s. They are, perhaps, in Section B, among the graves marked by uninscribed field stones, the customary designation for slave burials.
Dates on markers show that interments increased during the later half of the nineteenth century in such numbers that, by 1902, the trustees passed a resolution to enlarge the cemetery. On December 12, 1903 a plat was presented to the Board of Aldermen of the Town of Chapel Hill outlining an addition of two-thirds of an acre on the west and one and one-third acres on the east. 11 Although no official action was taken, this east addition corresponds in size and date to Section II of the cemetery, and the expansion must have been approved.
Six months later, the remains of Joseph Caldwell were moved again amidst much ceremony. This time they were interred, along with those of his wife and her son, on McCorkle Place beneath a large white marble obelisk, this one made in Philadelphia and inscribed in English. Three years afterward, the ill-fated sandstone obelisk originally designed for Caldwell, was brought to the "city cemetery" where it was placed in Section B to mark the grave of Wilson Caldwell. 12 It was rededicated to include his father, November Caldwell, David Barnham, and Henry Smith, all African-American servants of Joseph Caldwell or the University. 13
The record is silent for the next twenty years, during which the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery became the primary place for the interment of men and women associated with the University.
On December 7, 1922, the minutes of the Board of Alderman of the town of Chapel Hill reflected a need to enlarge the cemetery. A committee was appointed to confer with University officials about the matter. 14 No further action was taken until, on May 10, 1923, a resolution was passed instructing the town manager to survey the cemetery, institute a system of burial permits, and obtain a deed from the University to establish "that the town of Chapel Hill really owns the cemetery." 15 No reported action followed.
Five years later, on June 11, 1928, the aldermen submitted a written petition to the trustees describing crowded conditions in the cemetery and asking for additional land. In what seems to have been a mutually beneficial exchange at the time, the trustees granted three acres, two on the east side (apparently Sections III and IV), and one on the south side (apparently a southern expansion of Sections A & B). 16 Receipts from the sale of lots [burial permits] were to be placed in a maintenance fund, and oversight of the entire project was assigned to a committee of five members, appointed by the aldermen and the faculty buildings and grounds committee.
This arrangement apparently worked satisfactorily and many burials of prominent educators and townspeople took place in the cemetery during the 1930s and 1940s. Then in the late 1940s, the town record reflected concerns about the appearance of the cemetery. Complaints about weeds, sunken graves, and overturned monuments prompted debate as to whether the responsibility for upkeep of grave sites lay with individuals whose family members were interred in the cemetery or with the town. The town took the position that burial sites were private property and that the rights of owners would be infringed on if it assumed responsibility for the maintenance of individual graves.
On February 3, 1949, University attorney, J. A. Williams, especially concerned about conditions in Sections A and B, appeared before the aldermen to "remind them of their commitment to maintain the cemetery." l7 After some discussion of this and the lack of more available space for expansion on the west, it was decided to purchase a tract of land for a new "cemetery for colored people." The chairman of the cemetery committee, R. J. M. Hobbs, wrote a letter to the trustees detailing the need for the new burying ground and emphasizing "the fact that the town of Chapel Hill has been maintaining the present cemetery from tax money over a period of twenty years at a cost which is estimated to be greatly in excess of the amount which has accumulated in the cemetery fund from the sale of cemetery lots." The trustees approved the use of the $7000 cemetery fund for a new African-American burying ground on February 28, 1949 and, within a month’s time, 10.5 acres near Carrboro was purchased from Alderman John Umstead. 18 The West Chapel Hill Cemetery was opened shortly afterward. In October of the same year, the cemetery committee reported that the old tool shed was beyond repair and recommended that "a new one be built of brick at a break in the wall between the white and colored cemeteries."
Some ten years later, in a letter written on November 11, 1960 to J. A. Branch in the University business office, Williams, again acting as the University attorney, discussed the "ownership of the land used by the [Old Chapel Hill] cemetery." Williams found "no indication that the Board of Trustees took any affirmative action to convey fee simple title to the cemetery property to the town."
The record is quiet for another lengthy period during which interments of many prominent citizens were made in Sections III and IV. Then vandalism, a frequent problem in cemeteries, occurred to an extreme during the night of November 27, 1974. A police investigation which followed found evidence of damage to or defacement of 40 or 50 monuments. The majority were broken; others had been pushed off their bases. A patrol was instigated for the next week but nothing out of the ordinary was seen and surveillance was discontinued.
Expressions of concern about the damages were directed to the attention of Shirley Marshall. As chairperson of the cemetery committee, Marshall sent a heated memorandum to the town administration chiding them for a lack of action two years earlier when her group had requested information about the ownership of the cemetery and "plans for carrying out some of our recommendations" to be formulated. Marshall concluded, "It is my information that the Board of Directors of the Chapel Hill Historical Society is meeting to consider a direct approach to the problem of the damage and needed repairs in the cemetery, the need for a surveyors’ plat, as well as the need to address sundry other pressing problems.” 19 No action seems to have resulted.
Eight years afterward, in 1982, the University made a proposal to expand the cemetery into the wooded grove adjacent to the eastern border and create an estimated 185 new burial sites. Farris Womack, Vice Chancellor for Business and Finance of the University, wrote to Charles Grady, Director of the State of North Carolina Property Office, stating that "At the present time the town of Chapel Hill has the responsibility for maintaining the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery. Its limited resources for such a task have been most inadequate and as a result the town has done little more than minimum maintenance. We believe that the University’s control of the cemetery will provide better maintenance and will greatly improve its appearance." 20 Unexpected opposition in residential neighborhoods east of the University resulted in much unfavorable comment and this plan to extend the cemetery was abandoned
On April 22, 1985, Rebecca Clark, a member of the African-American community, spoke before the Chapel Hill Governing Body, now called the "Town Council," about conditions in the cemetery. She gave a slide presentation showing sunken graves, damaged stone walls, rubbish lying on the grounds, and overturned and broken grave markers. Her exhibit prompted the appointment of a task force that recommended the development of a master plan to designate phased improvements. As the plan was in progress, a number of eager football fans, in a hurry to obtain good seats for a game between the University and Clemson, parked in Sections A and B of the cemetery, causing displacement of field stones and further damage to grave markers there.
The master plan was completed in 1987 and was modified to reflect current preservation practices by landscape architect, David Swanson. It addressed the need to clarify ownership of and establish goals for the cemetery and then to designate service levels, necessary resources, and management. The most-important first item was resolved when a quitclaim deed, dated February 22, 1989 and made by the University of North Carolina and the State of North Carolina, released their rights, title, or interest in the cemetery to the town of Chapel Hill. 21 Recent improvements made in accordance with the plan have included the construction of a new gazebo and the planting of a lawn.
Significant Persons Buried in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery
(Numbers in parentheses are numbers of grave sites as shown on Exhibit A)
Abernathy, Eric MacNider, Sophia
Barbee, Algernon Mallett, William
Berry, Harriet Morehead Phillips, James
Braune, Gustave Pratt, Joseph Hyde
Caldwell, Edwin Pratt, Mary Bayley
Cobb, Collier Sr. Pritchard, William
Craig, Dilsey Roberson, William
Graham, Edward Kidder Spencer, Cornelia Phillips
Graves, Ralph Henry Stacy, Marvin Hendrix
Greenlaw, Edwin Trice, George
Harris, Thomas West Venable, Francis Preston
Hilliard, Nancy Williams, Horace
Koch, Frederick Henry Wilson, Henry Van Peters
The importance of many people interred in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery is well established. A substantial number are distinguished men and women who were prominent educators at the University of North Carolina and leaders in the town of Chapel Hill and the State of North Carolina. Among them are University presidents Edward Kidder Graham (RR16), 1876-1918, the much-beloved orator whose mid-morning talks inspired students to enthusiastic academic achievement and who died during an outbreak of influenza; his immediate successor, Marvin Hendrix Stacy (092), 1877-1919, the preacher-politician whose career was cut short by the same epidemic four months later; and Francis Preston Venable (028), 1856-1934, the visionary administrator under whose direction the University of North Carolina rose to national eminence. 22
Many additional names, prominent in the University’s annals, are to be found on monuments in the cemetery. The majority of these burials are located in Sections II, III and IV. There is Cornelia Phillips Spencer (RR02), 1825-1908, the gallant teacher and writer who ascended the tower of South Building to ring a bell announcing the reopening of the University after Reconstruction. The first women’s dormitory is named in her honor and she was the first woman to receive an honorary degree, awarded at commencement in 1895. Other prominent educators include James Phillips (RR02), 1792-1867, a renowned mathematician and one of two faculty members who staffed the nation’s second oldest observatory built at the University in 1831; Thomas West Harris (JJ16), 1839-1888, first Dean of the Medical School; Gustave Braune (018), 1872-1930, first Dean of the School of Engineering; Edwin Greenlaw (E08), 1874-1931, Professor of English; Eric Abernathy (034), 1876-1933, the University physician for whom Abernathy Hall is named; Walter Toy (006), 1854-1933, Professor of Modem Languages for 48 years; Collier Cobb, Sr. (00l), 1862-1934, Professor of Geology for 42 years; Henry Van Peters Wilson (008), 1863-1939, first Professor of Biology and one of the first group of Kenan Professors; Horace Williams (107), 1858-1940, Professor of Philosophy whose nineteenth century home now houses the Chapel Hill Preservation Society; Joseph Hyde Pratt (075), 1870-1942, Professor of Geology and first chairman of the Chapel Hill Planning Board; and Frederick Henry Koch (E12), 1877-1944, founder of the Carolina Playmakers.
The townspeople of Chapel Hill are buried beside the academicians and some are remembered with great affection. Nancy Hilliard (OO08), 1798-1873, for instance, ran the Eagle Hotel which catered to students from 1830 to 1852. She extended credit to many boys unable to pay their bills until her generosity impoverished her. Friends erected her tombstone. Others are William Mallett (RR12), 1819-1889, a physician who ran the first student infirmary; Algernon Barbee (JJ18), 1840-1918, once mayor of Chapel Hill; Mary Bayley Pratt (075), 1874-1929, for whom the Chapel Hill public library is named; Sophia MacNider (QQ13), 1846-1929, who ran a boarding house and preparatory school in her home on Franklin Street; William Pritchard (087), 1850-1930, postmaster, mayor, and state senator; William Roberson (098), 1869-1935, attorney and three-time mayor of Chapel Hill; Ralph Henry Graves (OO01), 1878-1939, colorful literary figure and biographer of Henry Ford; and Harriet Morehead Berry (002), 1877-1940, dedicated advocate of North Carolina road improvements. Notable African-Americans are: Dilsey Craig (Y08), 1802-1894, a slave for over sixty years in the home of the Phillips family; George Trice (M02), 1838-1915, who ran an oyster restaurant and a shoe repair shop on Franklin Street; and Dr. Edwin Caldwell (N33), 1867-1932, a physician who practiced for many years in Chapel Hill and developed a cure for pellagra.
Interments made after the period of significance include those of Isaac Hall Manning (J15), 1866-1946, the physician administrator who began Hospital Savings of North Carolina, the first medical insurance provider for the state; George Kirkland (104) 1899-1948, Chapel Hill’s first African-American dentist; Nellie Stroud Strayhorn (G25), 1850-1950, who, as a teenager, was reported to have been sitting on the porch of a cabin in 1865 when soldiers riding by told her that she was free; Robert Conner (012), 1878-1950, Kenan Professor of History and first United States Archivist; William Chamber Coker (028), 1872-1953, head of the botany department for 36 years and creator of the mid-campus arboretum of North Carolina plants that bears his name; Jim Tatum (K11), 1913-1959, coach of the University’s champion football team in the 1950s; J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton (124), 1878-1961, an eminent historian who established the Southern Historical Collection in the University’s library; Inez Koonce Stacy (092), 1886-1961, Dean of Women; Lillian Hughes Prince (007), 1893-1962, the first to play the part of Queen Elizabeth in The Lost Colony; Fanny McDade (F02), 1861-1964, African-American laundress to students for many years, who died at 103 and is believed to be the oldest person in the cemetery; Louis Graves (MM05), 1883-1965, founder, publisher, and editor of the Chapel Hill Weekly; Frank Porter Graham (F13), 1886-1972, the first president of the Consolidated Universities of North Carolina and later a United States Senator; Edward "Papa D” Danziger (K14), 1893-1972, restaurateur whose dining establishments fed generations of hungry college students; Ralph Trimble (B12), 1899-1975, Professor of Engineering who surveyed much of the town of Chapel Hill; Paul Green (F10), 1894-1981, dramatist and author of the popular outdoor drama, The Lost Colony; Wesley Critz George (G17), 1888-1982, recognized expert on the study of blood and embryos; James Kern "Kay" Kyser (N02), 1905-1985, the world-famous bandleader; Albert Coates (A08), 1896-1989, founder of the Institute of Government; and Adeline McCall (E11), 1900-1989, composer of the score for The Lost Colony.
Context for Criterion A: North Carolina’s Collective Burial Places of Persons of Significance in the State’s Social History and Black Ethnic Heritage
The Old Chapel Hill Cemetery is the only cemetery in North Carolina to have come into being because of a university and to have served its students, faculty and the townspeople of the surrounding community for almost two centuries. As the resting place of many of the statesmen and scholars who spent their outstanding careers at the University of North Carolina, it holds a special position among North Carolina cemeteries. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, chartered in 1789, is the oldest state-supported university in the United States. The site chosen for the University was at New Hope Chapel Hill, named for a nearby Anglican church, New Hope Chapel. On October 12, 1793, the cornerstone was laid for a two-story brick structure now known as Old East, the oldest state university building in America. The University opened formally on January 15, 1795 and received its first student, Hinton James, on February 12 of that year. Two weeks later, there were two professors and forty-one students present. 23 The town of Chapel Hill, chartered in 1819, existed only to serve the University. It remained a tiny village with a population of faculty families, a small number of people who ran boardinghouses, and a few tradesmen and shopkeepers for many years. Not until the 1830s under president David L. Swain did the University and the town begin to grow. When Swain arrived in 1836 there were 89 students and one store, one doctor, no schools, no churches, and no lawyers. By the end of his tenure in 1857 there were 461 students, eight or ten stores, four churches, six stores and a number of dwellings. 24
Many of the people interred in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery are of great significance to the social history of the State of North Carolina and to the community development of Chapel Hill. Among them are mid-nineteenth century professors James Phillips, mathematician, and Thomas West Harris, first dean of the medical school; early twentieth century university presidents Edward Kidder Graham, Marvin Stacy, and Francis P. Venable; and many early twentieth century professors. Locally renowned women Cornelia Phillips Spencer, whose efforts succeeded in reopening the university after Reconstruction, and Harriet Morehead Berry, crusader for good roads in the 1920s, are buried here. Locally significant African-Americans such as Dilsey Craig, beloved slave of the James Phillips family, Wilson Swain Caldwell, university servant, and local physician Dr. Edwin Caldwell are buried here.
Many old cemeteries in North Carolina contain several graves of outstanding individuals of statewide significance such as a governor, a state senator, or a noted literary figure. But with the exception of perhaps the two cemeteries in the state capital of Raleigh, no cemetery has a comparable collection of eminent people as does the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery. Raleigh, as the capital, was a gathering place for state leaders, Chapel Hill, home of the state university, was a gathering place for state educators. Eminent citizens of the capital city were buried in the City Cemetery until the 1860s. The City Cemetery was established in 1792 at the same time that Raleigh itself was laid out. It occupies a square site east of the capitol building and was laid out in a formal quadrilinear plan mirroring the city plan of Raleigh itself. The four quadrangles are bisected by narrow drives, and the entire cemetery is enclosed by a handsome cast-iron fence. Two of the quads were for white citizens, a third for “strangers,” and the fourth for black citizens. City Cemetery contains the graves of notable early literary figures, a governor, a U.S. Senator, Confederate generals, and members of Raleigh’s founding families. 25
In 1869, after rural park cemeteries had become popular, Oakwood Cemetery was established northeast of the original city limits in a suburban location. Since that time it has been the most prominent cemetery in Raleigh, and contains the graves of seven governors, eight chief justices of the State Supreme Court, four Confederate generals, several U.S. Senators, and numerous other outstanding Raleigh citizens including legislators, authors, scholars, developers, businessmen, engineers, architects, and ministers. Many of these also had statewide impact, such as Clarence Poe, long-time editor of the national agricultural journal, The Progressive Farmer. 26 Unlike the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery, however, Oakwood is a huge landscaped cemetery of picturesque suburban design containing thousands of graves placed among drives named for native trees that wind across its rolling hillsides. Its formality is accentuated by handsome stone architectural improvements including entrance gates, an office, and a Gothic Revival style chapel known as the "House of Memory."
The Old Chapel Hill Cemetery, by contrast, is small and unpretentious. It evolved gradually over the years, and has never had a formal design. It has no single entrance gate, but multiple breaks in the stone rubble wall to enter each section. The oldest sections of the cemetery have the feeling of a family graveyard in the woods rather than a planned, institutional cemetery. In its physical character it echoes the evolution of the campus of the University, which grew haphazardly and informally with buildings of domestic detailing until its neoclassical transformation in the 1920s under the supervision of the architectural firm of McKim, Mead & White. Like many of the campus buildings, the cemetery is surrounded by a low stone rubble wall characteristic of the North Carolina piedmont. Unlike Raleigh’s City Cemetery or Oakwood Cemetery, the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery is an unlikely spot for such an assemblage of noteworthy individuals, but its unpretentious informality belies its significance in the history of the state.
The only North Carolina cemetery that has been individually listed in the National Register for its significance to black ethnic heritage is Union Cemetery, Greensboro’s earliest known black cemetery [NR,1993], where locally prominent African-Americans are buried. Although there are numerous significant black cemeteries in the state, the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery may be unique in containing graves of both slaves and freed African-Americans.
Context for Criterion C: Cemetery Layout and Gravestone Design in North Carolina
This cemetery context is drawn from M. Ruth Little’s manuscript in process, Sticks and Stones: Three Centuries of Gravemarkers in North Carolina. The Old Chapel Hill Cemetery, with its informal landscaping of cedar and hardwood trees and its unpretentious stone rubble wall, is characteristic of early piedmont North Carolina family graveyards and church and municipal cemeteries. Often the walls were the byproduct of clearing the fields of large fieldstones for cultivation or building. Cedar trees, a symbol of resurrection because of their evergreen growth, were traditionally planted in cemeteries. Layout by family plot was especially common in Episcopal church cemeteries throughout the state. More egalitarian congregations, such as Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists and Lutherans, generally buried their dead in rows rather than in family clusters.
The design of individual monuments in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery is both representative of monuments throughout piedmont North Carolina and revealing of socioeconomic conditions at the University. Early gravemarkers were likely wooden and have completely disappeared. In 1799 members of the Philanthropic Society established a standard for grave markers for fellow members who died. They decided that graves of deceased Philanthropic colleagues should be marked by wooden railings, painted black and white, with the name, date of death and name of the society painted on the headboard. Marking graves with wooden railings was customary in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century not only in North Carolina, but throughout the United States and Britain In some cases, these wood railings were temporary until a stone monument was erected; often they were the only marker ever erected.
Stone monuments were not easily procured during the early years of the cemetery. There were no commercial gravestone carvers resident in North Carolina until the 1820s, and the earliest gravestones erected in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery were almost certainly imported from out-of-state, probably either from Charleston or the Mid-Atlantic port cities. It may have been many years before George Clarke’s grave received a permanent marker; his present ledger appears to be of mid-to-late nineteenth century manufacture. Margaritta Chapmen’s elegant marble headstone was probably erected soon after her death in 1814 and may be the earliest stone monument in the cemetery.
The Dialectic and Philanthropic burial plots are a showcase for the work of North Carolina’s premier gravestone carvers during the antebellum period. In the 1830s to 1850s the families or members of both societies spared no expense in erecting grand monuments in memory of their departed sons or colleagues. These marble box-tombs, tomb-tables, headstones, and obelisks represent the height of antebellum funerary monument fashion in North Carolina. Three obelisks are signed and one box-tomb is attributed to the state’s first permanent gravestone carver, Scotsman George Lauder, who carved thousands of stylish gravestones in his Fayetteville workshop from the 1840s to the 1880s. Another obelisk is signed by a Raleigh firm, Maunder & Campbell. Donald Campbell was, like Lauder, a Scottish-born stonecutter who came to North Carolina to work on the State Capitol in the 1830s and stayed to establish a marbleyard. Such cemeteries as Cross Creek Cemetery in Fayetteville and City Cemetery in Raleigh contain even larger collections of fashionable antebellum gravestones, some by these same stonecutters.
The ornate cast-iron fences around the Dialectic and Philanthropic plots are equally fashionable examples of funerary art, and were probably ordered from Northeastern ironworks manufactories. Other antebellum cemeteries with ornate burial plot fences are the city Cemetery in Raleigh and the Elizabeth City Episcopal Cemetery.
Section B, the slave section of the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery, has significance as one of a small number of slave cemeteries in North Carolina that retains inscribed markers. Most of the known slave cemeteries have no visible markers or have uninscribed fieldstones. The stylish ledger and headstones of brownstone for three African-Americans who died during the antebellum period are significant survivals. They do not compare in ostentation to the collection of antebellum African-American gravestones in Greenwood Cemetery in New Bern, which are brownstone and marble headstones of comparable elegance to those erected on graves of elite whites during the period. However New Bern’s free black community was among the most prosperous in the state, while the black community in antebellum Chapel Hill, both slave and free, was small and probably of limited economic means. Thus it is understandable that most of the markers in the slave section would be uninscribed fieldstones, as are most of the markers in most slave cemeteries in North Carolina. The tall sandstone obelisk moved in 1907 from the grave of former president Joseph Caldwell to mark the graves of four valued African-American servants of the university is a significant example of another traditional method of marking graves in black cemeteries, by recycling. African-American cemeteries, such as Flemington Cemetery in New Hanover County and Buncombe Baptist Churchyard in Davidson County as well as others throughout North Carolina contain fragmentary pieces of marble reused from buildings or from other graves.
Notes
1. Battle, Kemp Plummer, History of the University of North Carolina, Raleigh, Edwards and Broughton Printing Co., 1912, pp. 72-77.
2. Harrelson, Edward. The Dialectic And Philanthropic Societies Burial Grounds, Minutes and Resolutions Providing for and Honoring their Deceased Members. Report of the Historian, unpublished essay, 1990, p 4.
3. Harrelson, Appendix, pp 1-3.
4. Harrelson, Appendix, pp 6-7.
5. Henderson, Archibald, The Campus of the First State University, Chapel Hill, The University of North Carolina Press, 1949 p.56. See also Battle, Vol. I, p. 272.
6. Battle, Vol. I, p. 414.
7. Battle, Vol. I, p. 414.
8. Battle, Vol. I., pp. 492-93.
9. Battle, Vol. I, p. 415.
10. Battle, Vol. I, p. 415.
11. Webb, Jas. O., survey dated December 12, 1903.
12. Battle, Vol. I, pp. 694.
13. Battle; Vol. I, pp. 694-95.
14. Minutes of the Board of Alderman of the Town of Chapel Hill, Book 3, page 236.
15. Extracts from the Minutes of the Board of Aldermen of the Town of Chapel Hill, 7 December, 1922.
l6. Minutes of the Board of Alderman of the Town of Chapel Hill, Book 5, page 46. In the collection of Dave Swanson, of Chapel Hill, is a 1929 survey map of the .75 acre south addition to Sections A & B.
17. Extracts from the Minutes of the Board of Alderman of the Town of Chapel Hill, 7 December, 1922.
18. Minutes of the Board of Trustees of the University of North Carolina, February 28, 1949.
19. Records of the town of Chapel Hill, 7 May, 1975.
20. Records of the property Office of the University of North Carolina, 22 August, 1983.
21. Book 782, p. 238, Orange County Register of Deeds Office, Hillsborough, NC.
22. House, Robert, The Light That Shines, Chapters pp. 25-31, 66-72, 79-85.
23. Powell, William S., "The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: History of the university," The Undergraduate Bulletin, Fall 1993-Fall 1994 Record, Chapel Hill, 1993, p. 7.
24. Catherine Bishir, "Chapel Hill Historic District," National Register nomination, 1972. (copy on file at the State Historic Preservation Office)
25. Fred A. Olds, "Raleigh’s Old or City Cemetery," The Orphans Friend, 1919, State Library, Raleigh.
26. Elizabeth A. Norris, "Historic Oakwood Cemetery," brochure, Raleigh, 1990.
Selected Bibliography
Books:
Battle, Kemp Plummer, History of the University of North Carolina, Vols. 1 & 2, Raleigh, Edwards and Broughton Printing Co., 1912.
Conner, R. D. W., A Documentary History of the University of North Carolina, Vols. 1 and 2, Chapel Hill, The University of North Carolina Press, 1953.
Henderson, Archibald, The Campus of the First State University, Chapel Hill, The University of North Carolina Press, 1949.
House, Robert B., The Light That Shines, Chapel Hill- 1912-1916, Chapel Hill, The University of North Carolina Press, 1964.
Little, Margaret R., Sticks and Stones:Three Centuries of Gravemarkers in North Carolina, manuscript in progress.
Olds, Fred A., "Raleigh’s Old City Cemetery," The Orphan’s Friend, Raleigh, 1919.
Powell, William S., "The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: History of the University," The Undergraduate Bulletin, Fall 1993-Fall 1994 Record, Chapel Hill, 1993.
Records:
Minutes of the Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, N.C. 1789-98 and 1798-1801.
Town of Chapel Hill, Municipal Records, Town Offices, Chapel Hill, N.C.
Deed Books of Orange County, Vols. 5 & 782, Register of Deeds Office, Hillsborough, NC.
Essays, Maps, Databases and Pamphlets:
Harrelson, Edward, The Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies Burial Grounds, Minutes and Resolutions Providing for and Honoring their Deceased Members, Report of the Historian, unpublished essay, 1990.
Norris, Elizabeth A., “Historic Oakwood Cemetery,” brochure, Raleigh, 1990.
Swanson, David and Terri, Studies about the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery, maps, database, and pamphlet, Chapel Hill, 1990-93.
Minutes of the Board of Trustees of the University of North Carolina, Archives Division, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, N.C. 1789-98 and 1798-1801.
Interviews:
David and Terri Swanson, directors, Old Chapel Hill Cemetery Restoration Project, 15 November 1993.
Rebecca Clark, member, Old Chapel Hill Cemetery Improvement Committee.
Mary Arthur Stoudemire, member, Chapel Hill Preservation Society, 15 November 1993.
Verbal Boundary Description:
The boundary of the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery encompasses all of parcel lA on Orange County Tax Map 73 as shown on the accompanying copy drawn at a scale of l”=400’. It is also described and recorded in Volume 782, page 238 in the Orange County Register of Deeds Office, Hillsborough, North Carolina.
Boundary Justification:
Although some sections of the cemetery have a majority of less-than-fifty year old monuments, the entire cemetery retains integrity of feeling and association from the period of significance because it was platted during the period and because the historical stone wall and mature landscaping tie all sections together.
