SCHOOLS

(UNC Postcard Collection)

From the National Register nomination:

Constructed as the Hillsborough Township School, the Classical Revival-style brick building served as the public library for a period, but is currently used as the Richard E. Whitted Human Services Center. The cornerstone dates the original school building to 1922. This portion of the building is two stories on a raised basement and has a parapet roof. The school has a wide dentil and modillion cornice and replacement windows throughout with concrete sills. The middle seven bays of the seventeen-bay-wide façade project slightly with the stepped parapet. Centered on the façade, paired replacement doors have original sidelights and three-part transom. The entrance has a classical surround with pilasters supporting a wide entablature with dentil and modillion cornice. Modern paired brick staircases access the entrance and shelter a below-grade entrance to the basement.

A flat-roofed brick wing with ribbons of metal-frame windows projects from the right (east) elevation and connects to a two-story-with-raised-basement wing on the right. This c. 1933 wing matches the original school in detail with a brick veneer, projecting brick watertable, wide modillion cornice, and replacement windows with concrete sills. It is three bays wide and nine bays deep and the center bay on the façade features a basement-level entrance. There is a small, brick addition at the left (west) end of the façade. A two-story auditorium wing at the rear (north) features a brick veneer, parapet roof, and raised basement. It has replacement windows throughout with double-height windows on the main level surmounted by brick arches with concrete details. There are low brick walls along the front sidewalk and along other walkways on the property. The Classical Revival-style building is typical of the large and architecturally distinguished schools built during the consolidation era of the 1920s. It served grades 1-12 until Orange High School opened in 1962, then operated as an elementary school until 1980.

1943 Sanborn map excerpt

The school also had a machine / agricultural shop across W. Tryon Street.

1940s (Silhouette - Hillsborough High Yearbook.)

1958 (Silhouette - Hillsborough High Yearbook)

1922 Main Building, 08.14.2016 (G. Kueber)

1936 addition, 08.14.2016 (G. Kueber)

From the Encyclopedia of North Carolina edited by William S. Powell:

 

In 1844 William James Bingham moved to Oaks, southwest of Hillsborough, to establish what he called a select classical and mathematical school. Bingham's illness in 1855 closed the school. In 1857, however, Bingham's sons William and Robert joined him in partnership, and the school reopened, with double the enrollment, as W. J. Bingham and Sons.

 

In 1863 the elder Bingham's illness and Robert Bingham's absence in the army obliged William Bingham the younger to take over operations. In 1864 all three Binghams and their families moved with the school to a new location on the North Carolina Railroad east of the town of Mebane, where it became officially known as the Bingham School.

 

In 1866 William James Bingham died, and his sons took over the school. William, Jr. died in 1873. His brother Robert made several improvements to the school, both in its buildings and curriculum. His efforts, however, were undermined by serious family complications regarding financial interests in the school, and in 1891 he established his own Bingham School on 250 acres overlooking the French Broad River in Asheville.

 

Advertisement, 1867

 

The buildings and grounds of Bingham School at Mebane as depicted in an engraving on the school's letterhead, 1885. North Carolina Collection, University of North Carolina.

 

 

William Bingham’s widow, Owen White Bingham, operated an academy at the site that she named The William Bingham School. It was later a Presbyterian school operated by Henry Bingham, and even later by Preston L. Gray.

 

Barracks at Bingham School, Mebane, N.C.

Residence of Col. Gray, Bingham School, Mebane, N. C.

Field Day - Contest for Athletic Medal and Prizes - Commencement. The Bingham School, Mebane, NC

Dormitories, circa 1905

Circa 1905

Dining hall, circa 1905

Circa 1905

Circa 1905

Circa 1905

Circa 1905

Advertisement for "Bingham Camp," circa 1905

The only feature that remains from the school is the brick gateway that students would walk through upon boarding or disembarking from the train (HWY 70 was not constructed until the 1920s). See images below.

View south (S. Rankin, 2018)

View north; the school would have been in the distance (S. Rankin, 2018)

View west (S. Rankin, 2018)

View south-east (S. Rankin, 2018)

Composite image from screen captures of panning shot from H. Lee Waters film, 17 Oct 1939. (State Archives of North Carolina.)

Sanborn Map, 1943

The West End Graded School was built in 1938,  as a replacement for the West Hillsborough School that had stood on Bellvue Avenue. It was built on the site of the "Old Homeplace" noted on the subdivision map for West Hill - an older house that predated the neighborhood, and seems likely to have contributed the land for the formation of the neighborhood. The site is the peak of the 'West Hill' with an elevation of 605 feet.

Aerial view, 1955

The school consisted of a front hipped-roof block, apparently with dormer windows. Gabled wings extended north from the east and west sides of the buildings.

The school was decomissioned in the late 1960s, perhaps as part of changes to schools with integration. In 1970, the school lot and building were purchsed by Everett Kennedy for 5,000 and converted into 17 apartments, which he called the "Kenwood Apartments."

On February 20, 1988. The apartments/former school burned - two young boys (brothers aged 3 and 4)  and a man were killed in the fire. The fire "burned through the building in 20 minutes" per the fire chief. Only the very tips of the U-shaped structure were salvageable, as they had been built later and were separated from the rest of the structure by fire walls. 

School after the fire, Durham Morning Herald 02.21.1988

The remnants of the school were demolished, leaving only the three apartments in the 'tips' on a large parcel of land. Along with the remaining stone perimeter wall and stairs, the impression is of a somewhat bizarre set of structural elements if one is unaware of the origin story.

02.13.16 (G. Kueber)

As of August 2016, the land was owned by Jim Mathewson. A notice was sent to people within 500 feet of the property for a neighborhood meeting in advance of a proposed rezoning for "single and multifamily project" in early August, termed "Bellevue Place." Although I support redevelopment of this land, this prominent location in the neighborhood deserves a high-quality project - and I don't know if Jim Mathewson will deliver that.

The rezoning of this property failed, and as of 2020, Mathewson is still trying to sell the land to a developer to redevelop the property.

The Orange County Training School began in 1913 as Hackney's Educational and Industrial School – which soon became known merely as the Hackney School and colloquially as "Hack's High School" – as a high school serving the local African American community. The school was located west of Merritt Mill Road (then also known as New Mill Road), between West Franklin Street and Cameron Avenue in Chapel Hill. 

Orange County Training School (building on left), view north west, circa 1916 (Jackson Davis Collection of African American Educational Photographs, University of Virginia Library)

Excerpt from the December 1915 Sanborn map of Chapel Hill

The school building in 1916, view south

An excerpt from the 1915 Sanborn map of Chapel Hill, showing the former Quaker school for Freedmen

(the "Primary School, Negro"), with West Franklin Street at lower right

 

Around 1890, the Quakers began "cooperating" with the Orange County school board, with them supplying the building and the county supplying the teachers and supplies. Prior to this, the school was a private school and no tax monies were utilized for the building, its teachers, or its students. However, this also meant that the local school board had no control over the teachers or students. 

 

By 1910, the county had added a second room to the school house, and the number of teachers was increased to three. In 1910, there were 130 pupils enrolled.

 

Photo of the Quaker School's students and teachers, circa 1905

Photo of the Quaker School's students and teachers, circa 1910

1919

The Sunnyside School was built or repurposed for African-American students.

In the mid-1930’s, a replacement for the Sunnyside School was desired by parents and the local school committee. In May 1937, at the monthly Orange County Board of Education meeting, "Several colored people from the Hickory Grove school section appeared before the board and asked for a new building at a new location for that district." The replacement was the Hickory Grove School, built in late 1937 or 1938.

Excerpt of 1922 school map of Orange County (shows the two Sunnyside schools; one for black and one for the white students)

09.24.2019 (G. Kueber)

"West Hillsborough School - Early 1900s" from History of the Town of Hillsborough 1754-1966, p. 152.

In late 1918, when the "Spanish flu" epidemic spread to the Eno and Bellevue mill districts, the mill officials opened a "diet kitchen" at the school, and it ran for about seven weeks. Elizabeth Cornelius, a Home Demonstration Agent, was in charge of the kitchen, with Emma Robertson and Mildred Durham working as her assistants. The chairman of West Hill, Mr. C. H. Robertson, supervised the project. Rebecca Wall was a volunteer. As many as 150 people were fed daily, with an average of 90 people fed per day. Not only those sick with influenza were fed, but the families with no one to cook or provide for them were also fed. During this time, Mrs. Emerson Graham and Allie Graham were nurses to the mill workers, and Miss Duncan, the "deaconess at the Mills," assisted. 

West End School aerial view, view north, 1920s (school indicated by red arrow)

A new brick West Hillsborough School was built on Benton/Margaret in 1938. On the 1943 Sanborn map, this buiding is labelled "Community Club House." - evidently it functioned as some sort of community center (mainly for the mill workers) after the relocation of the school.

West End School auditorium interior, ca. 1950

West End School auditorium interior, ca. 1950

As of 2016, it's a vacant lot to the rear of the First Community Baptist Church on Eno Street.

07.31.2016 (G. Kueber)

Late 1800s (History of the Town of Hillsborough)

In ~1801, Duncan Cameron purchased two lots on the south side of Margaret Lane from two of his great uncles, Abner and Francis Nash. There he built a story-and-a-half house for himself and an adjacent law office as well as a kitchen, corn crib, dairy, well-house, smokehouse, wagon house, barn, carriage house, and stables.

In 1807 Cameron sold the five acre estate to his cousin Frederick Nash, who had moved from New Bern to Hillsborough that same year. Nash built a "large addition" to the house in 1817.

Looking east, likely early 20th c. (Wyatt Dixon Collection, Duke RBMC)

Frederick Nash died in 1858. The next year, his daughters Maria and Sarah opened the Nash and Kollock Select Boarding and Day School for Young Ladies. Maria had attended Miss Mary (Polly) W. Burke's School on East Queen Street in Hillsborough. Sally had taught briefly in the Burwell School and in 1858. She had also reputedly studied drawing for a short time in New York. Although Sally and Maria Nash "spent their entire lives from birth to death in the old gray unpainted house on Margaret Lane" in Hillsborough, as Ann Strudwick Nash remarked, they had spent their lives immersed in the intellectual and political culture of their well-known family.

The death of their father in 1858, coupled with the closing of the Burwell School in 1857 likely served as the impetii that spurred the sisters to open the Nash and Kollock school. They brought their young cousin Sara(h) Kollock (1826-1907) into the venture as well - ncpedia describes her as "a tiny lady of spectacular appearance and hair-trigger temper."

The school was successful, due in no small part to the connections of the Kollock-Nash family, attracting "Presbyterian and Episcopal 'young ladies' from old plantation homes up and down the eastern seaboard, even from Kentucky and New Orleans." The school much resembled the Burwell school in curriculum, religious orientation, and living arrangements.

Besides teaching Bible and arithmetic, Sally was the de facto head of school. She "met the public, conducted general school exercises, and supervised the servants and the operation of the dining room. Miss Maria taught English grammar and composition, her particular forte; Miss Sarah taught French and saw to all clerical work, advertising, and so forth connected with the school; and an assistant, a Miss Goodridge, taught history and geography. Music, painting, and drawing were taught by a succession of teachers who used old Cameron-Nash law office as a studio. Five pianos were in use, and the annual soirée musicale at the Masonic Hall received highly favorable newspaper reviews.

Late 1800s (Ladies in the Making [...] at the Select Boarding and Day School of the Misses Nash and Kollock, 1859-1890)

A few boys from the Nash and Strudwick families were admitted to the school during its primary tenure, but after the closure of the main school in 1890, Sarah Kollock operated a small day school of her own for boys and girls in the Cameron-Nash law office.

Likely 1920-1930. (Ladies in the Making [...] at the Select Boarding and Day School of the Misses Nash and Kollock, 1859-1890)

The use of the main Cameron-Nash house from 1890 until the 1940s is still unclear. However, it was, very unfortunately for a house of its historical pedigree, torn down in 1947.

View south west; February, 1947

View south west; February, 1947

View south east; February, 1947

And replaced with a Southern States warehouse -

1996 (Susan Bellinger)

Town of Hillsborough inventory, 1990s.

The Southern States warehouse was torn down in 2008 and replaced with a large new Orange County government building

07.31.2016 (G. Kueber)

Silhouette, 1938, Hillsborough High Yearbook.

The shop building for Hillsborough high school was used for elementary classrooms & vocational agricultural & shop building for the school; students below are part of Future Farmers of America.

Future Farmers of America, Silhouette, 1938, Hillsborough High Yearbook.

In 1946, a brick addition was built on the west side of the frame building, purportedly constructed by teachers, students, and local craftsmen; the addition had living quarters upstairs.

1990 (Susan Bellinger)

The building was torn down in the early 2000s.

Central High School, located in Hillsborough, was initially named the "Hillsborough High School for Negroes"; the 12-room main structure was built in July 1936, on property purchased from Louis Wilson and George Mayo. Mr. C. E. Hester was the first principal, and the school initially served first through eleventh grades (and a "secret" kindergarten class was also taught in its library for awhile). The school's library also served the local black community as a public library. 

Hillsborough High School for Negroes' main building, 1936

Graded School (Colored), 1943 (Sanborn)

In 1942, teacher Albert L. Stanback became principal, and had the school renamed Central High School in 1943. In the early 1950s, the elementary school grade classes were moved from Central's campus to a new segregated county school (Cedar Grove Elementary) north of Hillsborough. 

1955 aerial (UNC)

1957 (Blue Flame / Central High School Yearbook, 1957)

Buses, 1957

In 1958, Central High's main building burned down. In late 1958, the new gymnasium ("gymtorium") was built, and several famous musicians and perfomers performed at the opening: Ike and Tina Turner, Otis Redding, and Solomon Burke. 

08.13.2016 (G. Kueber)

Murphey School, 17 Oct 1939. Composite image from panning shot in H. Lee Waters film (State Archives of North Carolina)

From the Indy Week, 18 Aug 2010:

When the Murphey School (the "e" was dropped at some point in the '60s, hence Murphy School Road) was built in 1923, it exemplified the early 20th-century consolidation movement in North Carolina's public education system. Larger schools meant more students, which meant better opportunities for grade-based instruction. A bungalow behind the school, home to the Mental Health Association of Orange County for the last year, housed the staff.

An adjoining auditorium was built in 1936 as a Works Progress Administration project, and it functioned as a community center of sorts in the '40s and '50s. Legend has it that Bill Monroe, Roy Acuff, Ernest Tubb and Hank Snow played shows at the auditorium. The Murphey School closed in 1959, with the building initially leased to the Mt. Hermon Baptist Church before being sold and eventually turned into a nightclub.

07.17.11 (G. Kueber)

Circa 1915 (UNC Postcard Collection)

1919

The original public graded school for white students in Hillsborough. It was enlarged and renovated circa 1912. It was torn down circa 1922 to make way for the larger Hillsboro Township School.

1911

NCSU / Preservation North Carolina Historic Architecture Slide Collection, 1965-2005