9/21/20: Historic Hillsborough, NC & Bee Hotel!

After spending a few very enjoyable days in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill Research Triangle Area of North Carolina, we headed toward the important civil rights city of Greensboro but stopped en route in the town of Hillsborough because of its large historic district. Outside a frame shop were some arresting murals that, as usual, caught my eye.

Before the town of Hillsborough was  established in 1754 as the Orange County seat, it had been the home of the Occaneechi, Eno, and Haw Indigenous tribes. Founded on the site where the Great Trading Path crossed the Eno River, the town was old enough to have witnessed many historical events during the Colonial and Revolutionary eras. If you remember your colonial history at all, Hillsborough was the site of the 1788 Constitutional Convention at which delegates clamored for a Bill of Rights prior to ratifying the the United States Constitution. 

I learned that the town was also at the center of the Regulator Movement where citizens took up arms against corrupt colonial officials, something that was brand new to me. Throughout the Revolutionary War, Hillsborough was a center of political activity that supported migration away from British rule to independence. I could certainly see why Hillsborough had been listed in the National Register of Historical Places.

The downtown area was still much the same as it appeared in the 18th century with an impressive collection of historic homes, churches, mills, and schools that reflected the beautiful 18th-century architecture and the town's role in history.

The Alexander Dickson House was described as being an ideal example of an 18th-century "Quaker-plan" farmhouse and was built around 1790. After Dickson, his wife, and their nine children moved into the house in 1845, he ran the farm, owned a gristmill, a store, blacksmith store, AND a wagon repair shop! Though successful as a farmer, mechanic, and craftsman, Dickson was a poor investor. Nothing more of the family would likely have been known except two Confederate generals and their troops camped on their homesite in 1865. Their home had been chosen because it was within view of the railroad that ran between Raleigh and Greensboro and was also close to the road leading to Durham Station. The home became known as "the last headquarters of the Confederacy" because surrender papers had been prepared at the Dickson House for Union General Robert E. Lee in April of 1865. The restored home had since become the Hillsborough Visitor Center in 1983.

Though the center was closed, we walked around the large property. 

I wondered about the origins of this very colorful pig!

I was surprised to see bamboo growing beside the house.

Pigs galore for some reason!

One more of the town's striking historic homes:

I wondered how much the newspaper office had changed over the years.

Even Darth Vader had been pulled in to implore people to wear masks in the age of Covid!

The Burwell School Historic Site, which dated to 1821, was named after the Burwell family who operated a school for young women. Elizabeth Keckly lived in the home as a Burwell family slave during the 1830s. She bought her freedom in 1855 and became a dressmaker and friend to Mary Todd Lincoln, the wife of President Abraham Lincoln. She published her memoirs in 1868.

As we neared the Ayr Mount Historic Site, we were told to be very careful because of the presence of yellow jackets and copperhead snakes. Surrounding the 1815 plantation home that was home to four generations of the Kirkland family were 265 rolling acres of meadows and woodland. Along the banks of the Eno River that ran through the property were the remains of Indigenous American villages. On the northern property line was a surviving segment of a major trade route used by the tribes and European settlers.

We then walked along the nature trail that had been dubbed the Poet's Walk.

What an unusual spot to find a Little Free Library!

Ayr Mount was one of North Carolina's finest examples of a plantation from the Federal era, i.e. circa 1815. It was named for William Kirkland's home in Ayr, Scotland, also the home of Robert Burns, probably Scotland's most famous poet. After settling in Hillsborough about 1790 with his wife and eleven children, he became a local merchant and his prosperity grew so he could purchase 500 acres of and to build this grand home. Tours of Ayr Mount had been cancelled until further notice in the age of the pandemic.

The Masonic Hall dated to 1823.

I didn't take note of this building's history unfortunately but wonder if it may have been a large inn. 

Take the 'A' Train was a jazz standard by Billy Strayhorn that became the signature tune of the Duke Ellington Orchestra. Jazz composer and pianist Strayhorn's boyhood home was here in Hillsborough. The song brought Ellington and his band financial success and became his theme song that he would play regularly for the rest of his life. The song is regarded as one of the most important compositions in all of jazz. 

I was curious about the 'Duke' so read online that Edward Kennedy Ellington was born in Washington, DC at the turn of the last century. At just fourteen years old, he composed his first ragtime tune. He moved to Harlem, NY, when he was 24 to be part of the Harlem Renaissance. Growing up in a middle-class family that emphasized good manners and neat attire, Ellington soon became known as 'Duke.' In 1941, NY’s newest subway line, the A line, brought people from Harlem to the heart of the city.

We were in no rush so decided to take a stroll on the Hillsborough Riverwalk Greenway by the Eno River. The Greenway was the main county corridor of the Mountain-to-Sea Trail, a statewide trail network.

A sign on the trail said that Hillsborough's first mill was established by Abner and Francis Nash after receiving court approval in 1765 to dam the Eno River for the mill's creation. The mill used the river's water power to grind corn and wheat, and to operate a saw mill. The variety of industry along the river was critical to Hillsborough's economy in the 19th and 20th centuries. Businesses along the river included brickyards, ice house operations, tanneries, textile mills, and tobacco factories. 

The Eno River has long been a destination for recreational activities, including swimming, fishing, and paddling. Swimming holes had been popular from the earliest days to the 1950s. When Orange County's first agricultural 'fair' began in 1854, the North Carolina Railroad Company offered free transportation of livestock to support the fair. 

When winters got particularly cold, the river would freeze and people ice skated across the river.

The railroad lines adjacent to the greenway were part of a line that currently extended across 16 counties from the North Carolina coast to Charlotte. Construction of the line began in 1851 with workers clearing trees and laying crossties. Can you just imagine their working 12 hour days, six days a week for the paltry sum of just 50 cents a day? Daily train service to Hillsborough began in 1855. 

A little further on was the Gold Park Pollinator Garden that was inhabited by several pollinators including bees, butterflies, and moths. I had NO idea that there were as many as 200,000 species of pollinators; about one thousand of the known pollinators are birds and small animals. That means the other ninety-nine percent are insects!

I felt like a kid again playing hopscotch almost skipping along on the paving stones through the garden!

I read that the garden helped pollinators by giving people a chance to observe and learn about them, and by providing food and homes for pollinators such as butterfly eggs and caterpillars. 

In 2016, Hillsborough became the 35th city to be named a Bee City USA, a title we'd never heard of previously! The title included the responsibility to build health habitats for pollinators and raising awareness of the benefits of pollinators in the community. This 'bee hotel' was dedicated in 2017 and  provided a home for for the 90 species of bees local to this area.

I shouldn't have been surprised that the exceptionally charming town of Hillsborough had a gourmet food shop that would have been right at home in the toniest of NYC neighborhoods. It was certainly far too 'la de da' for me as my mum would have said!

Hillsborough had been a lovely stop with its vast array of historic properties, wonderful places to take a stroll, and learn more about my adopted country's colonial and Revolutionary history. 

Posted on June 111th, 2021, almost nine months later from Fargo, North Dakota, just a few days into our two-plus month road trip discovering more of this vast land, especially its capital cities and national parks. Since I am already so far behind writing posts from our trip last summer and fall, I plan to include posts from this current trip from time to time so the same doesn't happen once again. 

Next post: The North Carolina town of Greensboro, the site of the first Woolworths sit-in during the civil rights era.