Independence Day in Hillsborough

What could be better for someone who studies history and cemeteries than an Independence Day visit to the grave of one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence?! Not much, I imagine. Hence, I set off on Friday morning to visit Hillsborough. Hillsborough, of course, is where Thomas Ruffin lived and where several of the "Regulators" were hanged after their rebellion was put down in 1771.
In the church yard of the Hillsborough Presbyterian Church, Thomas Hooper--a signer of the Declaration--was buried in 1790. Was buried is the operative term--he was exhumed and reburied in Greensboro in 1894 (as part of the creation of a park to commemorate a Revolutionary War battle fought there). I'm not a huge fan of reburials to create a new park--seems like the attempt to "manufacture" gravitas--and it's done at the expense of a dead person, who obviously can't object. But then if the relevant family members are ok with it, that's all that's required by law.
Anyway, the church yard is lovely and I saw the place where Hooper had been buried. (He's a pretty interesting guy, btw--born in Boston and educated at Boston Latin School and Harvard, then trained in law with James Otis and relocated to North Carolina in the 1760s. Hooper was initially closely tied to the colonial government, then slowly came over the Revolutionary cause, and after the war was a Federalist.)
(This is cross-posted from propertyprof.)

The Ruffin Field Trip

Last fall I had the pleasure of visiting Chapel Hill for a conference on Thomas Ruffin that Sally and Eric Muller put together. They also put together a terrific field trip, which included a trip to see Ruffin's office over in Hillsborough and then some slave quarters. Sally took a bunch of great pictures, but she didn't post them. I thought you'd enjoy Ruffin's office.

Modern living

Yesterday Paul and I went up to the Vietri warehouse in Hillsborough to catch a shuttle bus out Route 70 to the east to see the Dwell Model Home. This beautiful house is prefabricated, which has many advantages, although cost is not one. It's about $250/sq. ft., and we think it's around 4,000 sq. ft. (You can do the math.) The architect claims many environmental advantages--natural light, shading, etc. Earth-conscious products are used, including bamboo flooring and "plyboo."

Rather apologetically, the architect points out that they were "required by the local covenants to build a rather large house," going on to say that they "decided to build the smallest home permissible on the site and to keep a very open floor plan to have the house feel very spacious."

Our goal is to show that a home doesn’t always have to conform to the status quo – even though it may be legally required to be a certain size or height - rules which we find to be contrary to sound design principle and any kind of environmentally-conscious thinking.

Which leaves me to wonder why they chose this subdivision to build this house in in the first place. It is beautiful, the siting is beautiful, the possibilities go on and on. But Paul and I figured we could do with about a third of it--say the main level alone, give or take.

A video tour (scroll down) from the Dwell folks.

Hillsborough's homeless

When the temperatures dip and the weather threatens, it's time to think about the homeless. The county's annual "point in time" count was taken last week. (Results will be published on February 13.) Under HUD's guidelines, January is the time the count must be taken, because that's when the homeless are most likely to be visible. Even those who prefer the anonymity of the woods will come in out of the cold if they can. Shelters fill up.

This story is first of a series in The New of Orange County on homelessness in Hillsborough. It highlights the work of Vanessa Neustrom of the Orange-Person-Chatham Area Program mental health agency, for her good work on the count; Vanessa is also a member of the work group for the Orange County Partnership to End Homelessnes.

Does it seem odd to think that there could be many homeless people in Hillsborough? Neighbor House, Inc.'s "Food for All" program serves 300-350 meals a week.

Welcome to historic Hillsborough.

Props to Laurie Paolicelli, executive director of the Chapel Hill/Orange County Visitors Bureau, for commissioning local writers to write about their home towns. Today in the Chapel Hill News we have Michael Malone's rhapsodic take (scroll down for the story) on Hillsborough and its "small-town charms."

This may be the first promotional article on Hillsborough in modern memory that mentions Judge Thomas Ruffin not only for his general high acclaim as an early 19th century jurist but also for his infamous decision in State v. Mann--the 1829 opinion in which he wrote, "The powers of the master must be absolute to render the submission of the slave perfect."

Michael Malone ought to know: he and his wife, Maureen Quilligan, have in their own back yard the small, beautifully preserved office that Ruffin worked in; the Burnside property, where they live, next to St. Matthew's Episcopal Church, where he is buried, was the site of his home.

Has southern history turned a corner? Is it finally OK to talk candidly, even in the local newspaper, about our troubled, troubling past?

Tim Tyson thinks it has and is. Earlier this week he spoke on "The State of Things" about his upcoming course, through Duke's Center for Documentary Studies, called "The South in Black and White," as well as about his experiences lecturing on race around the state.

I sense a kind of new openness. There’s something going on out there, and I don’t exactly know, but I know that when we’re going to high schools and community colleges and churches these days we’re seeing a new willingness to talk about history in an open way and to tell the story a little differently. . . .

The fact that here in the South right now we’re seeing a new imagination about our prospects and this willingness to talk about race and history is not a surprise. If you look globally, everywhere where people are struggling for decent wages, for the dignity of human personality, for basic human rights, you will hear the vision of the black South that we’ll be studying in this course. This culture already echoes around the world, wherever people are standing up against what Dr. King called “the thingification of human beings.” The black South echoes for the ages. It’s a world historical culture that has come about in the South, of immense importance.

Next week I'm having lunch with Laurie Paolicelli, county commissioner Barry Jacobs, Afro-American Studies professor Tim McMillan, and others to talk about ways to highlight the history and experience of blacks in Chapel Hill and Orange County.

On Agate Hill

Lee Smith's new book, On Agate Hill (Algonquin), is her first historical novel, and it is wonderful. I've started it already. Listen to her hour-long WUNC interview from September 20.

She says that growing up in the mountains of southwest Virginia, she didn't spend much time thinking about the Civil War. That all changed ten years ago when she and her husband Hal Crowther bought a grand old house in Hillsborough that was built in 1870, with a Civil War cemetery out back. Just down the street is the town's historical museum as well as the Burwell School historic site, where she came upon the diary of Anna Burwell. And the rest is fiction.

All of us who know her grieved with her when her son Josh Seay died in 2003. In the interview, and in an essay for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, she talks about how hard it was to climb out of that grief far enough to write this book, which is dedicated to Josh.

UPDATE 09/24: Smith's essay also appears in today's News & Observer.

The Redcoats are coming!

The capture of Hillsborough, N.C., by David Fanning's Tory troops will be reenacted this weekend, marking the 225th anniversary of the event. The town will be engulfed in two days of Revolutionary fervor.

On Sunday, in the midst of battle, St. Matthew's Episcopal Church will hold services according to the 18th century prayer book. The ministers will wear period vestments. Paul and I are ushers. Assuming we can get there safely, what should we wear?