Orange County NC Website
~~~ <br />recordation of the site. It asks that the integrity of the County's <br />cemeteries, many of which date back to the 1700's be respected and, if <br />authority of law exists to disinter, that its data be fully recorded. <br />Sites of historical. significance is also broadened to encompass <br />more than buildings and cemeteries. It includes dams, functional or <br />destroyed but still evident, at mill sites that once provided for the <br />economic well-being of the County. Tt also includes sites of <br />commemorative markers either placed by the state (such as that <br />identifying the site of the hanging of the regulator leaders) or by <br />private citizens, such as that memorializing the site of the old Elm <br />Grove School in northern Chapel Hill Township. <br />-Churches and rural community centers, including recreational sites, <br />should be acknowledged in the Land Use Plan as important to the County <br />and its planning process. Their existence imparts a cohesion and <br />identity to rural communities. Even though the church buildings may be <br />new and not of historical value, the same is not true of the <br />communities and congregation, some of which have already. celebrated <br />their bicentennial. <br />The majority of material within the appendix was taken from current <br />registries provided by state agencies including the Division of <br />Archives and History and Archeology blanch of the Department of <br />Cultural Resources, the N.C. Wildlife Commission, and the N.C. Natural <br />Heritage Program. The inclusion of other data, especially that <br />concerning cemeteries and mill sites, required extensive fieldwork and <br />relied upon every available source for clues, from 90 year old maps and <br />minutes of Baptist Association meetings to handwritten fieldnotes of <br />members on the Chapel Hill Historical Society which are on file in the <br />Registrar of Deeds Office. <br />One note as to entries--the entries for archeological sites are as <br />cryptic as they are because the Archeology Branch has asked that they <br />be presented that way. Although complete data on sites, including <br />location, is now on file in the Planning Department, there is a fear <br />that public disclosure of exact locations will invite disruption of the <br />sites. <br />New measures of protection that may arise from this work will <br />depend entirely on whether any new protection beyond the status quo is <br />warranted. Potential measures could range from Zoning Ordinance <br />amendments to simply informing a .state agency responsible for a <br />particular site's protection that development is proposed for that site <br />to no new measures at all. What new measures or simply new awareness <br />that might arise from this work stems from its basic premise, orange <br />County's natural heritage should not be compromised, its cultural <br />heritage not forgotten. <br />Planning Staff recommends approval of amendment to the text and <br />incorporation of inventory as appendix to the Land Use Plan. <br />Commissioner Marshall noted this was an impressive study and one <br />which was needed but questioned, under the religious area of the study, <br />if Black Baptist was a specific denomination. Tongan responded that <br />the document he had to work with was the Orange County Directory which <br />was put together in 1952 and that directory made the distinction <br />between White Southern Baptist Churches and Black Baptist Churhes. <br />Marshall suggested that this not be listed as if it were a <br />...~ <br />