Orange County NC Website
Browse       Search
0 <br /> 0 <br /> 0 <br /> C <br /> co' <br /> Hillsborough Town Hall. The tract of ten acres they stand on was bought by the town in <br /> 1972 and lies between East Corbin,Cameron,East Orange,and Churton streets.At the time 0 <br /> of the purchase,all the buildings were in poor condition, and the carriage house unsalvage- m <br /> 0 <br /> able, but old photographs enabled the town to restore or reconstruct them exactly as they <br /> had been.' M <br /> The former slave house(Figure 3.q.)stands between the law office and the smokehouse. M <br /> It is a one-room building, about fourteen by twelve feet,with a pitched roof and large exte- D <br /> rior chimney on the west side.A miniature hip roof covers the front porch, identical to the T <br /> neighboring law office(see back of book jacket). Beside the door is one small window with D <br /> four panes over four. On the east side is an exterior,narrow staircase leading to a loft door, n <br /> probably not an original feature. On either side of the chimney stack in the loft is a tiny <br /> w <br /> four-paned window.The building appears to have been built at the same time as its neigh- o <br /> boring buildings,the whole now forming a very neat and pleasing appearance. <br /> One of the last inhabitants of the slave house was Price Boyd, who was born a slave. o <br /> Boyd is well remembered by older Hillsboroughans as the coachman for the Roulhac family, <br /> descendants of Judge Thomas Ruffin (1787-1870). The RufFins and Roulhacs successively <br /> owned the place from 1866 to 1972."Uncle Price,"as the neighbors called him,was a very old <br /> man when he told them he was twelve years old at the time he was freed.b <br /> The first house on the site had been built by William H.Phillips in 18x3.He sold it in <br /> i8z5 to Francis L. Hawks,the grandson of the architect of Tryon Palace in New Bern,who <br /> probably made improvements;but it was Frances Clark Pollock Connor Blount(later Hill), <br /> owner of the house from 1830 to 1865, who expanded the main house and possibly built the <br /> many outbuildings there today. The problem with this theory is that she owned only two <br /> lots on Orange Street at the corner of Churton Street, and all the outbuildings are now in <br /> a row on adjacent lots to the north. One must conclude either that she built the original <br /> outbuildings,which were later moved to their present location,or that the Ruffins,who later <br /> owned all ten lots in the block,built them where they stand!If the latter was true then the <br /> little house must be called a servant's house,as it postdates slavery. <br /> Two pieces of evidence bear on the subject.An old photograph of Mrs.Hill's house with <br /> a string of outbuildings close beside it proves that there were a number of dependencies on <br /> her lots that could have been moved. In addition, the office in the present row next to the <br /> slave house is said to have been moved from beside her house;hence it is not unreasonable <br /> 38 HIDDEN HILLSBOROUGH <br />