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2A The News of Orange County, Hillsborough, NC, Wednesday; January 27, 1999
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<br /> Hillsborough resident, Tom Magnuson, points out fragments of an old wood stove and the chimney pile on the
<br /> site of the Quaker School on Highway 57, north of Hillsborough.
<br /> Nature takes 1is toll on Id o
<br /> Quaker ur in . round
<br /> By Jim Muting their own meeting. Fallen into disrepair over the
<br /> The News of Orange County In June of 1759 a lease entered years, the Burying Ground was hit
<br /> into with William Comb provided ' particularly hard by Hurricane Fran.
<br /> While entering or leaving Hills- the 348-acre grant which would A number of large, hardwood trees
<br /> borough on Highways 86 North or become the site of the Burying were uprooted, causing extensive
<br /> 57, one may feel as if traffic is Ground, Meeting House, , and damage to the stacked stone wall,
<br /> backed all the way up to the Vir- School. Though a number' of eighteenth
<br /> ginia state line, and nineteenth century head- and
<br /> Long a major thoroughfare, As millers and craftsmen;, the footstones are still intact, many
<br /> Highway 57 was once known as the ' Friends soon became vital members were toppled or damaged.
<br /> High Road to Oxford and later be- of the local community. According to Magnuson, a former
<br /> came the post road. Also known as The Meeting House burned in < history teacher at Carolina Friends
<br /> the great road, it was passable even 1877. All that remains of the School, the State Meeting plans to
<br /> during wet weather that might flood school, in use until the 1920s, is map sites such as the one on 57 and
<br /> the Low Road, a section of which the base of the chimney pile, and a to place marker's commemorating
<br /> is now known as St. Mary's Road. piletof debris left when the chimney their Importance,
<br /> A portion *of the Indian trading toppled in 1967. Durham resident Peter Skillerri
<br /> path, which ran from Virginia According to Hillsborough resi- and other members of the Durham
<br /> through North and South Carolina, dent Tom Magnuson, the chimneys IF • '.
<br /> and on into Georgia, also traversed were usually built on the north side Meeting are interested -in preserving .
<br /> the area. of structures to act as windbreaks, the- site, though no consensus has
<br /> About three miles north of Hills- Engstrom wrote in 1983, "only been reached as to how to go about
<br /> borough on 57, just above Mars 73 .of the • several • hundred grave this .
<br /> Hill Baptist Church, is the old stones still carry dimly decipherable Along - with the ravages of time
<br /> Quaker. Burying Ground and the site jnscriptions which• cannot be visi- and the elements, another concern is
<br /> of a Quaker School ' arid: Meeting ble much longer:' ' ' encroachment by. a proposed' devel-
<br /> for residents of the Eno Valley. opment - to be located : _ between
<br /> It. is Magnuson s understanding Highways 57 and 86 . '
<br /> According to Mary Claire Eng- that a.Jfew "Negroes". are buried in. A new school will be built on a
<br /> strom ' s Early Quakers, in the Eno - the section of the Burying Ground site of approximately 25 acres adja-
<br /> River Valley; Friends first settled enclosed by • a- double angle in the cent to the Mars Hill Baptist
<br /> along the great road in 1751 -52, 'stacked stone wall. Church property, and a sub-division
<br /> though a few families had- settled
<br /> elsewhere in the valley in the• Iate According to Engstrom, a small of approximately 350 units will
<br /> 1740s and early 1750s. The Cane number of Quakers owned slaves to likely follow.
<br /> Creek Meeting comprising the larg- provide labor for mills • and planta- Upon hearing of the proximity of '
<br /> est group. tions, and to care for aged persons ' the proposed development to . the
<br /> in their homes. By 1769409 the Burying Ground, Jean Anderson,,
<br /> Joseph Maddock, a miller, car- ' North Carolina Yearly Meeting author of Durham County: ' The
<br /> penter, magistrate, and horticultur- came close to forbidding all buying History of Durham County, Comm
<br /> ist arrived in 1754. His mill would or selling of Negroes, in spite of mented, "that. is • most troubling:'
<br /> prove important as the site of or- legislation which forbade the free- And so, as It has for the past
<br /> ganizational meetings held by the ing of slaves in North Carolina, two-hundred-fifty years, the site of
<br /> Regulators in 1766, At least * one Confederate veteran .the Burying Ground stands at ,the
<br /> In 1754 the. Eno Quakers first is buried within the walls of the crossroads of progress and contra-
<br /> took steps to formally organize Burying Ground. ' versy.
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