Many of the markers in Hillsborough point to Colonial Era or Civil War people with a very few…read moreexceptions. This is one of them. A positive. The marker reads, "Moses A. Curtis. Botanist, authority on North American flora, author, and Episcopal minister. Home was two blocks east." Online, there is more information. "For Moses Ashley Curtis, an Episcopal priest and botanist, there was no conflict between religion and science. Moses Curtis was born in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, on May 11, 1808. The son of the Reverend Jared Curtis and Thankful Ashley attended Stockbridge Academy and graduated from William College in 1827. While at Williams, Professor Chester Dewey and Professor Amos Eaton significantly influenced Moses's interest in the natural sciences. After graduation, he left New England for Wilmington, where he served as a tutor for the family of Governor Edward B. Dudley and began studying the local plants. Curtis returned to Massachusetts in 1833 to study for the ministry under the Church of the Advent. On December 3, 1834, he married Mary De Rosset of Wilmington. The following year, he received his ordination. "The Reverend Curtis began his ministry immediately as a missionary in western North Carolina, serving congregations in Lincolnton, Salisbury, Morganton, and Charlotte. From 1837 to 1839, he taught at the Episcopal School in Raleigh, the predecessor to St. Mary's. He was called back into the mission field in 1840 to Washington, North Carolina. After serving there for a year, he accepted a call to St. Matthew's Church in Hillsborough where he remained for the rest of his life, except from 1847 to 1856, when he lived in Society Hill, South Carolina. Curtis was a talented musician, playing the piano, organ, flute, violin, and composing anthems and hymns such as "How Beautiful upon the Mountain." "Although a dedicated priest, Curtis is best known by people outside of North Carolina for his accomplishments in the field of botany. He was considered an expert in the field of mycology, the study of fungi. Prior to his contributions, the study of lichen had been very limited. Among his published works was the 1860 Geological and Natural History Survey of North America, Part III, Botany. Curtis reported having collected and eaten forty different species of mushrooms within two miles of his house and believed that if people had a better knowledge of edible fungi, the food shortage for southern armies during the Civil War would not have been as severe. Moses Ashley Curtis died on April 10, 1872, and was buried at St. Matthew's Church in Hillsborough." This is marker number G-64. It was erected in 1955 by the Archives Conservation and Highway Departments. There is parking nearby. [Review 105 of 2025 - 4074 in North Carolina - 23672 overall]

Easy to spot this marker as I was heading towards the interstate. It is on a small triangle where…read morethree roads meet up, two of which are State Road 86 and State Road 57. It recalls one of North Carolina's heroes and earliest Governors. It reads, "Thomas Burke. Governor, 1781-82. Member of Revolutionary, Provincial, & Continental Congresses. Grave is 1 1/2 miles northeast." Online, there is more information. "Thomas Burke, skilled in the literary as well as the political arts, was taken prisoner by Loyalists shortly after taking office as governor. He was born ca. 1744 in County Galway, Ireland, the son of Ulick Burke and the former Letitia Ould. Burke emigrated to Virginia and took up residence in Norfolk. There he established himself initially as a physician, but later turned to the practice of law." "In 1772 Burke removed to Hillsborough where he acquired a small plantation and resumed the practice of law. Rising quickly to prominence, he represented Orange County in all but the first of the Provincial Congresses where he was an outspoken advocate for independence. In 1777 and briefly in 1778, Burke represented Orange County in the House of Commons. On three occasions he won election to the Continental Congress, where the form of government for the new nation was slowly taking shape. As a delegate to the Continental Congress, Burke emerged as a strong advocate of states' rights and limited central government. He also earned a reputation for his brashness and irascibility, several times becoming the center of controversy." "When the embittered Burke convened the General Assembly in April of 1782, his rather ambiguous offer to retire from public office was accepted almost without remark. Having served only ten months as governor, two of those as a prisoner, he returned to Hillsborough a ruined and deeply disillusioned man. He died less than two years later, on December 2, 1783, and was interred on the grounds of his plantation, "Tyaquin."" [Review 14022 overall, 1344 of 2020, number 2662 in North Carolina.]

Ona corner in front of a gas station and Pizza Hut, this marker points out the success of a former…read moreslave who definitely went on to do great things. And let's keep in mind - this is the South! The marker reads, "Henry P. Cheatham. 1857-1935. Born into slavery. U.S. Congressman, 1889-1893. Superintendent of Colored Orphanage of N.C., 1907-1935. Grave 8/10 mi. northeast" Online, there is more information. "Born into slavery, Henry Plummer Cheatham represented North Carolina in Congress during the late nineteenth century and helped establish and lead the Colored Orphan Asylum in Oxford. A mulatto, Cheatham--the son of a house slave and her master--was born on December 27, 1857. His father appears to have shielded the young man from slavery and saw to his education. After the death of his father, Cheatham was encouraged by another white man, Robert A. Jenkins, to attend Shaw University in Raleigh. He graduated in 1882 with honors. Although he read law in the office of Robert E. Hancock Jr., Cheatham never practiced. Upon graduation he was appointed principal of the Plymouth Normal School, but his career in education was diverted by the call to politics. "In 1884 Henry Cheatham was elected Vance County Register of Deeds. Rising to prominence in the Republican Party, he became the party's nominee for Congress from the Second District in 1888. In that capacity Cheatham defeated the white incumbent Furnifold M. Simmons. He was reelected to the seat in 1890, but subsequent attempts were not successful. In 1896, in a bitter internal Republican Party race, he was defeated by his brother-in-law, George White. "President William McKinley appointed Henry Cheatham recorder of deeds for the District of Columbia, an office which he held from 1897 until 1901. Cheatham returned to his native North Carolina and, in 1907, became superintendent of the orphanage that he had helped to establish years earlier. Under his leadership the institution dramatically expanded and improved its facilities and programs. He served the orphanage until his death in 1935. Cheatham was married twice, to Louise Cherry who died in 1889, and to Laura Joyner. He had five children. Henry Cheatham is buried in Harrisburg Cemetery in Oxford." You can stop at the gas station to view the marker. [Review 2412 of 2024 - 3868 in North Carolina - 23425 overall]

This marker is located along a busy street near the center of Durham. It points out the history of…read morea local citizen who did great things and should be remembered. The marker reads, "First African American female Episcopal priest; lawyer, activist, poet, & human rights champion. Wrote Proud Shoes, 1956. Childhood home 1/4 mile south." Online, there is more information. "Anna Pauline (Pauli) Murray, lawyer, professor, writer, outspoken civil and gender rights activist, and Episcopal priest, was born in Baltimore. When she was three years old, her mother died and, as her father was confined to a state hospital, she went to live with her aunt, and namesake, Pauline Fitzgerald Dame of Durham. She graduated at sixteen from segregated Hillside High School as valedictorian. "Murray enrolled at Richmond Hill High School in New York, the only black student, to complete high school. Determined to attend an integrated college, but unable to meet stringent requirements, academic and financial, at Barnard, she matriculated at Hunter College. She worked briefly at Camp Tera, a New Deal work project, there meeting Eleanor Roosevelt, who would be a guiding force in her life. "In 1938 she applied to the University of North Carolina to study sociology. Her application, against state law which required "separate but equal" institutions, garnered national attention. Her unsuccessful campaign for admission was the first time that she experienced what she would later summarize in saying that one woman with a typewriter constitutes a movement. "Despite having served jail time for refusing to sit at the back of a bus in Virginia, Murray was admitted to Howard Law School in 1941 where she experienced discrimination due to her gender rather than her race. When awarded a fellowship to pursue advanced legal education, she was rejected by Harvard, again, because of her gender. She went to California to study for a master's in law. Later she would wonder which was the bigger obstacle to her legal career, race or gender. "Murray published State's Laws on Race and Color in 1951. Thurgood Marshall called the work "the Bible for civil rights lawyers." Her second book, a biographical account, was Proud Shoes: The Story of an American Family (1956). In 1960 she travelled to Ghana to teach law at the University of Ghana and later authored the first English-language textbook on law in Africa. "Murray worked for civil rights and women's organizations, helped found the National Organization of Women (NOW), and was appointed by President John F. Kennedy to the Committee on Civil and Political Rights within his Commission on the Status of Women. She remained critical of the lack of leadership roles for women in many of the organizations. She published a volume of poetry, Dark Testament, in 1970. "In 1977 Murray became the first African American female Episcopal priest in the United States, and held her first Eucharist at the Chapel of the Cross in Chapel Hill, where her grandmother had been baptized as a slave. About the special day she wrote, "All the strands of my life had come together." Pauli Murray died on July 1, 1985, in Pittsburgh. She is buried in Cypress Hill Cemetery, Brooklyn, New York. Her autobiography, Song in a Weary Throat: An American Pilgrimage, was published in 1987." [Review 63 of 2025 - 4038 in North Carolina - 23631 overall]

Traveling through Hillsborough, it was nice to spot a marker that denoted something other than…read moreColonial or Civil War history. This one is much more modern. The marker reads, "Bill Strayhorn. 1915-1967. Jazz composer & pianist. Wrote "Take the A Train" and other songs for Duke Ellington Orchestra. Boyhood home site 1/4 mi. W." Online is more information. "William Thomas ("Billy" professionally) Strayhorn, Duke Ellington's longtime collaborator, was among the most influential figures in American jazz. A versatile composer, arranger, and pianist, Strayhorn joined Ellington's orchestra at age 22 in 1939 and worked with the bandleader the rest of his life. Ellington publicly acknowledged the central role Strayhorn played in his success, writing the band's theme "Take the A Train" and penning popular and widely recorded songs such as "Lush Life" and "Satin Doll." Strayhorn was a formative influence on an entire generation of musicians. Living in New York City most of his adult life, he was actively involved in the civil rights movement and was a personal friend of Martin Luther King Jr.. "Although Strayhorn was born in Dayton, Ohio, his roots ran deep in Orange County and, importantly, his frequent stays in Hillsborough as a boy were essential to his musical development. His father and grandfather both worked at the Eno Mill. His grandparents, who owned a piano, lived in a house (now gone) at the corner of Margaret Lane and Hillsborough Avenue. Returning with his mother and siblings to North Carolina from Ohio regularly from age five, Strayhorn attended his first year of school while in Hillsborough; a classmate remembered him as "small and bright." He spent breaks and summers in North Carolina through his early teenage years (by then the family had moved to Pittsburgh) and often took the train to visit an uncle in Durham. "Biographer David Hajdu contends that North Carolina became the young man's spiritual home, the place he was introduced to music. Initially gospel tunes drew him to the piano. He often wandered through the slave cemetery across from his boyhood home and walked along the Eno River. At Strayhorn's death at age 52 in 1967, Ellington said his friend "had no aspirations to enter into any kind of competition, yet the legacy he leaves, his oeuvre, will never be less than the ultimate on the highest plateau of culture." In 2007 Strayhorn was the subject of a PBS documentary." This is marker number G-125. It was erected in 2008 by the North Carolina Office of Archives and History. [Review 102 of 2025 - 4072 in North Carolina - 23669 overall]

This marker is located along US-158 between Oxford and Roxboro. It points out the namesake of North…read moreCarolina's Person County. There is room to stop here to read the marker. It has the same text on both sides. It reads, "Leader of popular movements: Regulation, Revolution, and Antifederalism. His home in Goshen stood five miles north." Online, there is more information. "Thomas Person, a North Carolina political leader from Granville County, was born in Virginia in 1733. His father, William Person, was the first sheriff of Granville County after moving his family to North Carolina around 1740. Person is best known for his involvement in three integral parts of North Carolina history: the Regulator Movement, the American Revolution, and North Carolina's admission to the United States of America. "Person acted as both justice of the peace and sheriff before representing Granville County in the North Carolina General Assembly in 1764. At the outbreak of the Regulator Movement, Governor William Tryon ordered Person to be jailed in Hillsborough, despite his absence from the Battle of Alamance. Person was considered a high powered and influential figure within the movement, and was charged but exonerated due to lack of evidence. Person was called upon during the Third Provincial Congress to persuade former Regulators to join the Revolutionary cause. "Remaining actively involved in politics before the Revolutionary War, Person represented Granville County in each of the five North Carolina Provincial Congresses. He played a vital role in the Congresses, sitting on most important committees, including the committee that drafted the Halifax Resolves in April 1776. Person also contributed to the planning of the state constitution of 1776. After the Halifax Resolves were adopted and North Carolina declared its independence from Great Britain, Thomas Person was elected brigadier general of the Hillsborough district militia, but returned to state government as the "radical" faction leader after 1776. "Following the Patriot victory in the Revolutionary War, Person continued his representation in the North Carolina House of Commons, acting as an Anti-Federalist leader. Person strongly opposed the ratification of the federal constitution, voting against it in the Hillsborough convention of 1788 and the Fayetteville convention of 1789. He fought for equality and justice in government, fearing the effects on the poor of federal taxes. "At the time of his death, Person owned over 65,000 acres in ten counties in North Carolina and an additional 16,000 acres in Tennessee. Additionally, in present-day Halifax County, Person operated a tavern and inn, Person's Ordinary, which existed from around 1700. Person lived at "Goshen" plantation in Granville County until his old age, at which time he moved to another house in Warren County where he was buried after his death in 1800." This is marker number G-17. It was erected in 1972 by the State Department of Archives and History. [Review 2473 of 2024 - 3927 in North Carolina - 23485 overall]

This marker is located just south of downtown Hillsborough and points out some of the earliest…read moresettlement of the area. The road doesn't widen and there really isn't room to pull over here. The marker reads, "William Churton. Cartographer. Surveyed Granville District. In 1749 extended N.C.-Va. boundary line 90 miles west. Lived nearby." There is more information online. "William Churton was a colonial cartographer and surveyor employed by the offices of the Granville District. Arriving in North Carolina about 1748, he initially was assigned to the Granville Land Office in Edenton. Churton and lawyer Daniel Weldon were appointed commissioners to extend the colonial Virginia-North Carolina boundary line in 1749 in cooperation with Virginia commissioners Joshua Fry and Peter Jefferson (father of Thomas). Together these men established an extension of the colonial boundary ninety miles to the west. The resulting map, created by Fry and Jefferson, was presented to the British government by North Carolina governor Gabriel Johnston. "In 1753 Churton and another Granville agent were appointed trustees for 635 acres of land for the establishment of the town of Salisbury. The following year, Churton was appointed trustee for 663 acres for the establishment of the community that today is known as Hillsborough. Planned under the name of Orange and first established as Corbin Town, the community soon was renamed Childsburgh. By that time, Churton had become public register for Orange County and a town commissioner for Childsburgh. He also represented Orange County in the colonial General Assembly 1755 to 1760 and 1761 to 1762. He was appointed as both a county surveyor and justice of the peace in 1757." [Review 76 of 2025 - 4051 in North Carolina - 23644 overall]

A great spot for this marker, it's at the intersection and you have something to read and ponder as…read moreyou wait for the traffic light to turn on to US-501. The marker reads, "Trading Path. Colonial trading route, dating from 17th century, from Petersburg, Virginia, to Catawba and Waxhaw Indians in Carolina passed nearby." Online, there is more information. "In North Carolina, the early history of the colony is replete with stories of the reliance by colonists upon Indian trade and trading routes, and the consequent establishment of villages where they engaged in bartering. Such routes were well known, well marked, and well trodden. The Occaneechi Path, stretching from Petersburg, Virginia, to the Waxhaws region, was one of a hundred such trails running throughout the state and the southeast. But the Trading Path was the central highway, the most fabled route, the interstate of its day. (Its course approximates that of Interstate 85.) "The course of the Trading Path entered North Carolina near present-day Norlina, then passed through Bullock, northern Durham County, Hillsborough, Mebane, Alamance, Julian, central Randolph County, Denton, western Davidson County, Salisbury, and Concord. In Mecklenburg County the path forked, with a spur to Indian Trail and Waxhaw, and another to Charlotte and Pineville." This is marker number G-32 and it was erected in 1941 by the Division of Archives and History. [Review 2163 of 2024 - 3820 in North Carolina - 23182 overall]