Welcome to the Website of the Chatham County Historical Association

In addition to presenting upcoming events and CCHA activities, we post our newsletters, articles of interest and much more. Please click on the tabs above to explore the full breadth of our website.

The census of The Cemeteries of Chatham County is available online. Census of cemeteries in surrounding counties are also online.

Tales Beyond Fried Rabbit is available for purchase through our web orders page.

Fred Vatter’s delightful saunter into some of the many corners of Chatham County’s past tell us of old houses, aged country stores, church yards with intriguing gravestones, and venerable public buildings; settlements and cemeteries now lost due to dams and other effects of progress; ordinary people who know the county’s past and would love to tell you about it, as well as prominent civic leaders now long dead.

Join/Renew CCHA NOW!
Please send your 2011 dues to
CCHA, PO Box 93, Pittsboro NC 27312. Membership form

Individual or family $12.00

Student $10.00

Patron $35.00

Corporate $50.00

Donations in addition to these rates are greatly appreciated.

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PROGRAMS

Civil War Program Series Continues…
Sunday, September 25, at 2:00 p.m.
Pittsboro Campus of the Community College,
Building 2, Multipurpose Room
The public is invited to attend this free program

A War with Many Voices:
African-American Memory and the Civil War
presented by Michele Lanier

This third and last program in our series commemorating the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War will be presented by Ms. Michele Lanier with the NC Department of Cultural Resources. She will speak about the African-American people during the Civil War years.

Ms Lanier suggests the following four web-links that are appropriate to her talk and relate to Harriet Jacobs, William Henry Singleton, Pauli Murray and Anna Julia Cooper:

http://harrietjacobs.org/, http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/singleton/singleton.html, http://paulimurrayproject.org/, and http://docsouth.unc.edu/church/cooper/cooper.html.

We hope to see you on September 25.

MUSEUM

A New Day
The Chatham Historical Museum
to be housed in the Restored Courthouse
Opening Date: Fall 2012

A vision has arisen out of the unfortunate fire that destroyed much of the Courthouse in March 2010 for a new museum to be housed on the first floor of the restored Courthouse.

Exhibits will be displayed in the northeast quadrant on the first floor. Walls will come alive with stories, pictures and items from the past. Citizens of Chatham can share the pride in their heritage with others.

Your support for the development of the Chatham Historical Museum is needed now. Our goal: $135,000.

Click here to read more, view sketches and learn how you can help create this important addition to Chatham County.

At The MUSEUM

"COURTHOUSE IN THE NEWS" DISPLAY

The display, "Courthouse in the News," a selection of photographs and news articles about the Chatham County courthouse, continues in the interim Chatham Historical Museum in Pittsboro. The historical society's museum was destroyed in the fire in late March 2010, but the collection has not been lost and a temporary home at 184 East Street is open on First Sundays from 1-4 p.m. and on Wednesdays from 12-3 p.m. For more information or directions, call 919 542-3603.

HISTORICAL PHOTOGRAPH: Henry Dunlap, chair of Chatham County Board of Commissioners, speaks at the October 1991 dedication ceremony for the renovated courthouse, while Gene Brooks, president of the Chatham County Historical Association, Inc. and master of ceremonies, looks on.

FEATURE ARTICLE
Features Archive

Most months, we feature an article and or photograph. If you have an article or photograph which you would like considered for use as a feature on this website, please send it to history@chathamhistory.org.

Glimpses

Member Bev Wiggins was curious about what she could learn easily about family ties and histories of the people interviewed in the article Chatham County Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers Project. Choosing Adeline Cotton Crump and her husband James Crump, Bev used information available on Ancestry.com. She searched census records and death certificates, found city directories and other information.

Click here to read Glimpses into the Life and Family of Adeline Crump. The information is also summarized in a table, Additional Information about the families of Adeline Cotton Crump and James Crump. Ancestry.com is available for use in the local history area of the Chatham Community Library in Pittsboro.

What's Happening

Click here to see what's happening at the Manly Law Office.

Moving three historic houses (to come)

The census of The Cemeteries of Chatham County is available online. Census of cemeteries in surrounding counties are also online.

PROGRAMS

Civil War Program Series Continues… Sunday, September 25, at 2:00 p.m. Pittsboro Campus of the Community College, Building 2, Multipurpose Room The public is invited to attend this free program

FEATURE ARTICLE Features Archive

Glimpses

Civil War Program Series Continues…
Sunday, September 25, at 2:00 p.m.
Pittsboro Campus of the Community College,
Building 2, Multipurpose Room
The public is invited to attend this free program

FEATURE ARTICLE
Features Archive