Thanks to our partners at the Burwell School Historic Site and the Historic Hillsborough Commission, DigitalNC is proud to announce that two new scrapbooks are now available online! These scrapbooks cover a pivotal period in the preservation of Hillsborough’s history, chronicling the formation and initial efforts of the Historic Hillsborough Commission during the town’s bicentennial celebrations.

One of the main missions of the commission’s early years was the renaming of then “Hillsboro” to a more accurate “Hillsborough.” The scrapbooks chronicle the efforts of the commission as they lobbied local politicians, raised awareness of the town’s history, and celebrated their eventual victory in time for the town’s two-hundredth birthday. Later clippings in the scrapbook record the organization and commencement of a “colonial pageant” on the bicentennial, wherein Hillsborough residents dressed in period garb and celebrated the town’s history.

You can find the new scrapbooks online here. Interested in learning more about Hillsborough’s history? Find the Historic Hillsborough Commission’s partner page online at DigitalNC here, or visit the Burwell School Historic Site’s website online here.