EVENTS & ANNOUNCEMENTS

Fred Vatter receives a copy of his book, Tales Beyond Fried Chicken

Copies of Tales Beyond Fried Rabbit are now available for sale in the Chatham County Museum and 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. Order Form

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

Time to Renew Your Membership
If you have not already done so, please send your 2010 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.

Virtual Tour of Historic Chatham County - Over the coming months and years, CCHA will be developing an online "virtual tour" of sites of interest in Chatham County. The first installment features two Veterans' Memorial Sites, with photography by Barbara Pugh.

CCHA has pledged $25,000 to the Chatham Community Library to build and furnish an area in the new library devoted to county history, heritage and genealogy. Details

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

This Month in Chatham History:

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Currently on Display
in the Museum:

"Chatham People" highlights the faces and stories of a handful of the many interesting Chatham residents, some

famous, some not. Included in the new exhibit are Col. John Randolph Lane in his Confederate uniform; Mary Myrtle Siler—first woman sheriff in North Carolina; Bishop Leach, assistant principal at Horton and Northwood high schools and beloved mentor to many in the county; and someone’s “Aunt Duck,” about whom we’d like to know more.

“The stories of the people whose pictures we have displayed are Chatham’s story,” said Jane Pyle, creator of the current exhibit. “These are the kinds of stories that must be preserved if future generations are to look back and appreciate the county’s past.”

The public is invited to visit the museum to learn some of these interesting stories, and also to add to them. If there is a Chatham person whose photograph or story you would like to add to the museum collection, please contact the Chatham County Historical Association, PO Box 93, Pittsboro, NC 27312, or history@chathamhistory.org. The Association wants to know about people from all walks of life—anyone who has helped make Chatham County what it is today. Don’t forget the rogues, black sheep and scalawags who have added their own spice to the mix.

The exhibit will be on display through March and is free and open to the public.

(Photo is of Margaret Jordan Ellis and an unidentified boy)

Museum details, hours, etc.

"Farmhouse, Meeting House, Court House: Breathing Life Into Your Family's Story" with J. Mark Lowe, CGSM, will be presented by the North Carolina Genealogical Society and the Wilkes County Genealogical Society at the North Wilkesboro Elks Club. 10 April 2010 - North Wilkesboro, North Carolina.

The program includes "Making Those Early Census Records Talk to You," "My Ancestor, the Farmer: Shaping a Profile for your Rural Ancestor," "Bible Thumper or Pious Pilgrim: Religious Ancestors on the Frontier," and "Follow a Case through Court." Book and map vendors will also be present.

For more information and a registration form, visit http://www.ncgenealogy.org or write to the North Carolina Genealogical Society, P. O. Box 30815, Raleigh, NC 27622-0815.

See this new exhibit at the
Pittsboro Memorial Library

"Saving Chatham’s History"
January through February

Using pictures and documents this exhibit presents information about the history of Chatham County and reviews the work of the historical society. “We hope the exhibit will whet the appetite for local history and encourage active participation in CCHA projects,” said Jane Pyle, CCHA’s museum curator and creator of the exhibit. The public is invited to view the exhibit at the library (158 West St, Pittsboro -phone 542-3524), during library hours (Mon, Wed, Thu and Fri 10-6, Tue 10-8, and Sat 9-5)

The exhibit is sponsored by the Friends of the Pittsboro Memorial Library and was prepared by the Chatham County Historical Association.

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.

Granville Land Grants in Chatham County

Some of the earliest landholders in Chatham County obtained their lands through grants from the Granville land office between the years of 1751 and 1763. Unlike many earlier grants in our area, the records for these Granville grants are relatively complete. In the past, a major problem to identifying grants made in what is now Chatham County was sorting these out from the more than 800 grants made in Chatham’s parent county, Orange.

CCHA member Jim Wiggins has undertaken the task of identifying the Chatham grants by using references to waterways. He has produced a list of some 202 grants that he believes are probably for land in what is now Chatham. Along with the grantholder’s name, he provides the survey and grant dates, number of acres granted, waterways and other geographic features mentioned in the survey, adjoining landholders mentioned in the survey, a map code that allows users to locate the waterway by USGS map segments, and page references to his sources. Notebooks containing these data--presented in tables that are sorted by grantee name, date of grant, and map code--along with a map showing the waterways referenced, Jim’s description of the process he used to identify the grants and a brief history of the Granville Land Grants, are available in the Chatham Historical Museum in Pittsboro and also in the local history section of Wren Library in Siler City.

Article continues HERE

Features Archive

CCHA has pledged $25,000 to the Chatham Community Library to build and furnish an area in the new library devoted to county history, heritage and genealogy. Details

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

This Month in Chatham History:

FEATURE ARTICLE Features Archive

FEATURE ARTICLE
Features Archive