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 2012 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

Chatham County Courthouse Renovation
Architects Keynote Speakers
at Historical Association Meeting

Sunday, February 19, at 2:00pm
Bldg. 2, Multipurpose Room
Pittsboro Campus, Central Carolina Community College
764 West St., Pittsboro, NC 27312

Grimsley and Taylor Hobbs, AIA, of Hobbs Architects will tell us what is happening inside, outside, and all around the courthouse reconstruction at CCHA’s annual meeting on Feb. 19. Images of the Courthouse in various stages of demolition and rebuilding will illustrate their narrative.

This will be your opportunity to listen, learn, and ask questions to find out what is really happening behind those courthouse doors. Get the inside scoop on those things you wonder about as you circle the courthouse and watch the activity inside the chain link fence. Learn about some of the courthouse’s secrets that the destructive fire of 2010 uncovered.

Also at this meeting, Association members will share the progress on plans for exhibits in the historical museum that will be housed on the first floor of the restored courthouse. For more than a year, a dedicated group of CCHA volunteers has been hard at work developing the exhibits to tell the Chatham story.

Chatham County Historical Association welcomes everyone to the program and a brief annual meeting. Both the meeting and program are free and open to the public.

Directions to the Pittsboro CCCC campus.

Questions? Call Barbara Pugh at 919-542-4164.

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

Chatham County Courthouse Renovation Architects Keynote Speakers at Historical Association Meeting

FEATURE ARTICLE Features Archive

Glimpses

Chatham County Courthouse Renovation
Architects Keynote Speakers
at Historical Association Meeting

FEATURE ARTICLE
Features Archive