snippets ~ chatham history BLOG

Early photo of St Bartholomew's Church in Pittsboro

#ChathamNCHistory #ChathamCountyNC #PittsboroNC #StBartholomewsChurch

Henry's Restaurant, Pittsboro. (Cafe Diem is this location in 2026.)

Folks have shared a lot of fond memories of Henry's with us. Share yours!

#ChathamNCHistory #ChathamCountyNC #PittsboroNC #HenrysRestaurant

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow -- Bonlee native Robert "Hunky" Paschal on life and work as Bonlee's only barber. What once looked like a career for life seemed not so sure in 1978, as long hair styles for men reduced trips to the barber shop and changes in shopping habits took business away from small towns like Bonlee.

Thanks to Alvis Dunn for sharing this story from the Greensboro Daily News, 27 Aug 1978.

Bonlee native Kim Beal added to Hunky's story in 2025. We share his comments here:

When you mention Bonlee, the most associated name with it is Hunky Paschal (Robert Fred Paschal was his real name). We all knew him as Hunky.

Hunky was the town Barber, Justice of the Peace, (he is said to have married over 100 couples), Wildlife Agent - (issued Burning Permits), and Notary Public. He did a lot of things besides just cutting hair. He was very smart. He knew how to work things, and how to get things done. He had what I call a “natural legal mentality.”

It’s been a long time since the last haircut took place in his shop. The shop had been cleared out, sinks removed, old wood stove removed, the antique ceiling fan that stirred the air and blew all the tall tales and lies around the room is gone.

I did locate one of his barber chairs that had made its way to another long-time well-known Siler City barber, Mr. Reid Marley. Reid had the chair in storage. I told him I wanted to take it home -- to Bonlee -- and we worked out a deal. Hunky’s chair is back where it sat for several decades. It came complete with the little padded board that stretched from arm to arm that every kid in Bonlee probably sat on to get a haircut.

Hunky gave me my first haircut about 1963. Clipped all my curls off and mama made daddy go back down to the shop and get them off the floor.

The other chair that was in the shop at one time is still in full use at an uptown barber shop in Charlotte, NC, according to Hunky’s son Phil, Hunky’s son.

We have enjoyed having Phil and Johnie come visit with their grandchildren to have their pictures taken sitting in Hunky’s chair.

Hunky touched so many lives during his years in Bonlee. He loved Bonlee.

That’s actually what’s written on his tombstone “He Loved Bonlee.”

Bonlee loved Hunky.

No better place in the world I could have grown up in. Many good people. Many great memories. I love Bonlee too!

Thanks to Kim for sharing this tribute to both Hunky and Bonlee.

#ChathamCountyNC #ChathamNCHistory #ChathamHistory #BonleeNC #barber #1970s

In February 1990, the Greensboro News and Record published an article about the dangers of the abandoned Siler City Mills. The mill was destroyed by fire just a few months later, in Sep 1990.

You can read Jerry Stone's excellent article about Siler City Mills it is working days on our website. 

#ChathamNCHistory#ChathamHistory#ChathamCountyNC#ChathamNC#SilerCityMills#fire#SilerCityNC#1990s

This photo shows the Yates and Thomas General Store in the Chatham County community of Merry Oaks. The photo was taken about 1893.

Additional Merry Oaks photos from the early 20th century to the 1970s can be seen in the photo gallery on our website: https://chathamhistory.org/Merry-Oaks-Photo-Gallery. The last photo in the gallery is of the Yates and Thomas Store as it looked in 1978.

#ChathamNCHistory #ChathamCountyNC #MerryOaksNC #GeneralStore #1890s

In the spring of 2026, the CCHA cemetery team, led by Julie King-McDaniel, made it a priority to thoroughly document the Napton cemetery, located off Siler City-Glendon Road in Matthews Township. This early cemetery was associated with the Quaker Napton Meeting, which split off from Cane Creek in 1780. Some believe that the church may have been established as early as 1751 and may have been the first church established in what is now Chatham County. Records show that a church and schoolhouse were active at Napton as late as 1864.

The Napton cemetery is noted for containing the Chatham grave marker with the earliest death date recorded on an original marker --1774. Hannah was the daughter of Charles and Margaretta Von Cullen White, immigrants from Pennsylvania who were very early Chatham inhabitants. Many of the unmarked burials in Napton are likely older than Hannah’s. It is not known when the site became used for non-Quaker burials.

For more about this early cemetery, there's an article on our webpage: Hannah White grave marker at Napton cemetery.pdf

#ChathamNCHistory #ChathamCountyNC #Cemeteries #Napton #1700s 

John Rosenthal snapped this photo of a dwelling in New Hope Valley in 1972, before it was flooded to create Jordan Lake. We thank him for allowing us to share it.

John notes: I've never exhibited this photograph or printed it. It was taken in 1972, when I was learning how to use my camera. This house was in the New Hope Valley, which is now Jordan Lake. Small farming communities, going back generations, disappeared. The Army Corps of Engineers offered compensation, but it was never enough. Bones in old cemeteries were disinterred and buried elsewhere. Or left behind. When there's a drought, steppingstones leading to a ghost house become visible. I make no artistic claims for this photograph. It's just a reminder.

#ChathamNCHistory #chathamcountync #JordanLake #NewHopeValley

Knights of Pythagoras

This photo was originally mislabeled as showing students in Chatham High School. Fortunately, many people have commented to provide a correction. Info obtained so far suggests that this was the Knights of Pythagoras group, led by Mr. Graves, probably around 1980.

If you can tell us more about this group, please do! 

According to the Knights of Pythagoras website: "The Order of the Knights of Pythagoras (KOP) is a community-based mentoring organization composed of youths ranging between the ages of seven to twenty years inclusive, working under the sponsorship and personal supervision of Prince Hall Masons, to provide beneficial use of their spare time, worthwhile companions, wholesome, educational environment, life skills and a program aiming to interest and aid youths, in their all-round development."

Photo from Cranford Studio. No date.

#ChathamNCHistory #ChathamCountyNC #BlackHistory #KnightsofPythagoras 

The Chatham Hotel in Siler City was built in 1897 and opened that year. The original owner was Caleb Johnson, who had operated a boarding house in Siler City before 1890. The hotel was a wooden, two-story building located on the east side of South Birch Avenue, near the middle of the first block and opposite the railway station. Mrs. J. M. Caviness was an early operator of the hotel, with John Aiken as cook. The building was destroyed in 1930 after having been vacant for several years.

Click on the image to enlarge. This image of the Chatham Hotel, circa 1900, was contributed to the Chatham County Historical Association digital collection by Jonus Nobels.

Information from Wade Hadley's The Town of Siler City, 1887-1987.

If you know more about the Chatham Hotel, please share what you know.

#ChathamNCHistory #ChathamHistory #ChathamCountyNC #ChathamNC #ChathamHotel #hotels #SilerCityNC #1890s

Bill Hamlet sent us this photo and story about his dad’s pet squirrel.

Around 1920 in Pittsboro, my dad, Chris Hamlet, found a very young fledgling squirrel on the ground under an oak tree in his front yard. He talked his mother, Martha Hamlet, into nursing the squirrel using an eyedropper and small spoon. The baby squirrel survived and became Dad's close pet. He would take the squirrel to school inside his shirt.

As it aged out it bit him several times on his chest. As kids our dad showed us the scar marks on his chest from the squirrel bites. We were not sure that we believed the story until I recently came across this picture as proof.

Any more vintage Chatham County pet stories out there? Send photos if you have them to history@chathamhistory.org!

#ChathamNCHistory #ChathamCountyNC #PittsboroNC #Pets #SquirrelPet