Original Lots
Granville Grant
1754
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After ascending to the throne in 1663, King Charles II rewarded eight of his supporters by endowing them as the Lords Proprietors of Carolina. At this time, Carolina extended from Florida to Virginia and from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. However, problems soon arose in managing the expansive territory. Consequently, by 1729, all of the Proprietors except John Lord Carteret, second Earl Granville, had sold their interests in Carolina back to the Crown. After many years of negotiations, King George II and his Privy Council approved the partitioning of one-eighth of Carolina to Lord Granville. This land became known as the Granville District. It was administered through agents who sold parcels and forwarded the payments to Granville in England.
Seal of the Lords Proprietors from The Great Seal of the State of North Carolina published by the North Carolina Historical Commission.
William Churton
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One of Granville’s agents was Francis Corbin. In 1754, Corbin granted 663 acres on the north side of the Eno River to William Churton with instructions for Churton to create an administrative seat for the recently established Orange County. A surveyor, Churton was involved in many projects throughout Carolina, including supplying topographical information about the Granville District to Joshua Fry and Peter Jefferson (father of Thomas Jefferson). This information was used in their 1751 and 1755 maps.
(L.) A section of the Fry-Jefferson map showing the Eno River, Trading Path, and Occaneechi village in the area that would become Hillsborough
(R.) A sketch by William Churton of the 663 acres he surveyed to create the town of Corbinton/Corbintown (1754-1759), later Childsburg (1759-1766), later Hillsborough (1766-present)
With the assistance of Enoch Lewis, Churton staked out approximately 120 one-acre lots. Each lot was rectangular with an average width of 165 feet and depth of 265 feet. The colonial legislature set the initial price for vacant lots at 20 shillings and decreed that every lot purchased must be improved within two years.
The numbering scheme that Churton assigned to the lots is unknown. Numbers currently used for the lots date at least to this 1863 map.
An 1863 map of Hillsborough owned by A.H. Graham and copied by S.T. Alderman. It records lot numbers.
Lost Deeds
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In early 1781, General Charles Cornwallis occupied Hillsborough for nine days. When he left town, James Munro seized “the Records of the County with intention to hold them, in order to strengthen the influence of government until the contest should be decided.” Munro explained in an affidavit, “I had all the records above mentioned privately buried underground in the woods along with my own bonds, books, and most valuable papers, with strict directions not to touch them until I should return; consequently they were suffered to remain in that situation so long, that when they were taken up, many of the books were found quite destroyed, and almost all my own papers rendered entirely useless.”
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Of the several deed books which Munro buried, only one was able to be salvaged. However, the 18th century requirement for deeds to be proved in court has allowed historians to recover more information about land sales prior to 1781. Unfortunately, while these records include the names of the grantor, the grantee, the acreage conveyed and the name of the probate witness, they do not provide a legal description of the property.