Chapel Hill, NC news and local guide

The town grew along a hill whose crest was the site of New Hope Chapel, a small Anglican chapel of ease built in 1752, where the Carolina Inn now stands. The General Assembly established the town in 1819 to serve the university, and it was chartered in 1851. Its main street, Franklin Street, is named for Benjamin Franklin. Before the Civil War, according to the historian Kemp Plummer Battle, white men aged 21 to 50 took turns patrolling the streets at night, and enslaved people found away from home without a written pass could be whipped or fined. At the start of the war four in ten residents were enslaved, and about half the town was Black. In April 1865, as the war ended, the 9th Michigan Cavalry rode into Chapel Hill and occupied the university and the town for more than two weeks. Sources Wikipedia: Chapel Hill, North Carolina