Tag: Hillsborough
The town of Hillsborough is the county seat of Orange County, North Carolina. The population was 6,087 as of 2010.
Its name was unofficially shortened to “Hillsboro” over the years (beginning in the 19th century) but was changed back to its original spelling in the late 1960s.
Local Native-American groups had lived in the Hillsborough area for thousands of years by the time European-American settlers discovered the area. Siouan-language groups such as the Occaneechi and the Eno were living in the Hillsborough area at the time of European contact, before they were displaced. The explorer John Lawson recorded visiting “Occaneechi Town” when he travelled through North Carolina in 1701.
In the early 18th century, the Occaneechi left Hillsborough for Virginia, returning to the area around 1780. An original Occaneechi farming village was excavated by an archaeological team from UNC-Chapel Hill in the 1980s. A replica of an Occaneechi village stands close to the original Eno River settlement…