About Hill Forest


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HISTORY


Detail of an 1887 map of Mangum Township in Durham County, with approximate extent of today's Hill Forest overlaid in pink. Due to the extreme inaccuracy of the 1887 map a more precise fitting of today's Forest boundaries is not possible. Today's town of Bahama is the site of 'Hunkadora P.O.' (bottom center), while todays Rougemont is the site of 'Luster P.O.' (top left). The north-south road running the length of the map (left) is today's Roxboro Rd. (US-501). The black line paralleling it is the then-proposed route of the Lynchburg & Durham Railroad which was just beginning construction in 1887 (today the abandoned Norfolk Southern rail line).

The lands comprising today's Forest have long borne witness to the joys and sorrows of some of North Carolina's most historic families, as well as to many more who are now nameless. As you ride or walk through the Forest you may wish to pay a thought to their memories.

Beginning in 1875 a group of Durham's most notable businessmen, ultimately to include Washington Duke (president of the American Tobacco Company and benefactor of Duke University) and John Sprunt Hill (called "The Father of Rural Credit Unions"), organized the Quail Roost Hunting Lodge, acquiring 834 acres in northern Durham County and leasing hunting rights over an additional 3,000 acres. But by the 1920s, with the area's quail population in decline and its economic conditions less supportive of such an exclusive club, John Sprunt Hill bought out the club's other members and, in 1926, bequeathed the property to his son, George Watts Hill, a noted philanthropist and champion of desegregation.

George and his wife, Ann, took to raising prize dairy cattle and breeding and training horses including hunters, jumpers and steeplechasers at Quail Roost. They acquired several thousand adjacent acres, and in 1931 deeded 721 acres to North Carolina State University (NCSU), forming the nucleus of what is today the G.W. Hill Demonstration Forest. George died in 1993. Descendents of Hill still live at and operate Quail Roost, immediately across US-501 (Roxboro Rd) from Hill Forest.

Seeking to expand the Forest, NCSU acquired some adjacent properties over the years, perhaps the most notable of which from a historical perspective was the William Mangum plantation (ca. 1800), site of his son Willie's (b. 1792; pronounced 'Wylie') Walnut Hall, built in 1842 and named for two large walnut trees on the property. Under Willie's ownership the plantation grew wheat, corn, and tobacco and kept at least 20 enslaved people.

Willie was elected to the North Carolina State Legislature in 1818, the U.S. House of Representatives in 1824, and the U.S. Senate in 1830, where he served until 1853, including service as president pro tem of the Senate from 1842 to 1845. In accordance with the rules of that era this placed him next in line for the U.S. presidency should John Tyler have died in office. In the Senate Mangum was a close friend and ally of Daniel Webster.

After failing to win re-election in 1852, Willie returned to Walnut Hall to practice law. In 1860 he was partially paralyzed by a stroke.

In 1861, at the onset of the Civil War a local militia, the Flat River Guards (including Willie's only son, William), marched past Walnut Hall on their way to the front. Willie was carried into his yard to bid them farewell, saying "Boys, God bless you every one, but you can't succeed. Their resources are too great for you." William was killed a few weeks later at the First Battle of Bull Run. Willie died shortly after learning of his son's death.

Willie's daughters, Martha and Mary, lived at Walnut Hall until their deaths in 1902, having launched a "female academy" there in 1863. Not far away, just across Roxboro Road, Quail Roost was growing and glittering as Walnut Hall entered on its slow course of genteel decline. After the sisters' deaths the estate was purchased at auction by William B. Hampton for $3,850. The Hamptons lived at Walnut Hall until 1916, after which the house was rented to a succession of tenants. The 1842 wing of Walnut Hall was destroyed in a fire on Christmas Eve, 1933. In 1977 the estate was acquired by NCSU's School of Forestry, and the original wing of Walnut Hall was destroyed by fire in about 1980.

Nothing remains today of the old home site except some impressive old poplars and cedars, a few old tobacco barns, and the Mangum family graveyard, which was vandalized by grave robbers in the 1980s.

Walnut Hall, circa 1870. Courtesy Durham County Library.

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