Copied from: THE DURHAM-ORANGE GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY NEWSLETTER-OCTOBER 1997 Duke University Action on Prospective Landfill Site Protects Historic Burial Site For several years the Town of Chapel Hill has been searching for a new landfill site to be used beginning about 2005. The most desirable site has been an area of Duke Forest adjacent to the present landfill off Eubanks Road on the north side of Chapel Hill (Duke Forest consists of large forest tracts scattered about Orange and Durham counties owned by Duke University). Now it has been discovered that Duke University has granted a renewable five-year easement to this property to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). This apparently means that the town or county will not be able to use their powers of eminent domain to acquire the property for public use (The Chapel Hill News, October 12, 1997, p A1). On this property is the historic Hogan Homesite and Family Cemetery. The cemetery consists of the remains of two portions (one a corner) of a low dry-laid stone wall and inside that 25 to 30 fieldstones marking graves. There are no marked stones. The Hogan site was surveyed in February 1976 and is included in the Orange County Cemetery Survey, which refers to it as the Alexander Hogan cemetery. No specific burials are associated with the cemetery, but family tradition identifies it as the Hogan family burial site. Possibly in the same area are the remains of what is probably a large African-American burial ground. Mostly sunken graves and scattered stones indicate this area, which is not easy to identify as a burial site. The African-American cemetery site was the subject of an investigation in 1993 by a cultural anthropologist and students from Elon College (The Chapel Hill News, May 23, 1993, p. A1). Col. John Hogan was an earlier settler of Orange County and donated land for the establishment of the University of North Carolina. He also made bricks for construction of the university buildings. His grandson Alexander (1814-1870) eventually occupied his grandfather's property. ==== NCORANGE Mailing List ==== Larry Noah - lrnoah@bigfoot.com - Listowner - NCORANGE mailing list Orange Co, NC USGenWeb site is at http://www.rootsweb.com/~ncorange USGenWeb Orange Co, NC Archives site is at http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/nc/orangnc.htm