History

Preservation Fund of Hillsborough (PFH) was established in 1980 as a revolving fund with support from the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, the Mary Duke Biddle Foundation and other donors. Its stated mission is to “direct attention to sites, buildings, residences, and gardens, and other places of historical or architectural interest…and to increase and diffuse knowledge about and appreciation of such places.”

Since that time it has sponsored a number of local preservation projects, among other initiatives: the moving and renovation of the Alexander Dickson House and Office to become the Visitors Center for Hillsborough and Orange County (1982-1984); the moving and renovation of the Hughes Academy, the last remaining one-room schoolhouse in Orange County, to Cameron Park in Hillsborough (1997); the restoration of the Cadwallader Jones (Norwood) Law Office on courthouse square (1997-2001); and the restoration and reconstruction of the Great Burnside Icehouse, whose foundations were restored and consolidated below ground, and missing portions of its superstructure were entirely reconstructed (2007). In 2017 the PFH published the book “Hidden Hillsborough, Historic Dependencies and Landscapes in a Small Southern Town,” which “seeks to understand and interpret the secondary buildings or dependencies that dot the townscape, preserved here and there along the streets or in backyards.”

The Preservation Fund of Hillsborough (PFH) was set up in 1980 to be a revolving fund, that is funds expended to acquire historic properties would be returned to PFH when the properties were sold. That process resulted in a number of properties being saved from destruction or loss. In the last several years the need to save endangered historic properties by PFH was no longer necessary due to normal economic changes. At the same time needs for funding other preservation projects without revolving fund possibilities have arisen. For that reason new funding sources are needed so that remaining PFH financial resources will not be depleted. New sources include donations, grants, fundraising campaigns and interest on investments.

The PFH has continued to widen its scope since the time it was founded, in keeping with 21st century challenges in historic preservation. It will therefore appropriately be known in general references and on this website as "Preservation Hillsborough." The name Preservation Fund of Hillsborough also will be retained to acknowledge its important historic roots.