New to the Area
Welcome to Pittsboro! Our town is located nearly at the direct center of the great state of North Carolina in Chatham County. We think you'll like it here.
The town of Pittsboro has been here since 1778, though it was called "Chatham" at first. In 1785 we finally got our permanent name by an act of the state legislature, and in 1787 Pittsboro became the county seat of Chatham County. The county was named for William Pitt the Elder, Earl of Chatham, and Pittsboro was named for his son, William Pitt the Younger, who was longest serving Prime Minister in British history.
In the early days, Pittsboro was a key crossroads town in North Carolina, marking the intersection of the great trading roads connecting Raleigh to Salisbury east to west, and Hillsborough to Fayetteville north to south. In the early 19th century Pittsboro was filled with hotels and restaurants that catered to the teamsters and other travelers who passed through. The Patrick St. Lawrence House, currently located behind the courthouse (but soon to be moved and restored), was such an inn, and it still possesses the large flip-up wall that could be hooked to the ceiling to make room for dancing. The St. Lawrence House is one of many homes and buildings in Pittsboro that are listed in the National Register of Historical Places. The Pittsboro Presbyterian Church itself is also listed in the Register.
For a town so small, Pittsboro has been home to a surprising number of prominent people: one governor, several U.S. senators, an ambassador, the commander of the Confederate ship Shenandoah (who didn't get word that the Civil War was over until nearly four months after the secession of hostilities at Appamattox), several prominent writers, too-many world-class musicians to count, potters with work collected in many of the United States's most prominent museums, and some very fine shaggers.
But the town itself is not merely a collection of the famous and infamous; it has been the home of many, many generations, and the ever-elusive small-town atmosphere that so many crave, and that Pittsboro has in spades, is the product of merely living and working and raising families in the same place for more than two hundred years. We're pretty humble and we don't let the famous people put on airs.
One of the great things about living here is that there is so much to do here in town, and very little you can't find within a half hour's drive. We are seventeen miles from Chapel Hill and about 25 miles from Raleigh.
There's a lot of water nearby. The Haw River rings the town to the north and the east, and nearby two other river run toward the ocean: The Rocky River and the Deep River, which at their confluence form the headwaters of the mighty Cape Fear, which is not just a great movie starring Robert Mitchum. (Or, if you prefer the Martin Scorsese remake, Robert DeNiro.) Nearly forty years ago, the Army Corps of Engineers dammed several streams and rivers, including the Haw, to create Jordan Lake, a reservoir for the area and also a major recreational resource. There's room on the lake for anglers (largemouth bass, striped bass, catfish, crappie), sailers, pontoon boat enthusiasts, water-skiers, and even paddlers. The lake also hosts several public swimming beaches that feature camping and grilling facilities.
In Pittsboro we like our festivals, and we don't need much of an excuse to throw one. Every First Sunday the downtown becomes a walking mall filled with sidewalk crafts vendors and a musician or two. In the fall we have a big festival that takes up several blocks of town, and at Christmas we host a big Christmas parade. Then there's the Shakori Hills Grassroots Music Festival several times a year, the Chatham Studio Tour of artists, the great jack-o-lantern display on the bridge in Bynum on Halloween, and too many other festivals, gatherings, and generally fun things for us to remember right now. Some days it feels like we'll be going from one festival to another forever, and that's not a bad way to live.
