Granville County Courthouse in Oxford

The town of Oxford is the County Seat of Granville County. It started in 1761 with a plantation home called Oxford. The town wasn’t incorporated until 1816, when it also was named the county seat. The first Masonic orphanage in the US was built in Oxford. It was established on the site of the former St. John’s College. It now is known simply as the Masonic Home for Children and has a beautiful modern campus.

Masonic Home for Children Masonic Home Chapel

The small town of about 8,500 survives primarily on several small light industrial plants. It also is a crossroads of I-85, US Hwy 15, and US Hwy 158. The street running from downtown to the Masonic Home is lined with several grand homes from an earlier era of tobacco and cotton farming.

Downtown Oxford A Home in Oxford A Home in Oxford A Home in Oxford

The book, and later the movie, Blood Done Sign My Name, chronicled the racial protest in 1970 of the murder of an African-American man, in which the assailant was set free by an all-white jury. The story was of interest to me because I knew the author and one of the families that was prominent in the story life. The movie brought notoriety in 2010 to the small town.

We had some difficulty finding our restaurant for lunch because it was located far at the back of a strip mall and the sign was not visible from the road. We got more of a tour of the county than we had anticipated.

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