Town Cemetery on East Corbin Street is the one still in use. Burials continue there, with
entrances on North Cameron and East Corbin, and it is where a good number of Hillsborough families
expect to end up. There is one detail that catches people out, and it is worth knowing before you
plan anything: every plot has been sold.
That does not mean nobody is being buried there. It means the ground is spoken for. If your
family already holds a plot, you are fine. If you assumed you could buy one this week, you cannot,
and the plan needs to change now rather than after the notices have gone out.
If Your Family Already Holds a Plot
Then the arrangement is straightforward and we work to the cemetery’s schedule rather than our
own. The town keeps burial records that can be searched online, and maps showing the approximate
location of grave sites are available, which is genuinely useful when the person who knew where
everyone is buried is the person who has died.
Bring whatever paperwork you have. Deeds to burial plots are often decades old, sometimes in a
different name, occasionally lost entirely. None of that is unusual and none of it has to be solved
by you alone. We deal with the town, the opening and closing, and the timing, and you deal with the
people who are arriving.
If You Do Not Hold a Plot
You have more choices than the situation feels like it allows.
Cremation is the most flexible. Nothing has to be decided about a final resting place in the
first week, which matters when half the family is out of state and nobody is thinking clearly.
Aquamation reaches the same result through heated water and an alkaline solution rather than flame.
It produces no carbon emissions and releases no toxic or carcinogenic gases, according to
co-founder Hunter Beattie, and it is the only such service available in the Triangle region.
Green burial is the option for families who wanted a real grave rather than an urn. No
embalming, a biodegradable casket or shroud, and burial in ground managed as habitat. We assist
with most of the natural burials at Bluestem Conservation Cemetery, which opened in the same year
we did and holds its land under permanent protection.
Timing a Graveside Service
Cemeteries here are open sunrise to sunset, which sets the outer edge of what is possible.
Inside that, the things that actually decide the timing are the death certificate, the people
travelling, and whether a member of clergy is available. In practice most families land on late
morning, because it gives people driving in a chance to arrive and leaves the afternoon free for a
gathering afterwards.
A few things we would tell any family, whether or not they use us:
- Do not set a date until the paperwork is genuinely in hand. Moving a funeral is worse than
setting it two days later. - Count the cars. Corbin and Cameron are residential streets and a large procession needs
thinking about in advance. - Decide early whether the burial is public or family only. It is a hard thing to change once
people have been told. - If there is a plot deed, find it before the meeting. It saves a day.
What This Costs
Our general price list is published rather than supplied on request. You can read it, compare it
against anyone else, and decide before you speak to us. Providers in the United States must give
you a price list if you ask in person,1 but having to ask is exactly the friction that
stops people comparing at all.
The largest single variable is not the service. It is whether there is a burial, because a plot,
an opening and closing, and a marker are all separate costs that sit outside anything a funeral home
charges. Ask us to separate our fees from the cemetery’s so you can see which is which.
Getting Here From Town Cemetery
The drive is short. Town Cemetery sits about 2.1 miles southeast of the funeral home on Meadowlands Drive, which in normal traffic is under ten minutes. Families often come straight from a viewing or a graveside back to us, or the other way around, and the distance is small enough that nobody has to plan the day around driving.
If you are coordinating a service and a burial on the same morning, tell us and we will build the timings around the cemetery rather than around our own schedule. Processions, pallbearers and clergy all need slack in the plan, and it is easier to add that at the start than to claw it back on the day.
If the family plot is in an older ground instead, read about the 1757 burial ground on North Churton Street. Every area we cover is listed on the service area page.
Talking to Someone
If a death has already happened, call and we will walk you through the next few hours. There is no form to fill in first and nothing to prepare. If you are planning ahead instead, you can take as long as you want; preplanning appointments are unhurried by design, and writing your own arrangements down is the single kindest thing you can do for the people who will otherwise have to guess.
Our general price list is published on this site rather than held back until you ask. You should be able to compare what a funeral costs without having to make a phone call to find out.
Endswell Funeral Home
407 Meadowlands Dr, Hillsborough, NC 27278
(919) 907-9777
What Happens in the First Day
If a death has just happened, very little needs deciding immediately and almost nothing is
urgent in the way it feels. The person will be brought into our care, usually the same day. The
death has to be certified before anything else can move, and that timing sits with a doctor or the
medical examiner rather than with you or us.
The arrangement meeting normally happens a day or two later. Bring the plot deed if there is
one, any preplanning paperwork, and somebody else. People retain about half of what is said in
that room and a second set of ears is worth more than a notebook.
Opening, Closing and the Costs That Are Not Ours
A burial has two separate bills and families are frequently surprised by the second one. Our
fees cover care of the person, the arrangements, the service and the paperwork. The cemetery
charges separately for opening and closing the grave, and a marker is a third cost from a third
supplier entirely.
Ask any funeral home to split those out for you in writing. If the answer comes back as one
number, ask again. Not because anybody is hiding anything, but because a single figure makes it
impossible to tell whether you are comparing like with like when you call somewhere else.
Where We Are
What Families Say
Endswell holds a 4.9 star rating from 71 Google reviews.2 We are not going to reprint them here and tell you what they mean. Read them yourself, then read the reviews of every other funeral home you are considering, and pay attention to what people say about the week rather than the day. Anybody can run a good service. The difference shows in whether somebody answered the phone at two in the morning and whether the price at the end matched the price at the start.
Sources
1. Federal Trade Commission, The Funeral Rule. ftc.gov
2. Local Falcon location record for Endswell Funeral Home, Hillsborough, retrieved 9 September 2026.