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Orange County Indexed

Chronology

Key events from Orange County history: 100 highlights to start, then the full chronology of 6,171 dated events and 63 storylines, each connected to the index. A storyline gathers many dated events into one history, such as the Regulator crisis.

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  1. Reconstruction and the New South · 1866–1899

  2. 1880s
  3. Naming or commemoration · West End (now Carrboro) Julia Spencer drives a last spike to celebrate the finished University railroad

    Chapel Hill celebrated the completed State University Railroad with speeches and the driving of the last spikes, one by Julia J. Spencer, daughter of Cornelia Phillips Spencer, and one by the railroad's agent, J. G. Cooley. Passenger trains had been running to the West End terminus since February.

  4. Law, policy or court · Hillsborough Township The commissioners call a fence-law election in Hillsborough Township

    On a petition from the township, the board ordered a vote at each Hillsborough Township precinct for and against the fence law on June 10, 1882 and named the men to hold it. The result is not given; an 1885 act later put Hillsboro and three other townships under the stock law.

  5. Construction or physical change · Bingham School, Mebaneville (Orange County side) Bingham School finishes new buildings after the spring fire

    Less than three months after the fire, the rebuilt Bingham School stood nearly complete, with timber cut and sawed nearby. Thomas C. Oakley of Durham was the builder.

  6. Founding or opening · Cross Roads Baptist Church Cross Roads Baptist Church is organized as Betheden

    W. P. Roberts and S. S. Cates led the founding of a Baptist church first called Betheden and later Cross Roads, with R. A. Patterson as first pastor. It built a 300-seat church in 1910.

  7. Hillsborough Dr. Pride Jones serves as Orange County clerk of superior court

    Dr. Pride Jones followed George Laws, clerk for thirty years, as clerk of the superior court of Orange County and held the office from 1883 to 1888, when Samuel M. Gattis succeeded him.

  8. Life event · Chapel Hill Horace Williams earns a master's degree at the university

    Williams entered the state university at Chapel Hill in 1879 and in 1883 took both the B.A. and an M.A. His M.A. and William Battle Phillips's Ph.D., conferred at the same commencement, were the first advanced degrees the reopened university granted for further study. Before 1875 any graduate could receive the A.M. three years after the B.A.

  9. Hillsborough The Berry family moves to Sunnyside south of Hillsborough

    Dr. John and Mary Strayhorn Berry moved from their West King Street house, now known as Two Chimneys, to Sunnyside, the Berry family plantation two miles south of town. Mary Berry tutored her daughter Harriet at home until she was twelve.

  10. Construction or physical change · Carrboro Thomas Lloyd and William Pritchard build a grist mill and cotton gin at the West End depot

    Thomas F. Lloyd, a Confederate veteran, and his partner William Pritchard built a steam-powered grist mill and cotton gin in a two-story frame building just north of the railroad depot at West End in 1883. Farmers from southern Orange County brought grain and cotton there, and Lloyd bought out Pritchard's share in 1886.

  11. Founding or opening · Chapel Hill Venable co-founds the Elisha Mitchell Scientific Society

    Venable was a co-founder and the first president of the Elisha Mitchell Scientific Society, a society of university scientists named for the geologist Elisha Mitchell.

  12. Award or honor · Chapel Hill William Battle Phillips receives the university's first doctorate after the reopening

    In 1883 William Battle Phillips, one of the five graduates of 1877, received a Doctor of Philosophy, the first doctorate in Battle's list of degrees granted since the 1875 reopening.

  13. Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill William H. S. Burgwyn is appointed a trustee of the University of North Carolina

    Burgwyn was appointed a trustee of the University of North Carolina in 1883, the year after he returned to the state and settled at Henderson.

  14. Property or economic transaction · Orange County Tenant farmer Jessa Buttler mortgages his horse and crop to landowner C. R. Miller

    Orange County tenant Jessa Buttler signed a chattel mortgage pledging his horse and his entire crop of corn, wheat, oats and tobacco to landowner C. R. Miller for a debt of $88.20. By October 1890 the debt stood at $106.04 despite partial payments.

  15. Life event · Bingham School, near Mebane (Orange County side) Charles White, merchant and postmaster at Bingham School, dies

    Charles White, who kept the store and post office at Bingham School near Mebane, died on Thursday, May 24, 1883. The Observer called him successful in business; his widow, Mary E. White, qualified as executrix of his will.

  16. Construction or physical change · Memorial Hall, UNC, Chapel Hill Memorial Hall rises at UNC under Paul C. Cameron's building committee

    The cornerstone of Swain Memorial Hall was laid on September 25, 1883, and the hall was dedicated on June 3, 1885, honoring President David L. Swain, faculty and the university's Confederate dead. Paul C. Cameron, president of the Alumni Association and chairman of the building committee, raised money for it and gave money himself.

  17. Founding or opening · 106 North Churton Street, Hillsborough A brick saloon and barber shop stands at 106 North Churton Street

    The two-story brick building at 106 North Churton Street appears as a saloon and barber shop on the Sanborn maps from 1884 through 1911. By 1924 it held bank offices, and its storefront was redone in the Colonial Revival style about the 1930s.

  18. Appointment, election or service · Roberson's general store, Franklin Street, Chapel Hill Adam A. Kluttz takes over management of Dr. Roberson's general store

    Adam Alexander Kluttz became the active manager of Dr. Abner Benton Roberson's general store. He later opened stores of his own and built a brick store on East Franklin in 1893 and 1894.

  19. Founding or opening · University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Beta Theta Pi is reestablished at UNC and takes in the Mystical Seven chapter

    The Eta chapter was revived in 1884, absorbing the Star of the South chapter of the Mystical Seven, once the strongest fraternity in the South.

  20. Protest or organizing · Chapel Hill Election fight splits the Philanthropic Society

    A quarrel over whether two South Building students could join the Philanthropic Society at the last meeting of a term, in time to swing its election, led some members to secede in 1884, and a split nearly followed in the Dialectic. Professors Winston and Manning could not bring the seceders back.

  21. Founding or opening · near Mebane Foxes Knob School opens as a one-room log school near Mebane

    Foxes Knob School opened in the mid-1880s in a single log room. It gained a frame addition about 1900 and was later turned into a house.

  22. Founding or opening · Chapel Hill Francis P. Venable brings tennis to Chapel Hill

    Venable laid out a tennis court in the grove south of his house about 1884, when sport at the university was otherwise limited to casual baseball and an old-style kicking football.

  23. Naming or commemoration · Hillsborough Methodist Church, Hillsborough Hillsborough Methodists report their Sunday school's hundredth anniversary

    In 1884 H. N. Brown reported that the Hillsborough Methodist Sunday school had celebrated its centennial; it then had thirty-five pupils and seven teachers and a library of church literature.

  24. Statistic or record · Orange County Orange County reports 33 white and 31 Black public schools

    In 1884 Orange had 33 white and 31 Black public schools, with 1,369 white and 1,134 Black pupils, a term under ten weeks, and mostly log buildings. School property was valued at $3,500 for white schools and $2,500 for Black schools.

  25. Chapel Hill Randall speaks on North Carolina folklore at commencement

    Graduating with the class of 1884, Randall was class prophet at the Class Day exercises in the Chapel and gave the commencement speech 'North Carolina Folk Lore', which met with unusual applause.

  26. Property or economic transaction · Northeast corner of Franklin and Henderson streets, Chapel Hill Robert Strange MacRae buys Dr. Harris's drugstore and its building

    MacRae bought the drug business from Dr. Thomas W. Harris and the building it occupied, at Franklin and Henderson streets, from David McCauley. He sold the drugstore to Dr. R. H. Whitehead in 1893.

  27. Violence or armed conflict · Chapel Hill Students and Black residents nearly come to blows on election night in Chapel Hill

    While votes were being counted on the night of a Chapel Hill election in 1884, a young Black man from the country tried to trip a student, and students and Black townspeople gathered on both sides before the crowd broke up with little harm. Students afterward whipped Eli, a Black man who waited on the West Building, for cheering the other side.

  28. Founding or opening · Park Building, 128 North Churton Street, Hillsborough The Park Building, a brick general store, stands on North Churton Street

    The two-story pressed-brick building at 128 North Churton Street, one of the oldest commercial buildings in the district, is built as a general store and is labeled the Park Building on Sanborn maps from 1884 to 1911. It now serves as a bank with drive-through lanes.

  29. Appointment, election or service · New Hope Pleasant H. Dalton is installed as pastor of New Hope

    After nearly ten years as stated supply, Dalton was installed as the church's pastor.

  30. Closing or ending · Chapel Hill The University Summer Normal School holds its last session

    The eighth and last session enrolled 305 teachers, after which the legislature divided the $2,000 yearly appropriation among four normal schools chosen by the Board of Education. Battle counted 2,480 enrollments at Chapel Hill from 1877 through 1884.

  31. Construction or physical change · Panther's Den and Sofa Rock, Occoneechee Mountain, Hillsborough A Hillsborough doctor has the picnic grounds and paths on Occoneechee Mountain put in order

    A Dr. Wilson raised money to fix up the picnic grounds near the mountain spring and the paths to Sofa Rock and the Panther's Den, so the town could reach them easily. The Orange County Observer thanked him for the people of Hillsboro.

  32. Disaster or outbreak · Bingham School, near Mebane (Orange County side) A building of Mrs. Charles White's used by Bingham School cadets as a mess burns

    Early on Tuesday morning, August 19, 1884, fire destroyed a building owned by Mrs. Charles White that some Bingham School cadets used as a messing club. Its insurance had lapsed and the loss was put at about $1,000.

  33. Chapel Hill Old students start a subscription for a monument over Nancy Hilliard's grave

    E. T. McKethan of Fayetteville began collecting money from former Chapel Hill students to put a plain stone over Nancy Hilliard's neglected grave, and Cornelia Phillips Spencer endorsed the plan. The stone records the alumni's gratitude for her kindness and hospitality.

  34. Construction or physical change · Mount Moriah A farmstead with a center-hall house and five outbuildings is built on Mount Moriah Road

    In 1885 a story-and-a-half center-hall frame house went up with five frame outbuildings, all of which survived in good condition in 1992.

  35. Law, policy or court · Orange County A stock law ends open range in four Orange County townships

    An 1885 act barred cattle from running at large in Cedar Grove, Little River, Hillsboro and Bingham townships and had the commissioners fence those townships from a special tax. A second act let Chapel Hill Township adopt the stock law on a petition of three-fourths of its freeholders.

  36. Construction or physical change · Chapel Hill Alumni build the university's first gymnasium off university land

    After the dancing ban, a chartered Gymnasium Association sold $10 shares to alumni and built a hall 110 by 45 feet on its own land, rented to the university for exercise and used for the 1885 commencement ball. The building later became Commons Hall, the student dining hall.

  37. Founding or opening · Section A, Old Chapel Hill Cemetery, South Road (NC 54) and Country Club Road, Chapel Hill Chapel Hill's Black residents begin burying their dead in Section A

    Section A, beside the old slave section on the west side of the cemetery, came into general use by Chapel Hill's African American community in the mid-1880s. Its later markers include cast concrete headstones common in Black cemeteries of the period.

  38. Founding or opening · Post office, Mallett lot, East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill Dr. William P. Mallett begins handing out Chapel Hill's mail from his lot

    Dr. Mallett and his daughter started distributing the village mail. The post office building he put up on the southwest corner of his East Franklin Street lot also held his doctor's office at the back, and after his death Thomas Kirkland ran the post office there.

  39. Property or economic transaction · 115 East Tryon Street, Hillsborough Edward Atkins Rosemond buys the East Tryon Street lot where he builds his house

    Deeds show Edward Atkins Rosemond bought the property at 115 East Tryon Street in 1885. His two-story I-house went up between 1888 and 1894, was enlarged by 1905 and 1911, and passed to his daughter and granddaughter.

  40. Law, policy or court · Orange County Orange County sets up its first postwar Board of Education

    Under an 1885 law, Orange created its first Board of Education since the Civil War, chosen by the justices of the peace and county commissioners together. The Rev. J. L. Currie became superintendent in June 1885.

  41. Property or economic transaction · 315 East Rosemary Street, Chapel Hill Professor Adolphus Mangum buys the Collier house on East Rosemary Street

    Professor Adolphus W. Mangum bought the house at 315 East Rosemary Street in 1885 and owned it for five years.

  42. Law, policy or court · Chapel Hill The General Assembly adds $15,000 a year to the university's support

    An Act for the Maintenance of the University, introduced by Lee S. Overman and passed by the House 58 to 32, added $15,000 a year, payable quarterly. Because the $2,000 normal school grant was moved to other schools, the net gain was $13,000, and the act also ended the rule that county scholarship students must teach.

  43. Law, policy or court · Chapel Hill The faculty requires most students to join a literary society

    A faculty law made membership in the Dialectic or Philanthropic Society compulsory for all students except those in medicine, law, graduate and special study, and barred non-members from rooming in university buildings without permission.

  44. Law, policy or court · Chapel Hill The trustees allow fraternities at the university

    On a petition from Alpha Tau Omega, Kappa Alpha and Phi Kappa Sigma, the faculty recommended and the trustees granted the admission of all Greek-letter societies, on condition that they give the faculty their members' names and pledge to serve no liquor at banquets in Chapel Hill.

  45. Law, policy or court · Smith Hall The trustees bar dancing from university buildings

    Pressed by church members who opposed the modern dance, the trustees prohibited the commencement ball in Smith Hall or any other university building. Battle welcomed the ban because he wanted Smith Hall kept as a library.

  46. Property or economic transaction · West Cameron Avenue, Chapel Hill Thomas F. Lloyd buys the brick house on West Cameron Avenue later called the Lloyd-Wiley House

    With his West End gin and grist mill doing well, Thomas F. Lloyd bought a two-story brick house on West Cameron Avenue in Chapel Hill in 1885. It has been known since as the Lloyd-Wiley House.

  47. Naming or commemoration · St. Matthew's Episcopal Church, Hillsborough Mrs. William L. DeRosset and others give St. Matthew's a Bible

    Mrs. William L. DeRosset, with family and friends, presented the church's Bible as an Easter offering.

  48. Naming or commemoration · St. Matthew's Episcopal Church, Hillsborough A rector's chair is given to St. Matthew's in memory of Sarah Mary Matthews Murphy

    Her husband and children gave the rector's chair on the south side of the altar in memory of Sarah Mary Matthews Murphy.

  49. Naming or commemoration · Memorial Hall, UNC, Chapel Hill The university dedicates Memorial Hall

    Memorial Hall, the big arched-roof auditorium near the west end of Cameron Avenue, was dedicated in June 1885. It had no heat and swallowed speakers' voices, so it served mainly during commencement week and at times as a gymnasium until it was judged unsafe and torn down.

  50. Award or honor · Memorial Hall Emile Alexander de Schweinitz is awarded a Doctor of Philosophy degree

    At the 1885 commencement, held in the newly dedicated Memorial Hall, the university conferred the Ph.D. on de Schweinitz, who became a government chemist and a professor in Washington.

  51. Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill The trustees elect Nelson B. Henry to a new chair of the science and art of teaching

    Using the new appropriation, the trustees filled a chair of the science and art of teaching with Nelson B. Henry of Missouri, and the university opened a normal department with a teachers' course. Winston later called it the first chair of pedagogy in North Carolina or any Southern university.

  52. Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill The trustees enlarge the faculty from nine to fifteen

    Meeting in Raleigh, the trustees chose from several hundred applicants Thomas Hume for English, Walter D. Toy for modern languages, William B. Phillips for agricultural chemistry and mining and James Lee Love for mathematics. A faculty circular then announced postgraduate courses toward the A.M., Ph.M. and Ph.D., free of tuition to graduates of any college.

  53. Founding or opening · Hillsborough The new Board of Education sets aside $50 for an institute for Black teachers

    At its first meeting in the Hillsboro courthouse, the board created under the 1885 school law organized with Joseph Harris as chairman and voted fifty dollars to hold a training institute for the county's Black teachers.

  54. Law, policy or court · Orange County The school board requires the superintendent to visit every school and grade its teachers

    On resolutions offered by Professor Winston, the board told Superintendent Currie to spend a day at each public school while in session, give each teacher a mark for practical skill, meet each district committee and report on where districts and schoolhouses should be, at $2.50 a day.

  55. Property or economic transaction · Cabe-Pratt-Harris House (Riverbend Farm), off Pleasant Green Road near the Eno River James H. Pratt's will leaves the Cabe farm to the family of Lucinda Harris

    Pratt left the 140-acre Cabe tract and the 160-acre Jehu Brown tract to Lucinda Harris for life and then to her daughters Emma and Jane, keeping a promise to provide for the family after her husband Benton Harris died in the Civil War. The Harrises held the farm until 1942.

  56. Property or economic transaction · Chapel Hill Mary Ruffin Smith dies and leaves the university a Chatham County plantation

    Smith, daughter of the Orange County doctor and congressman James S. Smith, left about 1,500 acres in Chatham County to the university to educate poor students, the Francis Jones Smith Fund. She left small bequests to people formerly enslaved in her household and most of her estate to the Episcopal Church, with Kemp Battle as executor.

  57. Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill Eben Alexander comes to Chapel Hill as professor of Greek

    Eben Alexander, who had taught ancient languages at East Tennessee University for thirteen years, accepted the professorship of Greek at the University of North Carolina in 1886 and moved to Chapel Hill.

  58. Chapel Hill James Lee Love becomes University Librarian and secretary of the faculty

    In the 1886-87 session the mathematics professor James Lee Love took on the posts of librarian and secretary of the faculty, after representing the university in the merger of the literary societies' libraries with its own.

  59. Founding or opening · Hillsborough Miss Heartt keeps a private primary school in Hillsborough, later with Mrs. Bragg

    A small private school for young children run by Miss Heartt appears in the Hillsborough paper by June 1886. From 1890 she taught it with Mrs. Bragg, and the two advertised each August that they would resume classes, the last such notice found being for August 28, 1911.

  60. Construction or physical change · Strowd House, 51 Davie Circle, Chapel Hill Robert L. Strowd marries and likely builds a two-story L-plan house on land from his father

    Strowd, a farmer who also kept a store on Franklin Street, received the tract from his father in 1886 and married Frances Hedon that year; the house at 51 Davie Circle probably went up then. It stood alone at the edge of town until the area filled in during the 1910s and 1920s.

  61. Property or economic transaction · Chapel Hill The university begins leasing its Franklin Street land to faculty for houses

    Because a federal court had ruled about 600 acres around the campus inalienable, the trustees leased a Franklin Street parcel to James Lee Love for fifty years, followed by leases to Charles Baskerville and Francis K. Ball. Later, on legal advice, such lots were sold outright to faculty members.

  62. Property or economic transaction · Carrboro Thomas F. Lloyd buys out his partner and adds a flour mill by the depot

    Lloyd bought William Pritchard's share of the steam grist mill and cotton gin the two had built north of the station in 1883, and had a flour mill built on the property.

  63. Construction or physical change · Person Hall, UNC campus, Chapel Hill Two rear wings are added to Person Hall as chemistry laboratories

    The university's only other building work of the late 1800s besides Memorial Hall was a pair of wings on the back of Person Hall, added in 1886 and 1892 to hold its first chemistry laboratories.

  64. Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill Wilson Caldwell is elected to the Chapel Hill board of commissioners

    Placed on the Republican ticket without seeking it, Wilson Caldwell, head of the university's labor force, was elected a Chapel Hill commissioner in 1886, defeating Professor Ralph Graves.

  65. Founding or opening · Hillsborough E. H. Pogue & Co. hold the opening sale at the Hillsboro Tobacco Warehouse

    The Hillsboro Tobacco Warehouse, run by E. H. Pogue & Co., held its opening sale on Tuesday, January 5, 1886, and the Observer reported a heavy break with good prices. Three days earlier Pogue and fourteen other men had incorporated the Orange County Tobacco Association to buy and sell leaf tobacco.

  66. Appointment, election or service · Orange County W. V. Andrews takes Professor Winston's seat on the county Board of Education

    Professor Winston of the university left the new Orange County Board of Education six months after its first meeting, and W. V. Andrews was named in his place.

  67. Statistic or record · Orange County Superintendent Currie's first annual report lists each district schoolhouse as log or frame

    Currie's report read to the board in January 1886 gave the first district-by-district inventory of schoolhouses for both races, most of them log buildings valued at $50 to $200, and a school term averaging ten weeks.

  68. Life event · Chapel Hill Professor John DeBerniere Hooper dies

    Hooper, a first-honor graduate of 1831 who taught French, Latin and then Greek at Chapel Hill before and after the war, died soon after resigning in 1885 because of failing health. Student Solomon C. Weill taught his Greek classes until Eben Alexander arrived.

  69. Property or economic transaction · Dickerson's Chapel A.M.E. Church, Churton and Queen streets, Hillsborough Dickerson's Chapel trustees buy the old courthouse from the Philadelphia Friends

    Trustees of the Philadelphia Friends' association for the relief of freedmen sold the old Baptist church lot, with the former courthouse on it, to the trustees of Hillsborough's African Methodist Episcopal church for $800. The congregation had worshipped and kept school there for twenty years.

  70. Publication, speech or performance · Gerrard Hall The annual YMCA convention meets at Chapel Hill

    The Young Men's Christian Association's annual convention met at Chapel Hill, with sessions in Gerrard Hall, reports from associations around the state and a Sunday talk to townspeople in the Baptist church. Professor J. W. Gore was chosen its president.

  71. Founding or opening · Smith Hall The literary societies merge their libraries with the university's

    The Philanthropic Society voted almost unanimously and the Dialectic 42 to 30 to join their books to the university library in Smith Hall, to be called the Library of the University of North Carolina endowed by the Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies and opened every weekday. Borrowing rose from 3,657 books in 1885-86 to 4,761 the next year.

  72. Life event · Hillsborough Presbyterian Church, Hillsborough Haywood Craig, a Black man, is received into the Hillsborough Presbyterian Church

    The session received Haywood Craig on profession of faith; the book records him under a heading for the church's Black members.

  73. Hillsborough D. C. Parks is elected a Hillsborough town commissioner

    At a quiet town election Hillsborough chose George C. Corbin mayor and elected A. W. Graham, James Webb Jr., J. W. Hooker, William Anderson, D. M. Laws, D. C. Parks and William H. Newman commissioners.

  74. Law, policy or court · Orange County The school board asks the commissioners for a special tax to keep schools open four months

    Superintendent Currie found the schools needed $2,000 beyond their apportionment to run the four months the law required, and the board petitioned the county commissioners to levy it. The board also set a floor of $40 for each white school and $30 for each Black school.

  75. Disaster or outbreak · Chapel Hill The Charleston earthquake shakes Chapel Hill

    The earthquake that wrecked Charleston rattled windows and moved bottles on the shelves of the chemical laboratory at Chapel Hill without doing damage. Some students in the New East Building fled outdoors.

  76. Violence or armed conflict · Chapel Hill Student Jacob A. Freeze is shot dead during a clash between students and Black residents

    After a student quarreled with a Black man, Pat Brewer, a group of students besieged Jack Barbee's house in Chapel Hill, where Brewer and others had gathered, and a shot from inside killed Jacob A. Freeze, a first-year student from Rowan County, about 1 a.m. on Sunday, October 10, 1886. After the state Supreme Court upheld the sentences in December 1887, Brewer went to the penitentiary for ten years and Frank Kirby and Jesse Harris for five each. Battle, writing later, gives Pat seven years and says he escaped.

  77. Life event · Fayetteville; later Chapel Hill connection Frank Porter Graham was born

    Frank Porter Graham was born in Fayetteville; he later led UNC.

  78. Competition or sporting achievement · Chapel Hill Students hold the first of a series of gymnastic contests

    On Thanksgiving Day students competed on the horizontal and parallel bars, ladders, Indian clubs and swings and in a half-mile race, a tug of war and a high jump, with Francis P. Venable calling the events. It was the first of a series of such contests.

  79. Disaster or outbreak · Chapel Hill Fire destroys the old president's house on Christmas morning

    The house Helen Hooper built, later home to Presidents Caldwell and Swain, burned the day after Professor Thomas Hume's family moved in. Fire spread from boxes and straw in an outbuilding, and Chapel Hill had no fire engine or ladder company to stop it.

  80. Closing or ending · New Hope Pleasant H. Dalton's pastorate at New Hope is dissolved amid a divided session

    Dalton offered his resignation in February 1886, but most of the congregation would not accept it; the relation was dissolved that December after the session fell into disagreement. The church stood vacant about a year while a presbytery commission settled the trouble.

  81. Founding or opening · Berry's Grove Baptist Church Berry's Grove Baptist Church is organized

    Berry's Grove Baptist Church was organized in 1887 with A. T. Hord as first pastor and built a 400-seat church the next year.

  82. Property or economic transaction · 404 North Churton Street, Hillsborough Edmund Strudwick of Norfolk buys the Turner house on North Churton Street for his mother and sisters

    Norfolk cotton merchant Edmund Strudwick bought the house built for tinner Josiah Turner Sr. and enlarged it for his mother and sisters, apparently adding the gables, bay windows and new sash that give it a Victorian look.

  83. Construction or physical change · 410 East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill James Lee Love builds a house on East Franklin Street for his wife, June Spencer

    Professor James Lee Love built the one-story house at 410 East Franklin Street in 1887, on the lot of the old president's house that burned the Christmas before, for his wife June, the only daughter of Cornelia Phillips Spencer. It is known as the Spencer House after his mother-in-law.

  84. Property or economic transaction · Hume house, West Franklin Street, Chapel Hill Professor Thomas Hume buys the house across from the Baptist church

    Burned out of the president's house, Professor Thomas Hume bought the West Franklin Street house opposite the Baptist church. It had been home to the Baptist minister Needham Byron Cobb until the congregation turned its school building into a parsonage.

  85. Publication, speech or performance · Chapel Hill Stephen B. Weeks publishes a register of the Philanthropic Society

    Stephen Beauregard Weeks, class of 1886, published a 72-page catalogue of Philanthropic Society members since 1795, with a short history of the society and notes on members' careers.

  86. Law, policy or court · Orange County The county school board adds nine new school districts under Superintendent Currie

    In the first years of the 1885 board, Superintendent James L. Currie laid out school districts and appointed committeemen, and by 1887 nine more districts had been created. In June 1886 he had told the board it needed $2,000 to keep the schools open four months.

  87. Law, policy or court · Chapel Hill The legislature moves the land-grant income from the university to a new A. and M. College

    After a campaign led by Leonidas L. Polk, the General Assembly of 1887 took the $7,500 yearly land-scrip interest from the university for a separate Agricultural and Mechanical College at Raleigh, leaving the university $20,000 a year. A House bill to cut that to $12,500 was tabled, and the university dropped pedagogics, mining engineering, animal breeding and practical horticulture.

  88. Construction or physical change · Hillsboro Recorder office, Hillsborough The revived Hillsboro Recorder moves Dennis Heartt's old press into its office

    The new Hillsboro Recorder reported that it had just moved the press and some wood type Dennis Heartt brought from Connecticut for the first Recorder of 1820 out of a Hillsborough cellar, where they had sat since 1867, and into its own office.

  89. Founding or opening · Chapel Hill Township The school board forms the Mary Smith school district along the Chatham line

    A new district in Chapel Hill Township next to Chatham County was created and its school named the Mary Smith School, District 39.

  90. Closing or ending · Hillsborough The Webb & Co. tobacco partnership in Hillsborough is dissolved

    James Webb Jr., Joseph C. Webb and George C. Corbin gave notice that their tobacco manufacturing firm, Webb & Co., was dissolved, leaving the two Webbs to collect its debts and wind up its business. The firm had been making tobacco in Hillsborough since at least 1881.

  91. Property or economic transaction · Orange Church The school board pays H. O. Strain for an acre to build the Orange Church school

    The board allowed H. O. Strain $20 for one acre on which to build a schoolhouse for white children of the Orange Church district.

  92. Appointment, election or service · New Hope James L. Currie is installed as pastor of New Hope

    Currie, who had preached there briefly in 1874, was installed as pastor; the relation was dissolved in November 1889 after new troubles in the session.

  93. Construction or physical change · Battle Lane at East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill Battle Lane is cut along the edge of the president's house lot

    After the president's house burned, the eastern edge of its lot on East Franklin Street was opened as Battle Lane, and the rest of the eastern part was leased to Professor James Lee Love for fifty years at $15 a year.

  94. Life event · Hillsborough David S. Payne marries Eliza Mayo

    The marriage joined two Black Hillsborough families tied to the Burwell School: Eliza was a granddaughter of the school's laundress Eliza Chavious, and David was the son of Bettie Payne and a grandson of Rev. William Payne, a founder of Dickerson Chapel.

  95. Appointment, election or service · Hillsborough Frederick Strudwick co-owns and edits the Hillsborough Recorder

    On 11 August 1887 Strudwick and C. E. Parish became co-owners and editors of the Hillsborough Recorder. Their first issue promised a firm and conservative stand on matters of public welfare and a thoroughly Democratic line in politics. Strudwick left the paper after the issue of 8 March 1888.

  96. Appointment, election or service · Caldwell Institute, Caldwell Julius I. Foust heads the Caldwell Institute at Caldwell

    The Caldwell Institute, a school for boys and girls in northern Orange County, advertised with Julius I. Foust as principal, offering primary through higher studies and music.

  97. Founding or opening · Hillsborough The school board forms Occoneechee school district from land south of the Eno

    The board created District 41, Occoneechee, from land south of the Eno River and part of the Hillsboro district.

  98. Property or economic transaction · Walnut Grove The school board condemns a lot for a school for Black children at Walnut Grove

    After two committees were named in March and September 1887 to condemn half an acre in the Walnut Grove district, the board had the deed for the site of a schoolhouse for Black children recorded on October 1.

  99. Statistic or record · Orange County The superintendent's report shows Black schools running half the term of white schools

    Currie's annual report counted 33 white and 25 Black public schools. White schools averaged close to nine weeks of teaching and Black schools under four and a half, and Black women teachers earned $17 a month against $24 for white women.

  100. Naming or commemoration · Chapel of the Cross, East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill A carved eagle lectern at the Chapel of the Cross memorializes Mary Ruffin Smith

    A lectern topped by a carved wooden eagle was placed in the Chapel of the Cross nave in memory of Mary Ruffin Smith, with an inscription on its base dated 1888.

  101. Construction or physical change · Edward Atkins Rosemond House, 115 East Tryon Street, Hillsborough Edward Atkins Rosemond builds his house on East Tryon Street

    Edward Atkins Rosemond built a two-story I-house on the East Tryon Street lot he had bought in 1885. It was enlarged at the rear by 1905 and given a front-gabled east wing by 1911.

  102. Property or economic transaction · Public Spring Lot (Lot 0), south side of East Margaret Lane, Hillsborough Hillsborough's commissioners sell the Public Spring Lot

    The town sold its Public Spring Lot, one of the public lots set aside when Hillsborough was laid out, for $100. The finance committee's report for the year ending May 1, 1889 lists the sale.

  103. Founding or opening · Piney Grove Baptist Church Piney Grove Baptist Church is organized

    W. M. Ray organized Piney Grove Baptist Church, a Black congregation, and served as its first pastor.

  104. Property or economic transaction · Colonial Inn (then the Occoneechee Hotel), 153 West King Street, Hillsborough Richison Nichols buys the old Orange Hotel and builds its piazza over the West King Street sidewalk

    Richison Nichols bought Isaiah Spencer's inn, apparently in 1888, and built the two-story piazza that reaches the street. The 1888 Sanborn map shows it as the Occoneechee Hotel, the name it kept until 1908.

  105. Orange County Samuel M. Gattis becomes chairman of the Orange County Democratic executive committee

    In the year he began practicing law in Hillsborough, Gattis was elected chairman of the Orange County Democratic executive committee and a delegate to the party's national convention.

  106. Life event · Old Chapel Hill Cemetery, South Road (NC 54) and Country Club Road, Chapel Hill Thomas West Harris, first dean of UNC's medical school, is buried in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

    Thomas West Harris (1839-1888), the first dean of the university's medical school, was buried in the cemetery.

  107. Founding or opening · Chapel Hill UNC plays its first intercollegiate football season

    Organized football began at UNC in 1888.

  108. Founding or opening · Chapel Hill University Lodge No. 408 is chartered at Chapel Hill

    Chapel Hill Masons revived their lodge under a new charter as University Lodge No. 408, with W. N. Pritchard as first Master. It met for years above a store on Franklin Street.

  109. Founding or opening · Orange County The school board authorizes a countywide summer institute for teachers

    The board empowered Superintendent Currie to hold a teachers' institute for the whole county that summer.

  110. Chapel Hill Judge Walter Clark gives the annual address at the 1888 commencement

    Chosen by the Philanthropic Society, Walter Clark gave the annual address on the Wednesday of the 1888 commencement, speaking on the opportunities before young men and the duties that came with them.

  111. Protest or organizing · Cool Spring Black parents in the Cool Spring district petition for Black school committeemen

    Black residents of the Cool Spring district asked the board to replace their school committee with Black members of their own choosing. The board tabled the request.

  112. Founding or opening · Walnut Grove The school board creates Cole's District at Walnut Grove on Anthony Cole's petition

    After Anthony Cole petitioned for a school for about 65 children, the superintendent held a public meeting and the board set up Cole's District, No. 42, cut from parts of the Caldwell, Little River, Oak Grove and Walnut Grove districts.

  113. Founding or opening · Bethel The school board forms Bethel district for the Bethel Church community

    On a petition from the Bethel Church community the board created a new district, Bethel, No. 43.

  114. Disaster or outbreak · Parish building and Berry building, downtown Hillsborough Fire destroys the Parish and Berry buildings and the Recorder printing office in Hillsborough

    A fire before dawn burned Postmaster Harry L. Parish's brick building, which held the post office, his store and the Hillsboro Recorder's printing office, then spread to the three-story Berry building next door. The Recorder lost its press, type and subscription books.

  115. Founding or opening · Presbyterian manse, Churton Street, Hillsborough Hillsborough church men organize a Young Men's Christian Association at the Presbyterian manse

    Men from the town's churches met at the Presbyterian manse on a Monday night, adopted a constitution and bylaws, and elected Charles M. Parks president and Joseph A. Harris secretary. The next meeting was called for the manse on December 10.

  116. Law, policy or court · Harmony The school board runs Harmony School directly when no committee can be found

    Unable to find anyone to serve as its committee, the board placed Harmony School under its own supervision so a school could be taught there.

  117. Hillsborough Samuel M. Gattis becomes clerk of the Orange County superior court

    Judge Gilmer appointed the young Hillsborough lawyer clerk of the superior court after Dr. Pride Jones resigned. Gattis was elected to the office in 1889 and held it until 1894.

  118. Construction or physical change · 110 East Orange Street, Hillsborough A small office from the Turner-Strudwick grounds is moved to East Orange Street

    A one-story frame office on the Turner-Strudwick House lot, shown on John Bailey's 1839 map when the lot belonged to Josiah Turner Sr., was moved next door to 110 East Orange Street, two years after Edmund Strudwick of Norfolk bought the property. It was later enlarged into a house and rebuilt in 1987. It is not Dr. Edmund Strudwick's medical office on West King Street.

  119. Construction or physical change · Barbee Drive at Franklin Street, Chapel Hill Barbee Drive is cut beside Algernon Barbee's house lot

    A road was opened along the eastern edge of Algernon S. Barbee's residential lot on Franklin Street and named Barbee Drive.

  120. Life event · Chapel Hill Chapel Hill physician William Peter Mallett dies

    Mallett, the village's leading doctor, who had lived in Chapel Hill for more than thirty years, died in the fall of 1889.

  121. Publication, speech or performance · Chapel Hill Cornelia Phillips Spencer compiles a catalogue of every student since

    For the 1889 centennial the university issued a general catalogue of students from 1795 to 1889, prepared by Cornelia Phillips Spencer after long correspondence and checked by Eben Alexander. It held 5,422 names, with Battle's sketches of the university's history.

  122. Construction or physical change · First Baptist Church, 201 West King Street, Hillsborough First Baptist Church of Hillsborough repairs its church and ties the walls with rods

    In 1889 the Romanesque Revival brick church at 201 West King Street, which John Berry finished by 1868, was fully repaired, including reinforcing its walls with rods.

  123. Appointment, election or service · Carrboro Fred Smith begins about fifty years as conductor on the Chapel Hill branch train

    Captain Fred Smith became conductor on the University Station branch in 1889 and kept the job for about half a century, until passenger service ended.

  124. Chapel Hill James Lee Love leaves Chapel Hill for Harvard

    Love left the university with his family in 1889 to teach mathematics at Harvard. His mother-in-law, Cornelia Phillips Spencer, stayed on in his East Franklin Street house.

  125. Construction or physical change · Manning house, East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill Law professor John Manning builds his house on East Franklin Street

    Before 1892 Laura Phillips sold John Manning the lot west of the Presbyterian manse, and he built his home there. Manning had earlier set up the university's law school, and his daughter Mary stayed on in the house after he died in 1899.

  126. Law, policy or court · Chapel Hill Membership in the literary societies becomes voluntary

    For many years every student had to join the Dialectic or Philanthropic Society. As the law, medical and pharmacy students grew in number and unwilling members disrupted meetings, joining was made voluntary in 1889.

  127. Founding or opening · Mount Adar Baptist Church Mount Adar Baptist Church is organized

    W. H. Whitted and A. J. Compton organized Mount Adar Baptist Church. A. T. Hord, first pastor at Berry's Grove two years earlier, was its first pastor too.

  128. Founding or opening · Hillsborough Orange County names its first superintendent of health

    Ten years after the 1879 law allowing county boards of health, Orange organized one, and the state health board's report for 1889-90 lists Dr. D. C. Parris of Hillsborough as part-time superintendent. Dr. C. D. Jones succeeded him in 1898 and served until the full-time department began in 1935.

  129. Founding or opening · University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Students found the Order of Gimghoul after hearing the Dromgoole story

    Five undergraduates founded a secret society after hearing university president Kemp Battle tell the Dromgoole story. They first called it the Order of Dromgoole and later shortened the name to Gimghoul.

  130. Construction or physical change · North Carolina Railroad bridge over the Eno near the depot, Hillsborough (by today's Gold Park) The Keystone Bridge Company replaces the wooden railroad bridge over the Eno at Hillsboro with an iron one

    Crews of the Keystone Bridge Company of Pittsburgh began replacing the wooden railroad bridge over the Eno near the Hillsboro depot with an iron bridge, expecting to finish by August 10. Trains kept running across it at three miles an hour.

  131. Property or economic transaction · 513 East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill The Presbyterian church buys the Phillips house on East Franklin Street for a manse

    After Charles Phillips left Chapel Hill and died in 1889, the Chapel Hill Presbyterian church bought his former home at 513 East Franklin Street and made it the minister's residence. Bryant dates the purchase to 1891.

  132. Founding or opening · Chapel Hill The YMCA takes charge of regular gymnasium training

    The trustees accepted a YMCA plan to put gymnasium exercises on a system, with each student paying a small fee, and Lacy L. Little, a recent honor graduate and former football captain trained at Springfield, was hired as trainer.

  133. Law, policy or court · New Hope Orange Presbytery decides an estate dispute that had divided New Hope's session

    A quarrel over a member's settlement of an estate, which Craig thought belonged in the civil courts, had been brought before the session. An adjourned meeting of the presbytery decided it, and the ruling deepened the split in the session.

  134. Life event · Chapel Hill Professor emeritus Charles Phillips dies

    Phillips, who came to Chapel Hill at four, graduated in 1841, taught mathematics for decades and chaired the faculty at the 1875 reopening, died ten years after retiring. He was buried in the Chapel Hill cemetery, and a tablet in the Presbyterian church records his work in building it.

  135. Construction or physical change · Southwest corner of the courthouse square, Hillsborough Hillsborough's town commissioners first meet in the new brick mayor's office and guard house

    The town board met for the first time in its new brick building on the courthouse square, with the mayor's office in front and two cells for prisoners behind. The building committee accepted the work and the board ordered $560 paid in full.

  136. Law, policy or court · New Hope Orange Presbytery removes all six active elders of New Hope

    Member David A. Claytor had carried a petition, which most of the members signed, calling on the active elders to resign; three agreed and three refused. Meeting at the church, the presbytery heard the parties, dissolved all six elders' relation to the church and ordered a new election.

  137. Appointment, election or service · New Hope New Hope re-elects three of its removed elders

    With the Rev. F. H. Johnston presiding, the congregation chose Charles W. Johnston, John T. Hogan and William C. Claytor again, and they were reinstalled before a large congregation.

  138. Appointment, election or service · Hillsborough Justices and commissioners elect a new board of education and school superintendent

    In joint session on June 3 the justices and commissioners chose John Thompson, W. V. Andrews and D. S. Parker as the county board of education. The next day, at a joint meeting of the commissioners and the new board, B. C. Patton was elected county superintendent of public instruction in place of the Rev. J. L. Currie, who had resigned.

  139. Property or economic transaction · Sans Souci, East Corbin Street, Hillsborough Sans Souci is sold at auction and passes to Episcopal Bishop Lyman

    Sans Souci was sold at public auction to a bidder named Parrish, who at once assigned his bid to the Episcopal bishop of North Carolina, Bishop Lyman of Raleigh.

  140. Naming or commemoration · Memorial Hall The university celebrates the centennial of its charter

    Alumni from Colorado to Florida filled Memorial Hall for a roll call of classes back to 1824, then sat down to a banquet for three hundred in Gerrard Hall with delegates from Harvard, Yale, Virginia and other schools. The reunion led to an annual alumni banquet, branch alumni associations and a drive to endow a chair of history.

  141. Founding or opening · Chapel Hill Chapel Hill's new Methodist church is dedicated

    During the centennial commencement Bishop W. W. Duncan preached at night in the new Methodist church, a collection cleared its $800 debt, and the church was dedicated.

  142. Life event · Chapel Hill Mathematics professor Ralph Henry Graves dies

    Graves, head of mathematics since the reopening, fell into deep depression, sought treatment in Baltimore and took his own life. His widow raised their four children in Chapel Hill and sent the sons through the university.

  143. Property or economic transaction · 175 West King Street and the Colonial Inn, Hillsborough David C. Parks buys the Parks-Richmond lot and joins it to the Colonial Inn lot as one hotel

    D. C. Parks bought Town Lot 18 on West King Street and combined it with Lot 15, the site of the present Colonial Inn, to run them as one hotel. The house on Lot 18 held the office, reception rooms and dining room, and the inn building held the sleeping rooms.

  144. 1890s
  145. Construction or physical change · Homestead Road, near Calvander A Hogan family log house goes up on Homestead Road

    In the 1890s a one-room log house was built for one of the Hogans, a family with homes all along the road. About 1935 it was built over and enlarged.

  146. Construction or physical change · Damascus A miller's house is built above Pritchard Mill

    About 1890 a small frame I-house was set on a knoll over the Pritchard Mill site on Damascus Church Road. The survey found no other miller's dwelling in the township; an early log barn stands beside it.

  147. Statistic or record · Orange County B. C. Patton's report finds most Orange County schoolhouses still built of logs

    Patton's annual report to the state counted 43 white and 41 Black schools with 1,425 white and 1,048 Black pupils. Thirty of the 43 white schoolhouses and 17 of the 24 Black ones were log buildings, and terms ran about twelve weeks.

  148. Construction or physical change · near Caldwell Breeze School is built near Caldwell

    A plain two-room frame schoolhouse with shuttered windows was probably built at Breeze, near Caldwell, in the 1890s. It is one of the few nineteenth-century schools left in the county.

  149. Statistic or record · Caldwell Caldwell Institute post office grows into a small trading place

    Around 1890 the Caldwell Institute post office, with about 119 people, had Jordan's and Terry's stores, Allison's carriage shop, a blacksmith, a doctor, Turner's Mill, the Caldwell Institute school and Little River Presbyterian Church.

  150. Statistic or record · Cedar Grove Cedar Grove is the busiest post office community in its township

    In the early 1890s Cedar Grove, with about sixty-five people, had the most businesses in its township. It had Cedar Grove Academy, the Methodist church, a doctor named Terrell, a tanner, a carriage maker and a dry goods merchant, with Eno Presbyterian Church and Compton's and Warren's mills a short way off. The High Rock and Yanceyville roads joined and ran east-west through the village.

  151. Founding or opening · Chestnut Ridge Methodist Church Chestnut Ridge Methodist Church is organized

    Chestnut Ridge Methodist Church was organized about 1890 and counted 270 members in 1953.

  152. Construction or physical change · Colonial Inn, Parks-Richmond House and Twin Chimneys, 153, 175 and 168 West King Street, Hillsborough D. C. Parks has designer Jules Körner remodel his hotel buildings and Twin Chimneys

    While he owned the Occoneechee Hotel, David C. Parks hired Jules Körner of Kernersville to update the hotel, the Parks-Richmond House next door and Twin Chimneys across West King Street, giving them new window and door frames with pointed-arch surrounds.

  153. Statistic or record · Bingham Township Four post offices serve Bingham Township

    In 1890 Bingham Township had post offices at Rock Springs (about 25 people), Teer's, Oaks (about 75) and Gath (about 40), each with nearby stores, doctors, carriage makers, blacksmiths and mills.

  154. Construction or physical change · near Rougemont Harris Grove Baptist Church is built near Rougemont

    Harris Grove Baptist Church in northeastern Orange County builds a front-gable frame church with a bell tower around 1890. Its cemetery holds burials from before 1920; the church stood empty by 1993.

  155. Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill Horace Williams begins teaching philosophy at the University of North Carolina

    Williams joined the faculty in 1890 as professor of philosophy and chaired the department from 1890 until 1935. He taught at Chapel Hill for fifty years, until his death in 1940.

  156. Construction or physical change · Borland Road, south of Hillsborough John Borland builds a two-story log house on his 100-acre farm

    About 1890 John Borland put up a full two-story log house with half-dovetail corners. It is one of only two two-story log houses the survey found in the township.

  157. Construction or physical change · Burwell School, North Churton Street, Hillsborough Jule Gilmer Korner remodels the former Burwell School

    In the 1890s the old Burwell School house was remodeled by Jule Gilmer Korner of Kernersville, who gave it a bracketed cornice, a sawnwork porch, a new hall stair and new mantels, including a marble one in the parlor. Several of the older mantels were lost in the work, which was done for an owner thought to be Mrs. Charles M. Parks.

  158. Statistic or record · Cedar Grove Township Laws and Border post offices serve the far corners of Cedar Grove Township

    In 1890 Cedar Grove Township had post offices at Cedar Grove, Laws and Border. Border, in the far southwest of the township, counted about twenty people, and Laws, in the far northeast, about twenty-five.

  159. Appointment, election or service · Rock Hill Baptist Church, Chapel Hill Louis H. Hackney is pastor of Rock Hill Baptist Church on West Franklin Street

    Louis H. Hackney, listed as a minister and living in Chapel Hill with his wife Lara Edwards Hackney by 1880, was pastor of Rock Hill Baptist Church on West Franklin Street by 1890. The church, organized in 1865, later moved to Roberson Street as First Baptist Church.

  160. Construction or physical change · 403 West Cameron Avenue, Chapel Hill Merchant Henry "Hoot" Patterson turns a West Cameron Avenue I-house into a Queen Anne villa

    In the 1890s Henry "Hoot" Patterson, whose general store was on East Franklin Street, bought the frame I-house at 403 West Cameron Avenue and turned it into a Queen Anne house with a rose window in a front gable, bracketed eaves, a bay window and an elaborate porch that wraps the corner.

  161. Statistic or record · Meridith, Little River Township Meridith post office serves northern Little River Township

    Around 1890 the Meridith post office in northern Little River Township had J. Law's store, the Riley and McKee sawmill and Berry's Grove Baptist Church close by.

  162. Statistic or record · Orange County Most Orange County farmers are renters, sharecroppers or hired hands

    In 1890, 58 percent of the county's farmers did not own their farms. Among Black farmers over half were field hands, a third sharecroppers and a tenth owners; more than a third of white farmers owned no land.

  163. Chapel Hill Robert Worth Bingham wins the university's Representative Medal

    As a University of North Carolina student, Robert Worth Bingham won the Representative Medal in 1890 for his oration "Manifest Destiny and Manifest Duty."

  164. Publication, speech or performance · Chapel Hill Students start the Chapel Hillian newspaper

    A student paper called the Chapel Hillian appeared, edited by F. H. Argo and S. A. Ashe Jr. It gave way to two rival papers, the White and Blue of the non-fraternity men and the Tar Heel of the fraternity men, and the Tar Heel outlasted its rival.

  165. Construction or physical change · Chapel of the Cross, East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill The Chapel of the Cross adds a chancel and vestry

    A chancel and a vestry room were built onto the rear of the 1848 Chapel of the Cross, replacing its original back wall. The vestry kept its corner fireplace, paneled wainscot and built-in cupboards into the 1970s.

  166. Construction or physical change · Jacobs House, 4416 St. Mary's Road, east of Hillsborough The Jacobs farmhouse is built on St. Mary's Road

    A two-story frame farmhouse of the Triple-A type was built in the 1890s on what the 1999 survey called the Jacobs property, where three barns and a silo also stand.

  167. Construction or physical change · southwest Orange County The Manly Snipes House is built in southwest Orange County

    The Manly Snipes House, a two-story farmhouse with a second-story wing projecting over the front entrance, was probably built around 1890.

  168. Construction or physical change · rural Orange County The Pritchard-Poythress Farm is built

    The Pritchard-Poythress Farm dates from the 1890s and was placed on the state Study List in July 1992 after the Chapel Hill Township survey.

  169. Statistic or record · Orange County The average Orange County farm is down to 114 acres

    As plantation land was sold off after the Civil War, farms in Orange County grew more numerous and smaller; the 1890 agricultural census put the average at 114 acres.

  170. Law, policy or court · Orange County The state superintendent tells Orange County to make its sheriff pay over the school taxes

    Teachers were holding $500 in unpaid orders with nothing in the school treasury because Sheriff John Knox Hughes had not turned over the taxes he collected. Asked for advice, the state superintendent advised Patton to collect from the sheriff or take him to court.

  171. Law, policy or court · Chapel Hill The trustees ban intercollegiate athletic contests

    After disputes with other colleges, the faculty in 1889 limited games to college grounds, and in 1890 the trustees forbade intercollegiate contests altogether. A student petition won repeal, with athletics put under an advisory committee of a professor, a graduate student and an undergraduate.

  172. Award or honor · Chapel Hill The university confers an honorary doctorate of laws on Zebulon Vance

    The University of North Carolina awarded Vance an honorary LL.D. in 1890, listing him as a student who had entered in 1851.

  173. Health or relief action · Chapel Hill The university starts a student medical fee

    Each student paid $5 a year for medical care without further charge. The university's infirmary building followed in 1894.

  174. Founding or opening · Chapel Hill The university's medical school reopens under Richard H. Whitehead

    After Dean T. W. Harris left in 1886, the medical school closed for three years for lack of money. It reopened in 1890 as the Medical Department under Dr. Richard H. Whitehead.

  175. Chapel Hill Thomas Hume leads the university Shakespeare Club's study of All's Well That Ends Well

    In the 1890-91 session Dr. Thomas Hume chaired a Shakespeare Club meeting on All's Well That Ends Well, gave a paper on the play's mixed styles and closed with notes on new books. Other members gave papers on the plot's source in Boccaccio and on its characters.

  176. Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill William Cain is elected to head mathematics and engineering

    To succeed Ralph H. Graves the trustees elected William Cain of the South Carolina Military Academy, an author on bridge building, which let the faculty begin teaching civil engineering at little added cost.

  177. Publication, speech or performance · Chapel Hill William James Battle publishes a register of the Dialectic Society

    The Dialectic Society catalogue, edited by William James Battle, was published in 1890. Its 168 pages hold a history of the society, members' recollections and sketches of members since 1795.

  178. Life event · Chapel Hill Professor Adolphus W. Mangum dies

    Mangum, a Methodist minister who had taught mental and moral science, history and English since the reopening, died after a long illness. Josephus Daniels gave a memorial address in Gerrard Hall on May 31, 1891.

  179. Appointment, election or service · Orange County John W. Thompson of Cedar Grove becomes superintendent of the Orange County schools

    John W. Thompson, a Cedar Grove teacher, took over the county schools from B. C. Patton in June 1890. He held the post until the board was abolished in 1895 and stayed on as supervisor under the county commissioners.

  180. Property or economic transaction · Chapel Hill Alumni pledge an endowment for a chair of history

    At the 1890 commencement banquet, alumni answered a call to endow a chair of history: Julian S. Carr pledged $10,000 and Judge James Grant offered to make up the balance. Battle then visited alumni in the larger towns to complete the fund.

  181. Life event · Hillsborough Frederick Strudwick dies and Hillsborough holds a meeting in his honor

    Strudwick died on 29 July 1890 after an illness of several months and was buried in the Hillsborough Cemetery. A special town meeting led by C. E. Parish was convened in his honor. Between the legislature and his death he had served as solicitor for the Fifth District for eight years.

  182. Appointment, election or service · New Hope James E. Fogartie is installed as pastor of New Hope and Chapel Hill

    Fogartie was called to New Hope jointly with the Chapel Hill church. About the same time the synod's evangelists W. D. Morton and a Mr. Maxwell held a meeting at New Hope that added a number of members.

  183. Law, policy or court · Orange County The school board rebukes teachers who skipped Charles McIver's institute

    Told that some teachers had not attended the state institute taught by Charles D. McIver, the board passed a resolution regretting their want of zeal and noting that attendance was required by law.

  184. Publication, speech or performance · Orange County A county farmer writes that merchants hold mortgages on most Orange farms

    With tobacco and cotton prices falling, a yeoman farmer said Orange was "mortgaged to death," claiming merchants held liens on seven-tenths of the county's farms.

  185. Construction or physical change · University Station Benjamin Duke builds a country house at University Station

    Durham tobacco industrialist Benjamin Duke built a large, richly trimmed country house at University Station in 1891. The site lay south of Hillsborough, where a railroad spur met the North Carolina Railroad. The retreat once took in a big pond, bridges, an office and many outbuildings; by 1993 most of these were gone, but the house with its wraparound porch was well kept.

  186. Construction or physical change · Mebane, Orange County Bingham School leaves Orange County for Asheville

    After fire destroyed the academic buildings and dormitories at the Mebane campus in December 1890, Robert Bingham moved the school to Asheville in 1891. Owen W. Bingham ran a separate school, the William Bingham School, at the Mebane site.

  187. Construction or physical change · Dickerson's Chapel A.M.E. Church, Churton and Queen streets, Hillsborough Dickerson's Chapel remodels the old courthouse church

    The AME congregation remodeled its building, the county's former courthouse, five years after buying it.

  188. Property or economic transaction · Central Hotel, Franklin Street, Chapel Hill Dr. Abner B. Roberson buys the Central Hotel and moves his drugstore into it

    After the hotel's owner, Jones Watson, died, Dr. Roberson bought the Central Hotel, moved his drugstore into it with Clyde Eubanks as druggist, and leased the hotel's management to 'Bunn' Patterson. Adam A. Kluttz opened a store called the Glass Front in the many-windowed west end of the building.

  189. Statistic or record · Five Forks, Cedar Grove Township Five Forks rivals Cedar Grove as a crossroads settlement

    In 1891 the crossroads of Five Forks was probably as populous as Cedar Grove. Allen's flour and grist mill and Sharp's sawmill stood nearby, and a Dr. Murphy lived at the fork and likely kept a store. Riley School, Harmony Primitive Baptist Church and Mount Zion Church lay between Five Forks and Border.

  190. Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill George Tayloe Winston serves as president of the university

    Elected president when Kemp Plummer Battle resigned in 1891, Winston led the university for five years, during which enrollment tripled to almost six hundred. In 1896 he left Chapel Hill to become the first president of the University of Texas.

  191. Property or economic transaction · Laws J. Laws keeps a country store at Laws post office

    In 1891 J. Laws ran a small country store at the Laws post office in northeastern Cedar Grove Township. Walnut Grove Methodist Church, Sartain School, G. W. Parker's sawmill and Hawkins's flour and grist mill stood nearby.

  192. Property or economic transaction · Border J. McAdams runs a mill and a country store near Border

    Around 1891 J. McAdams operated a mill and a small country store near the Border post office in southwestern Cedar Grove Township.

  193. Property or economic transaction · Poplar Hill (Occoneechee Farm), south bank of the Eno River, Hillsborough Julian S. Carr buys Poplar Hill south of the Eno and renames the estate Occoneechee Farm

    John Wall Norwood sold Poplar Hill, the house James Hogg had built about 1794 on the south bank of the Eno, to the Durham industrialist Julian S. Carr, who renamed the property Occoneechee Farm. Carr enlarged and altered the house over the next three decades.

  194. Property or economic transaction · Old Fetter house, East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill Laura Phillips sells the old Fetter house to Sarah Wellington

    After Charles Phillips died, his widow Laura sold off much of the family's property, including the old Fetter house on East Franklin Street. Professors John Manning, Edwin A. Alderman and Edward Vernon Howell lived there in turn over the next years.

  195. Property or economic transaction · Chapel Hill Mary Ann Smith's bequest endows the university's chemistry chair

    Smith of Raleigh had willed half her estate to the university in 1861 for a chair of chemistry applied to the useful arts, with free tuition for needy students. When she died in 1891 after many years in an asylum, the university settled its claim for $37,000, and her name went to the Smith professorship of chemistry and later the Mary Ann Smith dormitory.

  196. Closing or ending · Frederick Nash House, Hillsborough Nash and Kollock School closes as a boarding school

    The Nash and Kollock boarding school closed at the end of its 1890 to 1891 session after thirty-one years. The Misses Nash and Kollock went on with a day school from August 6, 1891.

  197. Law, policy or court · Orange County Orange County adopts a countywide road tax

    Using an 1889 state act, the county laid a road tax of 7 cents per $100 valuation and turned the money over to the township supervisors. It ran for 1891 and 1892 before the justices forced its repeal.

  198. Property or economic transaction · Hillsborough Military Academy site, Barracks Street, West Hillsborough The Farmers' State Alliance buys the old Hillsborough Military Academy grounds

    The former academy property west of Hillsborough passed in 1891 to the Farmers' State Alliance, the statewide farmers' organization, which bought the land. A 1913 plat of the neighborhood labels the old barracks as the Farm Life School building.

  199. Life event · Orange County Trustee Paul C. Cameron dies

    Cameron, who had held nearly two thousand people in slavery before emancipation, chaired the building committees for the 1875 repairs and for Memorial Hall and lent $8,000 to finish the hall. After his death his heirs accepted ten Cameron Scholarships, each giving one student free tuition, in settlement of the loan.

  200. Law, policy or court · Orange County The school board hires D. H. Thompson to audit the sheriff's school accounts

    Rather than sue, the board engaged Major D. H. Thompson to go through Sheriff Hughes's accounts of school money, hoping to settle the matter without a lawsuit.

  201. Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill Kemp Battle resigns the presidency to take the new chair of history

    Battle told the trustees in February 1891 that he would leave the presidency at the end of the session after fifteen years, and he became professor of history in the newly endowed chair. The trustees adopted resolutions of thanks.

  202. Property or economic transaction · Union and Churton streets, Hillsborough Hillsborough Methodist Church buys its first parsonage from C. M. Parks

    The church bought about nine-tenths of an acre at Union and Churton streets, with a house that became its first parsonage. The trustees were H. N. Brown Sr., S. M. Gattis, J. A. Harris, O. J. Forrest and James Hedgepeth.

  203. Construction or physical change · Occoneechee (Norwood) Mineral Spring, Occoneechee Farm, off Tuscarora Drive, Hillsborough Julian S. Carr rebuilds the Occoneechee mineral spring with a marble basin and a rustic spring house

    On his new Occoneechee Farm, Carr had the old mineral spring cleaned out and extended, set a marble basin in it, laid a cement floor and covered it with a rustic spring house with seats for visitors. The Orange County Observer described the finished work in September 1891.

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A dated event is a fact, filed on the page of the subject it belongs to: a person, a place, a theme, or a named event or history. Pages are subjects, with their own works and sources; the Place, community, or institution filter also gathers the institutions that recur in the entries without a page of their own. The page opens on the highlights; a search or any filter looks through every dated event and storyline, and each filter’s counts say how many entries choosing it would show alongside the others. A storyline is a longer history that gathers related dated events, and each storyline’s page lists its own. Counts give dated events and storylines separately. Dates come from the sources named on the cards and from the index’s event pages; where sources disagree, the card follows the county records. Entries marked approximate or needing research say so on the card; the rest were checked against the source named on it. The correction link under the entries opens the contact form; name the entry and its date and the Friends will check the source. Suggest an event →

Compiled and maintained by the Friends of the Orange County Public Library from county records, the sources named on each card, and the index’s event pages. Last updated October 1, 2026.

Two mice reading back to back against a leaf, with the hand-lettered words Friends of the Orange County Public Library
Illustration by Caldecott Medalist Matthew Cordell, gifted to the Friends 2026