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Hugh T. Lefler and Paul Wager (eds.), Orange County, 1752-1952 (1953): The county's bicentennial history, written by many contributors. It draws on earlier histories and questionnaires sent to churches and communities. Some dates conflict with other records.Open the sourceAll sources
Searched the full chronology of 9,006 dated events and 77 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 201–400 of 528, 200 to a page.Back to highlights
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Antebellum and Civil War · 1800–1865
- 1830s
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Harmony Primitive Baptist Church is organized
Harmony Primitive Baptist Church was organized about 1835. By 1953 it had three members.
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Slave trader George Lewis advertises in Hillsborough to buy 100 young people
Lewis, a commercial trader visiting the town, announced he would pay cash for one hundred young Black people.
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Orange County votes overwhelmingly for a constitutional convention
Orange voted 1,648 to 111 for calling a convention to reform representation, and Hillsborough, which stood to lose its borough seat, voted 228 to 23 in favor.
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Orange County sends physicians William Montgomery and James S. Smith to the 1835 convention
Ten men were put forward at meetings around the county, and the voters chose two physicians, William Montgomery and James S. Smith. Each sided with the majority that abolished borough seats, which cost Hillsborough its own member in the House of Commons.
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Dr. William Montgomery of Orange is elected to Congress
Montgomery, a Jackson Democrat and longtime state senator for Orange, defeated Daniel A. Barringer, carrying his home county 1,501 to 900. He served three terms.
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Clover Garden Methodist Church puts up its building
The Methodist congregation at Clover Garden, organized some time before, erected a church in 1836 with seats for about 150.
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County voters defeat a plan to form a new county from western Orange
After more than ten years of agitation by residents of the industrial west, a county referendum rejected the proposal by a wide margin. Alamance County was not created until 1849.
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James Phillips opens a female school in Chapel Hill
In 1836 mathematics professor James Phillips announced Phillips' Female School in Chapel Hill. Mrs. Phillips and a teacher from Emma Willard's seminary at Troy, New York, did most of the teaching.
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Orange County's Jacksonian majority narrows as leading men turn Whig
After many county leaders broke with Jackson, Orange gave Martin Van Buren 1,103 votes to 905 for the Whig Hugh L. White. From then until the Civil War the county's presidential majority went to the Whig candidate.
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Hugh Waddell of Orange serves as Whig Speaker of the state Senate
Waddell, who represented Orange in the Senate for three sessions between 1836 and 1846, was elected Whig Speaker of the Senate, 24 votes to 22 over William D. Mosely of Lenoir, when the 1836-1837 session opened on November 21, 1836.
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Edwin Michael Holt builds a cotton mill on Alamance Creek, then in Orange County
During the panic of 1837 Holt opened a cotton mill on Alamance Creek, run as Holt and Carrigan and starting with 528 spindles. The book calls it the first cotton mill in the county, in country that became Alamance in 1849.
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George Moses Horton's The Hope of Liberty is reprinted in Philadelphia and Boston
The 1829 collection by the enslaved Chapel Hill poet came out in a second edition in Philadelphia in 1837 and a third in Boston in 1838.
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John Berry completes a stone jail at Hillsborough
Building commissioners named in 1836 planned a two-story prison forty-five by twenty-four feet at a cost of no more than $4,000, and Berry won the contract.
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James P. Clark opens Fairfield School northwest of Hillsborough
In 1838 James P. Clark gave public notice of Fairfield School, which lay six miles northwest of Hillsborough.
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Thomas W. Holden opens Holden's English School
In 1838 Thomas W. Holden gave public notice of Holden's English School, kept at his home in Orange County.
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A memorial against dividing Orange County circulates in the Hillsborough Recorder
A memorial to the General Assembly from inhabitants of Orange opposed to division, printed in the Recorder while it went round for signatures, held that a large county was harder for any family, town or company to control and would keep the tax rate low, and asked the legislature not to disturb the county's ancient relations.
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Lemuel Lynch signs a Hillsborough town deed as a commissioner
Lynch is among the Hillsborough town commissioners whose names appear on the town's deeds in the county register's records, first on November 3, 1838, before the town had a mayor.
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John R. Holt opens Union Academy in western Orange
In 1839 John R. Holt gave public notice of Union Academy, a school in western Orange County.
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Maria L. Spear heads the Hillsborough Female Seminary
When the Hillsborough Female Academy's session opened on January 14, 1839, it was under its principal, Miss Maria L. Spear, whose work over several years past, the trustees said, had met their highest expectations. Her sister, Mrs. Elizabeth Smith, taught music, drawing and painting. William M. Green's last announcement for the school had run in 1838.
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Orange County voters approve the new state public school plan
When the 1839 school law put tax-supported common schools to a vote in each county, Orange approved. Approving counties raised $20 per district, matched two to one from the Literary Fund.
- 1840s
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Orange County's free Black population reaches 631
Free people of color in Orange grew from 101 in 1790 to 631 in 1840, the most of any Piedmont county, before hostility toward free Black residents cut the number to 481 or 487 in 1850.
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William A. Graham of Hillsborough is elected to the United States Senate
After seven years in the House of Commons, twice as Speaker, Graham was sent to the U.S. Senate in 1840. He left when Democrats controlled the Assembly of 1842-1843.
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Orange County receives its first state Literary Fund money for public schools
The earliest record of a Literary Fund allotment to Orange is $670.14 in September 1841, the year the county first had school officials. By 1853 the allotment was $2,543.
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Willie P. Mangum serves as president pro tempore of the U.S. Senate
Mangum, by then a leading Whig, presided over the Senate as president pro tempore for three years. He had turned down the Whig vice-presidential nomination in 1840.
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John Newlin and his sons build a cotton mill at Saxapahaw
The Quaker Newlins began a spinning mill on the Haw River at Saxapahaw in 1844, using enslaved labor to dig the millrace from a rock dam. The brick mill was ready to produce in 1848, the second cotton mill in the county.
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Students found the University Magazine at Chapel Hill
UNC students established the University Magazine in 1844. Apart from one short gap it ran for 104 years and was long the state's only cultural periodical; the Carolina Quarterly later carried on its tradition.
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Frederick Nash of Hillsborough is appointed to the North Carolina Supreme Court
After William Gaston's death the Council of State unanimously rejected the governor's first choice, George E. Badger, and in March 1844 accepted his second, Frederick Nash of Hillsborough, for the Supreme Court; the legislature elected him to the seat that December. Eight years later his colleagues made him Chief Justice.
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Orange County's William A. Graham is elected governor
Graham, the Whig nominee chosen unanimously in 1843, won the governorship at the election of August 1, 1844 and was re-elected in 1846. He served from 1845 to 1849.
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Lemuel Lynch becomes Hillsborough's first mayor
The silversmith Lemuel Lynch takes office as the first mayor of Hillsborough, which until then had been run by town commissioners and a magistrate of police.
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John Christmas builds new gallows at Hillsborough
The county's new gallows went up in 1846 and were moved four years later.
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Lemuel Lynch is paid to repair the courthouse clock
The old town clock, in storage since the market house came down, was repaired for the new courthouse and by mid-July 1846 was striking the hours from the cupola, where it still hangs. Lemuel Lynch was paid $250 for the work and afterward $25 a year to keep it running on time.
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Union Grove Methodist Church is organized
Union Grove Methodist Church was organized on September 23, 1846. The cornerstone of its later building was laid on the centennial of that day.
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Mount Hermon Baptist Church is organized
Mount Hermon Baptist Church was organized on June 24, 1848, with Jesse Howell as its first pastor. Its later church was built about 1913.
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Dr. Edmund Strudwick leads the revival of the state medical society
Edmund Strudwick of Hillsborough proposed and helped call the 1849 meeting that revived the North Carolina Medical Society, and he became its first president. His teacher James Webb was made an honorary charter member.
- 1850s
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Circuit rider Alson Gray organizes Orange Chapel Methodist Church
Orange Chapel Methodist Church was organized and built its first church in 1850 under the circuit rider Alson Gray.
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The county court moves the gallows to Gallows Hill
By court order the gallows went back to the old site known as Gallows Hill on the town commons in western Hillsborough.
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Bethel Baptist Church is organized
Bethel Baptist Church was organized in 1851. The church it used in 1953 went up about 1900.
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The Whigs nominate William A. Graham for vice president
Graham ran on the Whig ticket with General Winfield Scott in 1852. The ticket lost.
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The legislature charters the Chapel Hill and Raleigh Plank Road Company
The charter allowed $40,000 in capital, and the incorporators included W. J. Hogan and Edward Mallett of Chapel Hill.
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Webb and Douglass finish a cotton factory on Little River
Webb and Douglass had finished building a cotton mill on Little River, some thirteen miles east of Hillsborough, by February 1852, and machinery for 1,000 spindles was on its way. Later owners kept it running, for a time as a rope works, until about the 1920s.
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Brown and Wilkinson's Eagle Foundry is at work on the Eno
The Eagle Foundry, about three miles east of Hillsborough near Berry's mill, had opened shortly before February 1852 and could barely keep up with orders. It ran for many years.
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John W. Carr sits as a justice of the county court
Carr was one of five justices holding the February 1852 term of the Orange County court, which elected a Board of Superintendents of Common Schools and set the county tax.
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Robert and John Shields ready a woollen factory on the Eno
The Shields brothers built a woollen factory on the Eno about seven miles east of Hillsborough, whose machinery arrived in April 1852; it had just begun work when Robert M. Shields died that September. The Recorder thought it one of the first three or four in the state; it later ran as the Alpha Woolen Mills.
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The Hillsborough Recorder calls for a plank road from Hillsborough to Milton
An editorial regretted that no one had asked the last legislature to charter a company to build a plank road from Hillsborough to Milton by way of Roxboro or Yanceyville. It hoped a stock company would form under the general act of 1850-51 while a charter was sought.
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George Laws becomes clerk of the Orange County court
Laws succeeded Joseph Allison as clerk of the county court of pleas and quarter sessions at Hillsborough. Under the 1868 constitution he became clerk of the superior court and judge of probate.
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Caldwell Lodge No. 180 is chartered at Chapel Hill
Members of the defunct University Lodge took out a new charter as Caldwell Lodge No. 180, honoring the late university president Joseph Caldwell.
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The legislature charters four plank road companies through Orange County
The 1855 charters were for roads from Chapel Hill to Morrisville and to Durhamsville, from Hillsborough to Chapel Hill, and from Hillsborough to Milton, with capital from $20,000 to $150,000. The book could not say which, if any, were built.
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Willie P. Mangum is made a justice of the peace on his return to Orange County
According to the book, Mangum was made a justice of the peace on his return to Orange County in 1855, so that the county court could draw on his knowledge and experience.
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Hillsborough elects a Know Nothing slate in its town elections
In the town election of February 3, 1855, Hillsborough voters chose a Nativist (American Party) ticket: Lemuel Lynch as magistrate of police and James C. Turrentine, Josiah Turner Sr., George Laws, Charles M. Latimer, Levin Carmichael, Joseph Reese and J. J. Freeland as commissioners. The same year the county's congressional vote went to the Know Nothing candidate.
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Lemuel Lynch serves a second term as mayor of Hillsborough
Ten years after becoming the town's first mayor, Lynch succeeded A. C. Murdock and served a year, followed by James M. Palmer.
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Orange County reports its county taxes to the state for the first time
County taxes, all on property and polls, came to $9,432.53 in 1856: $6,153.98 for county costs, $1,583.92 for the poor and $1,694.63 for common schools. By 1864 the county levy had grown to $35,106.63.
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The wardens of the poor elect Dr. Benjamin F. Mebane physician to the poorhouse
At the same April 1857 meeting the Court of Wardens told its treasurer to hand over the rest of the 1856 poor taxes so the superintendent could pay the oldest orders first.
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The wardens of the poor order poorhouse repairs and a $1,000 loan
After a called meeting on May 11, 1857 about the state of the poorhouse building, the wardens asked the county court on May 25 to summon the magistrates on the condition of the poor. They named a committee to repair the west building and let the superintendent borrow $1,000.
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Calvin E. Parish becomes Hillsborough postmaster
Calvin E. Parish was appointed postmaster at Hillsborough, succeeding James M. Palmer. He held the office before and during the Civil War, and Dennis Heartt was appointed in his place in June 1865.
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The General Assembly lets Emily Hooper, a citizen of Liberia, return to slavery in Chapel Hill
A private act allowed Emily Hooper, who had emigrated to Liberia, to come back and live again as the enslaved property of her former owner, Sally Mallet of Chapel Hill.
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New Bethel Methodist Church is organized
John R. McMannan, Jackson Latta and five other men organized New Bethel Methodist Church in 1859. The church it used in 1953 dated from 1925.
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The legislature creates North Carolina's first Board of Medical Examiners
In 1859 the state set up its first Board of Medical Examiners by law. The book credits the urging of Hillsborough's Dr. Edmund Strudwick.
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Calvin E. Parish serves as mayor of Hillsborough
Parish followed Dr. Roscoe Hooker as mayor of Hillsborough in February 1859 and served until A. C. Murdock took office in February 1860.
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Masons lay a cornerstone at the Hillsborough Military Academy
On Saturday, August 13, 1859, the Masons of Eagle Lodge, with the Orange Guards, the academy's cadets and a large crowd, marched from the court house to the site about a mile and a half west of town, near the railroad, and laid the cornerstone of the Hillsborough Military Academy's barracks. Henry K. Nash gave the address.
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Bishop Atkinson consecrates St. Mary's Chapel
The St. Mary's Chapel building in eastern Orange County was consecrated by Bishop Atkinson with the Rev. Dr. Curtis taking part.
- 1860s
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David Moore, a free Black barber in Chapel Hill, holds property worth $4,400
The 1860 census recorded Moore's property at $4,400, the largest holding among the county's 29 free Black property owners, whose combined wealth was $16,175.
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First Baptist Church of Hillsborough builds its church
Seven years after organizing in the old courthouse, the First Baptist Church of Hillsborough began its brick church about 1860, to a design by William Percival. The congregation met in the courthouse until 1862 and the war stalled the work; John Berry took over from the first builder, D. Kistler, and finished it. The Baptist State Convention met in the newly completed church in the fall of 1868, when Rev. Thomas H. Pritchard of Raleigh preached the dedication sermon.
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Orange County teaches 57 district schools
In 1860 Orange County taught fifty-seven district schools with forty-five licensed teachers, on about $7,400 in state school money and $1,800 in county taxes, in terms of about four months, two decades after the state's first public school law. The 1860 census, counting differently, listed 25 public schools with 2,163 pupils.
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At least 1,260 Orange County men serve in the Confederate army
J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton counted 1,260 Orange men in Moore's Roster, of whom 249 died in service and 139 were wounded. He thought all three figures too low.
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The Orange County court sets aside $50,000 for soldiers' families
Recognizing that many volunteers were men of small means, the county court appropriated $50,000 to support their families. The fund lasted until late in the war.
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Women organize Ladies Aid Societies in Hillsborough and Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill women organized their Soldiers' Aid Society on June 8, 1861, with Mrs. M. Hargrave as president and Mrs. E. Grant as treasurer, and forty Hillsborough women met on July 15 to form a permanent society. These and later aid societies made clothing and bandages, gathered food and money, met troop trains and nursed the sick and wounded until the war ended.
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The legislature elects William A. Graham to the Confederate Senate
Early in the session that began after the 1862 election, the Assembly chose Graham, then Orange's state senator, for the Confederate Senate term starting in May 1864. He kept his state seat until December 1863.
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Hillsborough Savings Institution stockholders vote to stop paying interest
At a called meeting on August 9, 1862, stockholders holding 512 shares resolved to pay no interest on deposit certificates after September 16 and to settle all certificates by then. Cashier John U. Kirkland published the notice.
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New Hope Presbyterian Church builds its fourth church
In the middle of the Civil War, New Hope Presbyterian Church put up its fourth building, the one still in use in 1953.
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The county school board names committeemen for all 53 districts in wartime
The Board of Superintendents appointed school committeemen for each of Orange County's 53 districts, a sign the public schools stayed open during the war. That month W. H. Brown's examining committee also called would-be teachers to the courthouse in May.
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Assessors announce the listing of Orange County property under the Confederate tax
H. M. Stroud and A. M. Angier advertised fourteen places and dates, August 18 to September 4, to list produce, goods and money under the Confederate tax act of April 24, 1863. A tax-in-kind notice followed in December 1864.
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Josiah Turner Jr. of Hillsborough is elected to the Confederate Congress
Turner won as an anti-administration candidate in the Confederate congressional election of November 4, 1863, carrying Orange by a majority of 739. In Congress his resolutions supported Graham's push for the Hampton Roads peace conference.
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Orange County's roll of justices of the peace reaches 62
The county court had usually been small, and often only five or six magistrates sat at a term, but the number of justices rose sharply during the war. By 1864 Orange had 62.
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Washington Duke begins manufacturing smoking tobacco on his farm
Back from Confederate service, Washington Duke starts making smoking tobacco on his Orange County farm, the start of the business his sons later built into W. Duke and Sons.
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The county court sets its 1865 levy for poor relief and soldiers' families
The February court matched the state tax on land and polls and split the money: $15,000 for poor relief, $10,000 for county purposes and the rest for soldiers' families. The previous August, presiding justice James C. Turrentine had called all the justices together on the families' support.
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Orange County sends John Berry and Samuel F. Phillips to the 1865 convention
Orange would have elected Graham to the postwar convention, but his pardon was held up, so he withdrew and voters chose Berry and Phillips.
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Orange County voters ratify the ordinances abolishing slavery and repudiating secession
In the 1865 vote on the convention's work, Orange approved the abolition of slavery 169 to 73 and the repudiation of secession 170 to 55.
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The legislature elects William A. Graham to the U.S. Senate, but Congress refuses to seat him
Elected to the state Senate in 1865, Graham could not take that seat without a pardon. The legislature then chose him for the U.S. Senate, and he was turned away with the rest of the state's delegation. His pardon arrived in 1867.
Reconstruction and the New South · 1866–1899
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The Union League organizes Black voters in Orange County
The Republican Union League, organized in Orange, Alamance and Guilford by Albion W. Tourgee, its first state president, recruited nearly every Black man who would vote before the 1867 election. It had faded by the end of 1870.
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Sheriff H. B. Guthrie announces that the county treasury is empty
His notice to taxpayers said no county tax had been levied or collected for 1865, the treasury held not a dollar and the wardens of the poor were deep in debt. He set fifteen collection days in July.
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Orange County votes against the proposed state constitution of
Voters rejected the constitution submitted by the reconvened convention, 494 to 392.
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The wardens' yearly count finds 21 people in the poorhouse
The count listed three adult men, thirteen adult women and five children of color, three of whom had white mothers. In October the wardens kept James M. Bain as superintendent at $150 a year, with $25 for his wife.
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Josiah Turner Jr. wins Orange's Senate seat but is excluded under the Fourteenth Amendment
Turner won election as state senator in 1868 but was not seated, since his disabilities under the Fourteenth Amendment were still in force. John W. Graham was elected instead.
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Ned Strowd organizes Terrell Creek Baptist Church
Ned Strowd organized Terrell Creek Baptist Church, a Black congregation, on Atwater Road about two miles south of its later site.
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The White Brotherhood, a Ku Klux order, appears in Orange County
The first Klan-type order to reach North Carolina, the White Brotherhood, set up camps including one at Hillsborough. Its Orange County chief was Colonel Joseph C. Webb, followed by Frederick N. Strudwick.
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Orange County votes against the 1868 constitution and for Thomas S. Ashe over Holden
Orange rejected the new Reconstruction constitution 1,863 to 1,324 and gave Conservative Thomas S. Ashe 1,834 votes to 1,310 for William W. Holden, who carried the state.
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The Court of Wardens of the Poor holds its last meeting
The seven-member wardens' court, which had run poor relief and the county poorhouse, met for the last time before the new board of county commissioners took over its work.
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Orange County's first elected board of commissioners takes office
Elected in April 1868 at the election that ratified the new constitution, five commissioners qualified at the courthouse and chose Lemuel Lynch chairman, replacing the old county court of justices. Within days the newly elected sheriff, treasurer, register of deeds and clerk of superior court gave their bonds.
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Commissioners hire Silas M. Link to divide the county into townships
Link was paid $75 to lay the school districts out into townships, and the board approved his plan of eight: Hillsboro, Little River, Mangum, Durham, Patterson, Chapel Hill, Bingham and Cedar Grove. In 1877 the board split Mangum at Little River to form Lebanon Township.
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The new county commissioners name school committees for all 53 districts
Working from Silas Link's report, which listed the school districts in each new township, the board named three committeemen for every one of the county's 53 districts. Presumably they were meant to hold office until the townships could elect their own.
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A school report finds 43 schoolhouses for nearly 6,000 children
A. Hooker, late chairman of the common schools board, counted 3,667 white and 2,235 Black children in the county and only 43 schoolhouses, most run down, to serve both races. He put the need at 63 new buildings of about $100 each.
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Baptists form the Mount Zion Association
The Mount Zion Baptist Association was formed, with the Chapel Hill Baptist church a charter member. Howell, working from the church's minute book, says it was established in 1869 and first met formally at Chapel Hill in 1870. By 1953 nearly every Baptist church in Orange County belonged to it, replacing the older Sandy Creek Association.
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J. W. Norwood of Hillsborough warns county farmers that their methods are ruining the land
In an 1869 talk to Orange County farmers, Norwood said the county's fields were exhausted because growers added no organic matter, rotated nothing and let rain wash the soil away. He urged a new system before ruin set in.
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Chapel Hill's town board holds the earliest meeting with surviving minutes
The oldest surviving town minutes record a meeting of commissioners H. C. Thompson, James F. Craige and Greene Brewer. The town census taker, W. S. Guthrie, reported 937 residents, 483 white and 454 Black.
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Orange County holds its first township elections
Voters in each township chose magistrates, a clerk, a constable and school committeemen for the first time. In Chapel Hill Township 540 of 565 registered voters cast ballots.
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Klansmen take two Black prisoners from jail and shoot one of them
A few nights after three barns burned in late July 1869, two Black men accused of another barn burning were taken from jail. One was let go; the other was shot and died.
- 1870s
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J. T. Hogan serves as an Orange County commissioner
Lefler and Wager's list of Orange County commissioners gives J. T. Hogan a term from 1870 to 1872.
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Mount Sinai Baptist Church is organized
Black Baptists organized Mount Sinai Baptist Church in 1870 with E. H. Cole as first pastor.
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The 1870 census records Orange County's losses since
Against 1860, farm values fell from $2,141,690 to $977,308, improved acreage from 101,354 to 73,745 and livestock value by nearly half, while manufacturing establishments rose from 61 to 92. The population was 17,507, including 6,420 Black residents.
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The Dukes move their tobacco business into a wooden factory in Durham
The Duke family's smoking tobacco business outgrows the farm and moves into a wooden factory at Durham, then still part of Orange County.
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Disguised men whip residents of the county poorhouse
Men in disguise entered the poorhouse at night and whipped several of the men and women living there. On March 10 the commissioners offered a $200 reward for the attackers, over the written protest of commissioner W. N. Patterson, who defended the raiders' motives.
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Henrietta Heartt is appointed Hillsborough's postmaster
Henrietta Heartt becomes the first woman on the list of Hillsborough postmasters, succeeding Dennis Heartt. The Hillsborough Recorder reported on May 25, 1870 that Governor Holden had offered the office to the Heartt family and that it had been declined, and on June 1 that Arch. C. Hunter of University Station had been appointed postmaster. Harriet H. Strayhorn in 1873 and Mary E. Berry in 1882 followed her.
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William L. Saunders of Chapel Hill refuses to answer the congressional Klan committee
Called before the joint committee on affairs in the insurrectionary states, Saunders, whom the book names as head of the Invisible Empire in North Carolina, declined to answer 53 questions about the Ku Klux.
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John H. Watson serves as Chapel Hill's magistrate of police
Watson headed the town government as magistrate of police in 1872 and again from 1876 to 1878, before the amended charter of 1879 created the office of mayor.
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Andrew Mickle serves as Chapel Hill's magistrate of police
Under the town charter the commissioners chose a magistrate of police to preside at their meetings, and Andrew Mickle held the office in 1874 and 1875. In March 1870 a rival group of citizens claiming to be the town's officers had named him to the post, which the sitting board said was without authority of law.
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Calvin E. Parish is elected state senator for Orange County
Orange County elected Parish to the state Senate in 1874, with Joseph W. Latta and Matthew Atwater in the House. He was elected to the House in 1876 and to the Senate again in 1880.
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Mount Bright Baptist Church builds its church in Hillsborough
Mount Bright Baptist Church, the Black Baptist congregation in Hillsborough led by Alfred Bright, erected its church building in 1875.
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Commissioners order a new bell for the courthouse
The board authorized David C. Parks to buy and hang a new bell for the courthouse and to sell the old one on the best terms he could.
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County commissioners and township trustees adopt a uniform tax scale for livestock
Meeting with a trustee from each township, the board fixed values such as $100 for a first-class horse or mule, $20 for first-class cattle and $1 a head for sheep and goats. In May and June it sat sixteen days as a board of equalization to revise the tax list.
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William A. Graham defeats Washington Duke for a seat in the 1875 convention
On August 5, 1875, Orange elected Graham over Duke, 1,908 to 1,528, and Josiah Turner Jr. over John T. Hogan. Graham died before the convention met, and William N. Patterson beat Duke again in a special election on September 16, 2,000 to 1,297.
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Kemp Plummer Battle becomes president and reorganizes the university
The trustees, meeting in Raleigh on June 15, 1876, elected Kemp Plummer Battle president, and he reorganized the reopened university that year. He served until 1891 and later wrote its two-volume history.
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The poorhouse count records ten deaths in a single year
The enumeration listed six white men, eight white women, four Black men and six Black women living at the poorhouse. Over the previous year ten residents had died, two children had been born, twelve people had come in and four had left.
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Andrew Mickle is appointed Chapel Hill postmaster
Andrew Mickle was appointed postmaster at Chapel Hill on May 19, 1877, succeeding Hugh B. Guthrie. Thomas M. Kirkland followed him on January 31, 1881.
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Hickory Grove Baptist Church is organized
Black families organized Hickory Grove Baptist Church, with C. D. Hackney as first pastor.
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Dr. T. W. Harris opens a private medical school in Chapel Hill
In 1878 Dr. T. W. Harris moved from Chatham County to Chapel Hill and started a private medical school there. Within a year the university absorbed it and named him the first dean of its School of Medicine.
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Mount Zion AME Church is organized at Martinsville
Lefler and Wager say five Black men, Jack Horner, Bedford Corbett, Richard Jordan, Sam McBroom and Richard Thompson, organized the church about 1878 at Martinsville, probably the Martin farm near Cedar Grove. The congregation's own history dates its first gatherings to about 1869 and says it was known as Poplar Springs, with a pastor by 1878, until it took the Mount Zion AME name about 1880. It bought an acre from S. W. and Margaret J. Hughes in 1882 and moved to its present site about 1927.
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Cornelia Phillips Spencer edits the Chapel Hill Weekly Ledger
For some months in 1879 Cornelia Phillips Spencer edited the Chapel Hill Weekly Ledger, with students R. P. Pell and Francis D. Winston as assistants. The book calls her the county's only woman editor; Charles B. Aycock took over from her.
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Latta Grove Baptist Church is organized
Jerry M. Latta and others organized Latta Grove Baptist Church about 1879.
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An 1879 charter amendment gives Chapel Hill's mayor the powers of a justice of the peace
An amendment ratified March 14, 1879 clothed the mayor of Chapel Hill with a justice of the peace's powers in Orange County, let the commissioners build or rent a lockup costing up to $300, capped town taxes at two-thirds of the state and county levy, and allowed a license tax of up to $5. The act speaks of the mayor as an office already in being; Lefler and Wager count Merritt Cheek, serving to 1881, as the first mayor. Until 1895 the board of commissioners chose the mayor.
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John C. Blake deeds Eno River land to the Catholic diocese
John C. Blake conveyed 15 acres on the Eno River to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Raleigh, decades before any Catholic parish was organized in the county.
- 1880s
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Fire destroys Caldwell Lodge's records and the lodge gives up its charter
A fire destroyed all of Caldwell Lodge's old records, and the Chapel Hill lodge surrendered its charter the same year.
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Glenn's Grove Baptist Church is organized
Glenn's Grove Baptist Church, a Black congregation, was organized about 1880 with Henry Fuller as first pastor.
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Mount Olive Lodge No. 86 of Prince Hall Masons is established
Black Masons established Mount Olive Lodge No. 86, a Prince Hall lodge serving Chapel Hill and Carrboro. Randolph Chapter No. 185 of the Order of the Eastern Star was associated with it.
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Orange Cross Roads Baptist Church is organized
Orange Cross Roads Baptist Church, a Black Baptist congregation, was organized about 1880. It built its church in 1923.
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Mebaneville, the railroad village on the Orange-Alamance line, is incorporated
The settlement that grew along the North Carolina Railroad from 1854 was incorporated in 1881 and shortened its name to Mebane in 1883. Part of the town lies in Orange County.
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The General Assembly makes its first regular appropriation to the university
In 1881 the General Assembly voted the university its first regular appropriation for maintenance, secured under President Kemp Battle. Until then the state had given no specific money for its upkeep.
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The commissioners allow gates across the roads at Orange Factory
The board ordered a gate on the road from Orange Factory to the Durham and Roxboro road near the old Douglas place, and another across the road on the opposite side of the river on S. W. Holman's land.
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Jones Watson serves as mayor of Chapel Hill
Jones Watson, one of the five commissioners named in the town's 1851 charter, was mayor of Chapel Hill in 1882, an office the town's charter had created in 1879. His brother John H. Watson followed him in 1883.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Alphonso J. McDade serves as mayor of Chapel Hill
A. J. McDade was mayor of Chapel Hill in 1884, an office the town charter had created in 1879. John H. Watson held it the year before and the two years after.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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University Lodge No. 408 is chartered at Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill Masons had opened University Lodge by October 1887, with Prof. Nelson B. Henry as Worshipful Master, and revived it under a new charter as University Lodge No. 408 in 1888, with W. N. Pritchard as first Master. It met for years above a store on Franklin Street.
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Alphonso J. McDade returns as mayor of Chapel Hill
McDade served a second stretch as mayor from 1888 through 1890, following W. N. Pritchard. John H. Watson succeeded him in 1891.
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Piney Grove Baptist Church is organized
W. M. Ray organized Piney Grove Baptist Church, a Black congregation, and served as its first pastor.
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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.
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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.
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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.
- 1890s
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Chestnut Ridge Methodist Church is organized
Chestnut Ridge Methodist Church was organized about 1890 and counted 270 members in 1953.
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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.
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John H. Watson serves four years as mayor of Chapel Hill
Watson, who had been mayor in 1883 and again in 1885 and 1886, held the office from 1891 through 1894, his longest run. A. S. Barbee followed him.
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Orange County adopts a countywide road tax
Using an 1889 state act, the county commissioners and justices in joint session on June 1, 1891 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.
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Lee's Chapel Baptist Church is organized
William H. Standfield organized Lee's Chapel Baptist Church, a Black congregation, and was its first pastor.
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The justices of the peace vote to repeal the county road tax
In joint session, a majority of the county's justices voted to end the alternative road system while every commissioner voted to keep it. After a second standoff in July, the commissioners gave way on August 8, 1893.
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Justices and commissioners hold their last joint meeting
At the final joint session the justices elected John Thompson county superintendent of common schools, chose D. H. Hamilton, W. A. Maddry and M. W. Moore as commissioners, and set the 1894 tax. It closed out the justices' part in running the county.
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County commissioners take charge of the Orange County schools
From 1895 to 1897 Orange had no Board of Education or superintendent; the county commissioners ran the schools. John W. Thompson, superintendent before and after, returned in June 1897.
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The county board of equalization raises every Little River Township assessment by a third
The three county commissioners, joined by one assessor from each township, sat as the board of equalization, compared the standards each of them had applied, and increased every assessment in Little River Township by one-third.
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Ebenezer Baptist Church is organized
Ebenezer Baptist Church was organized and built its first church in 1896, with Dalphus Crabtree as first pastor. A 300-seat building replaced it in 1952.
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John W. Canada starts the Canada School in Chapel Hill
Soon after graduating from the university in 1896, John W. Canada organized a private school in Chapel Hill that prepared students for college. He ran it with his brother Charles, Sallie Wilson and a Miss Hendon until he left for Texas soon after 1900.
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Voters again elect Orange County's commissioners
From August 1878 the justices of the peace had chosen the county commissioners every two years under the 1877 act. In 1896 the choice went back to the voters.
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The Junior Order of United American Mechanics sets up a lodge in Hillsborough
A lodge of the Junior Order of United American Mechanics was set up in Hillsborough. It later moved to Carrboro and then to Chapel Hill, where it operated as Davie Council No. 52.
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Masons lay the cornerstone of the Alumni Building
Chapel Hill's University Lodge No. 408 took part in the Masonic laying of the cornerstone for the university's Alumni Building.
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The Bank of Chapel Hill is established
The bank's incorporators met at Chapel Hill on April 12, 1899, elected Julian S. Carr president, C. L. Lindsay vice president and S. T. Peace cashier, and voted to build a brick bank house; the bank opened for business in July. Founded with $10,000 authorized and $2,500 paid in, it was the county's first bank after the Civil War, and by 1953 it held $8,500,000 in assets.
Early twentieth century · 1900–1944
- 1900s
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Hillsboro Township petitions for and votes a special road tax
A petition presented on October 1, 1900 led to an election that carried, and the commissioners levied 10 cents per $100 and 30 cents a poll for Hillsboro Township roads. Bingham followed, and by 1903 all seven townships taxed themselves for roads.
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A Pilgrim Holiness congregation is organized in West Hillsborough
A Holiness congregation, later the Pilgrim Holiness Church of West Hillsborough, was organized in 1902. It had a 250-seat building and 27 members in 1953.
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The university offers the clinical years of medicine in Raleigh
From 1902 to 1910 the university tried offering the two clinical years and an M.D. degree, but those courses were taught in Raleigh rather than Chapel Hill. Otherwise it gave only the first two years of medicine until 1952.
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Commissioners create Cheeks and Eno townships
Acting on a 1903 act, the county board carved Cheeks Township out of western Hillsboro Township and formed Eno River Township out of pieces of Hillsboro and Little River.
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Efland Baptist Church is organized
Baptists at Efland organized a church in 1904. It had 55 members in 1953.
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Mebane School District becomes the first to tax itself for a longer school term
After a district election, the commissioners gave the sheriff a tax list for the Mebane district at 30 cents per $100 and 90 cents a poll. By 1910 special school taxes were collected in six districts.
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The Bank of Orange opens in Hillsborough
Started in May 1904 with $5,000 in capital, it was Hillsborough's first bank since the Civil War. Dr. J. S. Spurgeon was president and Paul C. Collins cashier for its whole life.
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Efland Methodist Church is organized
Methodists at Efland organized a church and built it the same year.
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Gains Chapel AME Church is organized at Efland
Robert Watson, Shurman Morrow and Brown Wright led the organization of Gains Chapel, an African Methodist Episcopal church at Efland, about 1906.
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A storm damages the corner of Franklin and Columbia streets in Chapel Hill
A photograph in the book's plates shows storm damage at Franklin and Columbia streets on January 26, 1906.
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Occoneechee Lodge No. 299 of the Odd Fellows is chartered
The Independent Order of Odd Fellows chartered Occoneechee Lodge No. 299, which lasted until 1921.
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Hillsborough Township issues $40,000 in bonds for macadam roads
Under a 1901 state act, Hillsborough was the only Orange township to vote road bonds. Its voters asked for a $40,000 bond election in February 1907 and the commissioners called it for April 16, 1907; by November 1908 bondholders held $56,000 of township road bonds and a third issue of $10,000 was dated January 1, 1909. The money built a few miles of macadam road. When the county sold its own road bonds in 1913, the township was repaid half.
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E. M. Highsmith becomes the first superintendent of the Chapel Hill schools
The book's list of Chapel Hill school superintendents begins with E. M. Highsmith, 1908 to 1910. Chapel Hill ran its schools as a separate unit under a special legislative charter.
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Efland Presbyterian Church is organized
Presbyterians at Efland organized a church and built a 150-seat building in 1910.
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Eno Cotton Mill is enlarged and adds gingham
In 1909 the Hillsborough mill was expanded again and began weaving gingham alongside chambray and plaids. Some yarn was still sold unwoven until the First World War.
- 1910s
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Carrboro Methodist Church is organized
Methodists in the mill village that became Carrboro organized a church in 1910 with W. A. Stanbury as first pastor.
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The First Pentecostal Holiness Church of West Hillsborough is organized
A. G. Cannady, Charles Martin, R. S. Andrews and others organized a Pentecostal Holiness church in West Hillsborough, with Cannady as first pastor. Its 1953 building dated from 1948.
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A Christian Church congregation is organized in Chapel Hill
The Christian Church congregation later called United Congregational Christian Church was organized in Chapel Hill and built its church in 1914.
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John L. Efland starts a hosiery mill at Efland
Efland's first hosiery plant, opened by John L. Efland in 1912, first made half hose and later full-fashioned stockings. Relatives' later mills grew from it.
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Wade's Temple is organized at Efland
Wade's Temple, a United Holy Church congregation at Efland, was organized in 1912 with George Wade as first pastor and built its church in 1915.
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Orange County voters approve $250,000 in road bonds
Under a 1911 local act, the county voted 919 to 831 to borrow for grading and macadamizing its roads, with a nine-member good roads commission to pick them. The bonds, sold about a year later at 5 percent for 40 years, were the county's first and left a debt not cleared until 1953.
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Orange County begins agricultural extension work
The commissioners put up $300 to match a state appropriation for extension work with farmers. The county dropped its share in December 1915 and revived the work during the war.
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Carr Methodist Church is organized
Carr Methodist Church was organized in 1913 and built a church in 1915.
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Mebane Chapel is organized in Hillsborough
Mebane Chapel, a United Holy Church congregation in Hillsborough, was organized in 1913 and built a 250-seat church the next year.
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Strowd's Garage opens in Chapel Hill as the first garage in Orange County
A plate caption identifies Strowd's Garage in Chapel Hill, pictured about 1913, as the county's first garage.
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Orange County begins registering births and deaths
The county's birth and death records are complete from October 1913, when registration began. By the 1950s the district health officer served as registrar and sent copies to the register of deeds and the state Bureau of Vital Statistics.
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John Laws dies after more than sixty years as register of deeds
Laws served as register of deeds and clerk to the county board from at least October 1849, apart from 1853 to 1855, until his death at 92.
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White Oak Grove Baptist Church is organized
Charles Wells and William Thompson were leaders of White Oak Grove Baptist Church, a Black congregation organized about 1914.
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Flat Rock AME Church is organized
Flat Rock, an African Methodist Episcopal congregation, was organized about 1915 and built a 300-seat church in 1952.
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A. W. Clarke becomes Orange County's superintendent of roads
A 1915 act ended township road administration in Orange and put every county road under a superintendent. Clarke accepted $65 a month from March through November and $3 a day for winter work.
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A Christian Church congregation is organized near Mebane
The congregation later called Mebane Congregational Christian Church was organized on May 16, 1915, with W. C. Clements, pastor of the Christian church in Chapel Hill, as first pastor. Its building was finished in 1931.
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Mary Owen Graham is endorsed as supervisor of Orange County's canning clubs
The commissioners approved Graham, of Charlotte, to lead the county's canning clubs, the start of extension work with farm women. In 1916 they renewed $250 a year for tomato club work.
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The county road superintendent is equipped to work convicts on the roads
In 1916 the board authorized the road superintendent to buy the equipment he needed to put convicts to work. Prisoners were used on county road projects until the state took over most sentenced prisoners in 1931.
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The Chapel Hill to Durham road is turned over to the federal engineer
The commissioners placed the road under the U.S. government engineer, as the central highway through Hillsborough already was, and set $40 a mile a year for upkeep. On May 1 they did the same for the road from Carrboro to the Alamance line by way of White Cross.
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W. H. Parker serves as Carrboro's first listed mayor
W. H. Parker heads the list of Carrboro mayors in 1917, four years after the mill town of Venable took the name Carrboro. He served again from 1937 to 1941.
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Township road inspectors classify the county's roads
The inspectors the board had named in each township reported 37 miles of central highways, 62.1 miles of Class A roads and 365.2 miles of Class B roads. The same year the board began paying for bridges, pipes and road tools from general county funds.
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West Hill Baptist Church is organized in West Hillsborough
J. F. McDuffie and S. W. Oldham led the organization of West Hill Baptist Church, and Oldham became its first pastor. The book dates its building to May 1, 1920.
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R. H. Claytor becomes superintendent of the Orange County schools
R. H. Claytor took office as county school superintendent in September 1917 and served until July 1947. Merging the small rural schools was one of his first goals.
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Federal and state agriculture departments survey Orange County's soils
Crews from the U.S. and North Carolina departments of agriculture mapped the county's soils during the 1918 field season. E. S. Vanatta's report, published in 1921, identified twenty-three soil types.
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The Bivins Liner Company begins making tobacco hogshead liners in Hillsborough
Founded in 1918 as the Bivins Liner Company and later called the Hines Liner Company, the firm made the hoops that hold tobacco hogshead heads in place. It also ran a lumber and planing mill nearby.
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The Temple of Truth is organized
Henry Thompson, R. C. Turner and others organized the Temple of Truth, a United Holy Church congregation, and built its church in 1918.
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The county agent buys a carload of pigs to sell to farmers at cost
With extension work revived in wartime, the commissioners advanced money for County Agent Chance to buy young pigs and sell them to county residents for cash at cost. E. S. Vanatta, who came that year to make the soil survey, followed him as agent until February 1921.
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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 4, 2026.
