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Orange County Indexed

Chronology

Key events from Orange County history: 100 highlights to start, then the full chronology of 6,368 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. 1870s
  3. Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill 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.

  4. Closing or ending · Hillsborough E. H. Pogue moves his tobacco manufacturing from Hillsborough to Durham

    Pogue, a tobacco dealer since 1866 alongside his tinware and general merchandise trade, began making plug tobacco at a factory in Hillsborough in 1872 or 1873. In 1879 he moved the business to Durham, where E. H. Pogue & Son made granulated and long-cut smoking tobacco, while Pogue kept his home in Hillsborough.

  5. Property or economic transaction · Horace Williams House, Chapel Hill George T. Winston buys Benjamin Hedrick's house with its polygonal annex

    Professor George T. Winston bought the former Hedrick house in 1879. In the 1880s or early 1890s he tied the old farmhouse and its many-sided annex together with a Queen Anne addition of porch, entrance hall and parlor, turning the house toward Franklin Street. It is now called the Horace Williams House after its later owner.

  6. Closing or ending · Hillsborough John D. Cameron moves the Recorder from Hillsborough to Durham, ending fifty-nine years of publication in the county seat

    Cameron carried the paper fifteen miles east to the tobacco town, where it continued as the Durham Recorder, published every Wednesday. The last issue under the Hillsborough title in the digitized run is March 5, 1879; the first Durham issue there is July 2, 1879.

  7. Construction or physical change · Whitfield Road, near Mount Moriah John Joseph Whitfield builds a farmhouse on Whitfield Road

    About 1879 John Joseph Whitfield built an I-house with a rear ell; a tall Mount Vernon style porch was added later. Its well house and other domestic buildings survive.

  8. Construction or physical change · John Wesley Carr's stores, West Franklin Street at Columbia Street, Chapel Hill John Wesley Carr builds a second store at Franklin and Columbia

    Merchant John Wesley Carr put up a second store on his corner lot at Columbia Street on West Franklin. By about 1904 one of the two Carr stores was a meat market and the other a grocery.

  9. Founding or opening · Latta Grove Baptist Church Latta Grove Baptist Church is organized

    Jerry M. Latta and others organized Latta Grove Baptist Church about 1879.

  10. Law, policy or court · Chapel Hill Legislature extends Normal School benefits to women

    The 1877 act limited state money for the Summer Normal School to men, though women attended by invitation. When the two-year act ran out it was renewed with the restriction as to sex removed.

  11. Law, policy or court · Orange County The railroad is rechartered as the State University Railroad

    The legislature rechartered the stalled iron-mine line as the State University Railroad, shifting its purpose to a rail link for the university, with UNC president Kemp P. Battle working alongside Hoke to raise funds.

  12. Property or economic transaction · 109 Jones Ferry Road, Carrboro Toney and Nellie Strayhorn, formerly enslaved, bought thirty acres in what became Carrboro

    The Strayhorns bought about thirty acres and built a one-room log cabin at what is now 109 Jones Ferry Road, and their son William built the house next door at 107 in 1915. Toney Strayhorn is remembered as a founder of First Baptist Church in Chapel Hill, and the house is still owned by a great-granddaughter.

  13. Property or economic transaction · Eno River 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.

  14. Appointment, election or service · New Hope Samuel Kirkland and Leroy Craig are ordained elders at New Hope

    The two were added to the session in what Craig in 1891 called the last ordination of elders at New Hope.

  15. Founding or opening · Buckhorn The school board creates Buckhorn school district from four neighboring districts

    On petition, the board formed District No. 56, Buckhorn, from the corners of the Gravelly Hill, Ridge Meeting House, Tom's Creek and Woody's Road districts so the school would sit at their center. Elerby (No. 54) and Vickers (No. 55) districts had been formed shortly before.

  16. Chapel Hill Baptist minister James P. Mason speaks at University Day

    At the 1879 University Day exercises, after President Kemp Battle's historical address, short talks were given by the Rev. Joseph Blount Cheshire, the Rev. James Pleasant Mason, the Methodist minister Mr. Heitman and several professors.

  17. Founding or opening · Chapel Hill Charles F. Deems starts the Deems Fund for student loans

    Deems sent the university $300 to begin a fund lending both principal and interest to students on security, in memory of his son Theodore Disosway Deems, who was born in Chapel Hill and killed at Gettysburg. William H. Vanderbilt later added $10,000 through him.

  18. 1880s
  19. Construction or physical change · McDade brick building, southwest corner of Franklin and Columbia streets, Chapel Hill Alphonso J. McDade builds the first brick building in the business district

    McDade put up the first brick building in Chapel Hill's business district, on the southwest corner of Franklin and Columbia streets. F. P. Booth rented it for a dry goods store in 1883, and Junius D. Webb later kept a grocery there.

  20. Construction or physical change · 604 East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill F. K. Ball builds a shingled house on East Franklin Street

    F. K. Ball built the house at 604 East Franklin Street in 1880, with a steep roof, a large dormer and shingled walls and porch piers. It is named for a later owner, Dr. R. B. Lawson.

  21. Construction or physical change · north of Efland Fairfield Presbyterian Church builds a new Gothic frame church north of Efland

    The Fairfield congregation, dating to 1834, put up a new steep-roofed church with Gothic windows in the 1880s, sheathed inside with flush boards.

  22. Disaster or outbreak · Chapel Hill 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.

  23. Disaster or outbreak · Pleasant Henderson house, East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill Fire destroys the old Pleasant Henderson house on East Franklin Street

    The old Pleasant Henderson house, where the children of Dr. George Moore were then living, burned. In 1881 Dr. William P. Mallett bought the lot and built on it.

  24. Statistic or record · Cedar Grove Township Five custom grist mills work the creeks of Cedar Grove Township

    The 1880 manufacturing census found five flour and grist mills in Cedar Grove Township on Back, Eno and Lynch creeks and the South Little River, grinding local farmers' grain about six months a year. James Allen, who owned the township's largest farm, ran one of the smaller mills on Lynch Creek; two sawmills on the Little River ran five months a year.

  25. Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill Francis P. Venable is offered the chair of chemistry at the university

    Venable, a University of Virginia chemistry graduate then studying in Germany, was offered the university's chair of chemistry in 1880. He taught at Chapel Hill until he retired in 1930.

  26. Founding or opening · Glenn's Grove Baptist Church 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.

  27. Construction or physical change · northwest of Hillsborough Harmony Baptist Church builds its frame meeting house northwest of Hillsborough

    The one-room weatherboarded church on stone piers, with a double door and shuttered windows, was built in the 1880s.

  28. Founding or opening · Caldwell Henry Cole runs a general store near Caldwell

    Henry Cole keeps a country general store near Caldwell in the late nineteenth century; the building still stood in 1993.

  29. Founding or opening · West End (now Carrboro), near the depot Jack Brim, a Black blacksmith, and then Bennie F. Ray open smithies at West End

    As the settlement around the depot and Lloyd's mills grew in the later 1880s, Jack Brim, an African American blacksmith, opened a shop at West End, and Bennie F. Ray opened a second smithy after him. Ray's shop was still working north and east of the depot in the early 1910s.

  30. Statistic or record · Little River Township Little River Township has one grist mill and two sawmills

    The 1880 manufacturing census found a single flour and grist mill in Little River Township, on the Eno, and two sawmills on the South Little River: one run by Furner and Smith, the other by Harry Roundtree.

  31. Chapel Hill Locke Craig teaches at the university and at a Chapel Hill school

    After graduating from the university at nineteen, Locke Craig taught chemistry there for a short time and taught at a private school in Chapel Hill. Kemp Battle listed him among graduates then teaching as "Craig at Chapel Hill."

  32. Founding or opening · Chapel Hill 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.

  33. Founding or opening · Orange Cross Roads Baptist Church 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.

  34. Construction or physical change · Cedar Grove Pender Store is built at Cedar Grove

    The two-story weatherboarded Pender Store, with a classical gable front and a hip-roofed porch, was built at Cedar Grove in the 1880s. Its shelves and display cases were still in place in 1996.

  35. Property or economic transaction · University Station to West End (now Carrboro) Robert F. Hoke raises subscriptions to run the railroad toward Chapel Hill

    When iron prices rose in 1880 and shipping ore to Pennsylvania furnaces paid, Gen. Robert F. Hoke, who owned most of Iron Mountain north of Chapel Hill, began organizing the branch line from University Station. His Iron Mountain Company put up $6,000, the largest single pledge, and Julian S. Carr was among the other subscribers.

  36. Orange County Robert F. Hoke serves as unpaid superintendent of the State University Railroad

    As the branch from University Station toward Chapel Hill got under way, university president Kemp P. Battle became president of the railroad company and General Robert F. Hoke its superintendent, both without salary. John Holt managed the convict work force and Captain Fry was the civil engineer.

  37. Founding or opening · East Main Street, West End (now Carrboro) Ruffin Cheek and then Hiram Stone open West End's first general stores

    Ruffin Cheek, followed by Hiram Stone, opened grocery and general merchandise stores at West End in the 1880s. The book counts their stores, east of the railroad spur on what became East Main Street, as the start of Carrboro's business district.

  38. Naming or commemoration · Chapel Hill Seniors begin the class tree and Class Day custom

    The class of 1880, led by its president Thomas H. Battle, planted a sugar maple at the edge of the Forbidden Ground after Class Day speeches that included one by Charles B. Aycock. Later classes kept the custom, planting a water oak in 1882 and a white pine in 1883.

  39. Construction or physical change · Orange County State convicts build the University Railroad

    Governor Thomas J. Jarvis supplied state convicts at low hire to grade the line from University Station to Chapel Hill, while the Richmond and Danville company laid the rails. A white convict was shot dead while fleeing, and a Black convict named Fries died of gangrene after a whipping by the road's managers, which the solicitor found no ground to prosecute.

  40. Construction or physical change · near Hillsborough The Caine Roberts farm is built near Hillsborough

    A farm complex centered on a two-story frame Triple-A I-house is built around 1880 on the Caine Roberts place near Hillsborough. The survey put it on the Study List.

  41. Construction or physical change · rural Orange County The Charles Davis Farm is built

    The Charles Davis Farm, built about 1880, was placed on the state Study List in July 1991 at its owner's request.

  42. Construction or physical change · 129 Mallette Street, Chapel Hill The Davis-Eubanks House is built on Mallette Street

    The one-story frame house at 129 Mallette Street, with a center front gable, rear ell and turned-post porch, dates from about 1880.

  43. Construction or physical change · Chapel Hill Township The Henry Lloyd farm is built around a walled barnyard in Chapel Hill Township

    Henry Lloyd, farming in Chapel Hill Township by 1880, probably built his farmhouse in the 1880s; the farm grew in stages, and log and frame outbuildings of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries close in a rectangular barnyard, an arrangement the survey found worth a Study List place.

  44. Founding or opening · Little River The Little River General Store is built on NC 57

    A frame general store serving the Little River community goes up on NC 57 late in the nineteenth century.

  45. Construction or physical change · East Main Street between Broad and Lloyd streets, Carrboro The Neville Building, thought to be Carrboro's first store, goes up east of the depot

    A one-story frame store later called the Old Neville Building was put up in the 1880s on East Main Street between Broad and Lloyd streets and is believed to be the first store building in Carrboro. Its last tenant was the Carrboro Cash Store, run by Cliff and Wilbur Partin.

  46. Construction or physical change · north of Hillsborough The Phelps farmstead is built north of Hillsborough

    The Phelps farm on NC 57 north of Hillsborough grows up in the late nineteenth century around a Triple-A I-house, with a log tenant house and one- and two-pen log barns. It is on the Study List.

  47. Founding or opening · White Cross The White Cross Store is built

    A country store is built at White Cross in the late nineteenth century. It was later covered in vinyl siding.

  48. Construction or physical change · McDade crossroads, north of Cedar Grove The first McDade Store goes up at McDade crossroads

    The first McDade Store, a two-story frame building, was put up in the 1880s at the McDade crossroads just north of Cedar Grove, where it would have stood over the small community. A second McDade store with a canopy for motorists buying gas was built across the road in the early 1920s.

  49. Construction or physical change · Old Orange County Courthouse, 104 East King Street, Hillsborough The upstairs courtroom of the Orange County Courthouse is renovated

    In the 1880s the second-floor courtroom of John Berry's 1844-1845 courthouse on East King Street was renovated; the rest of the interior keeps most of its original finish.

  50. Statistic or record · Bingham Township Two cotton gins operate on Cane Creek in Bingham Township

    Bingham Township, where cotton was a cash crop, had two cotton gins on Cane Creek in 1880. The township also had three flour and grist mills running full time, two on Cane Creek and one on Turkey Creek, and four sawmills on Morgan, Cane and Tom creeks.

  51. Property or economic transaction · Cedar Grove Township W. R. Hughes makes bricks at Cedar Grove

    The only brickyard in Cedar Grove Township in 1880 belonged to W. R. Hughes. It worked two months of the year and turned out about 100,000 common bricks.

  52. Property or economic transaction · Smith Level Road, south of Carrboro William Cole buys the Smith plantation seat on Smith Level Road

    The Smith family held its large plantation south of Carrboro until the 1880s, when William Cole bought the 1845 house. No bigger pre-war house survives in the township, and in 1992 it stood almost unchanged on 130 acres.

  53. Chapel Hill William George Randall walks from Burke County to Chapel Hill to enter the university

    Randall walked to Chapel Hill in the fall of 1880, was interviewed by President Kemp Battle and was helped by the Deems Fund. The Dialectic Society paid him as its librarian, the first year the post carried a salary.

  54. Publication, speech or performance · Chapel Hill Chapel Hill's AME congregation issues a public appeal for money to finish its house of worship

    Rev. G. W. Offley, preacher in charge of the African Methodist Episcopal church in Chapel Hill, signed a circular dated January 5, 1880 asking the public to help the congregation complete its house of worship and naming Brother George Trice to solicit subscriptions. The Chapel Hill Ledger printed it in full on January 10, 1880.

  55. Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill Joseph Blount Cheshire is ordained priest two years after coming to Chapel Hill

    Cheshire was ordained priest on 30 May 1880 by Bishop Theodore B. Lyman in St. Paul's Church, Winston, two years after going to Chapel Hill. While based at the Chapel of the Cross he also organized a mission at Durham and built a church there named for St. Philip the Deacon.

  56. Publication, speech or performance · Chapel Hill The student YMCA first takes part in commencement

    The 1880 commencement opened with an address to the Young Men's Christian Association by the Rev. F. C. Woodward of Elizabeth City, the association's first part in commencement exercises. By 1884 it met regularly in its own hall in South Building.

  57. Founding or opening · Bingham Township The school board forms Center school district

    A new District No. 57, called Center, was created with 34 white children and one Black child.

  58. Construction or physical change · Mallett house, East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill Dr. William P. Mallett builds a house on the old Henderson lot

    Dr. Mallett bought the burned-out lot from the heirs of Anna Ashe and built a large two-story house, keeping a chemist's shop at its southeast corner. After his death in 1889 his widow ran the house as a boarding house where new professors stayed.

  59. Construction or physical change · 131 East Queen Street, Hillsborough James Webb Jr. builds Mid-Lawn at East Queen and North Cameron streets

    James Webb Jr. built a two-story Italianate house, later called Mid-Lawn, on the northwest corner of East Queen and North Cameron streets. David and Elizabeth Patterson bought it in 1919.

  60. Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina John Manning teaches law at the university

    Elected professor of law in 1881, John Manning taught at Chapel Hill while keeping a private practice, and law enrollment grew from seven students to eighty-seven by 1897-98.

  61. Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill Joseph Blount Cheshire leaves Chapel Hill to become rector at Charlotte

    In the spring of 1881 Cheshire accepted a call to St. Peter's Church in Charlotte, ending about three years at the Chapel of the Cross. He was elected bishop of North Carolina in 1893.

  62. Appointment, election or service · St. Matthew's Episcopal Church, Hillsborough Joseph W. Murphy serves as rector of St. Matthew's

    Joseph W. Murphy was rector of the parish for eleven years. His family later gave the brass alms basin in his memory.

  63. Founding or opening · University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Kappa Alpha charters a chapter at the university

    Kappa Alpha was chartered at Chapel Hill in 1881, four years before the trustees lifted the ban on fraternities.

  64. Law, policy or court · Mebane 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.

  65. Appointment, election or service · St. Matthew's Episcopal Church, Hillsborough St. Matthew's vestry asks Joseph Blount Cheshire to be its rector

    The vestries of St. Matthew's and the Burlington church asked Joseph Blount Cheshire to take charge of their parishes. He would have come to his wife's home town, but Bishop Lyman wanted him to stay in Chapel Hill.

  66. Law, policy or court · Chapel Hill 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.

  67. Law, policy or court · Chapel Hill The literary societies agree to stop hazing

    The Dialectic and Philanthropic societies adopted a joint rule, under heavy penalty, against entering another student's room against his will, laying hands on him or otherwise annoying him. It held for several years before hazing resumed in disguise.

  68. Life event · Mason Family Cemetery, south of NC 54, Chapel Hill Typhoid kills the two surviving Mason daughters, and their father sets aside a family burial ground

    Martha James Mason and Carolina Varina Mason both died of typhoid fever in 1881; their father caught it as well but recovered. James P. Mason marked off a small plot on the family land where all four daughters and later both parents were buried inside an iron fence, beside the graves of Solomon and Ann Morgan.

  69. Construction or physical change · Orange Factory 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.

  70. Law, policy or court · Countywide Voters approve forming Durham County from eastern Orange and part of Wake

    Under an act ratified February 28, 1881, voters in the territory cut from eastern Orange and western Wake approved the new county on April 14, 1881, the Orange portion voting 1,464 to 250. Governor Thomas J. Jarvis then proclaimed Durham County established.

  71. Hillsborough George Laws dies in office as Orange County's clerk of superior court

    Laws died in May 1881 while serving as judge of probate and clerk of the superior court of Orange County, after about half a century in the county's service.

  72. Gerrard Hall Commencement celebrates the railroad's arrival, and Battle calls Hoke its father

    At the 1882 commencement an hour was set aside in Gerrard Hall to celebrate the railroad's coming to Chapel Hill. Kemp P. Battle told the history of the line and called General Robert F. Hoke the source of the enterprise and the father of the State University Railroad Company.

  73. Storyline · 47 events · Carrboro From West End to Carrboro: railroad, mills, and a new town

    In 1882 a university railroad spur ended a mile west of Chapel Hill, and the settlement of West End grew around its boxcar depot. Thomas Lloyd opened a gin and grist mill in 1883 and the Alberta Cotton Mill in 1899, which Julian Carr's Durham Hosiery bought in 1909. Incorporated as Venable in 1911, the town became Carrboro in 1913.

  74. Founding or opening · H. H. Patterson's store, Franklin Street, Chapel Hill Henry H. 'Hoot' Patterson opens a general merchandise store

    Henry Houston 'Hoot' Patterson, a Civil War veteran married to Dr. Thomas Hogan's daughter Mary, started a general merchandise business in the building Andrew Mickle had used. Bryant calls it very successful.

  75. Appointment, election or service · Hillsborough Presbyterian Church, Hillsborough Hillsborough Presbyterian Church shares a pastor with the Chapel Hill church

    During J. L. Williamson's short pastorate of 1882-83 the Hillsborough church was grouped with the Presbyterian church at Chapel Hill.

  76. Chapel Hill 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.

  77. Chapel Hill Joshua W. Gore joins the university as professor of natural philosophy and engineering

    The trustees unanimously chose Joshua Walker Gore, a Virginia-born civil engineer who had studied at Richmond College, the University of Virginia and Johns Hopkins, to succeed Carey D. Grandy as professor of natural philosophy and engineering. He was the first appointee in years to take permanent charge of the subject.

  78. Life event · Hillsborough Lisbon Berry becomes Orange County's first Black lawyer

    Lisbon Payne Berry, born enslaved in Hillsborough in 1850, studied law in Hillsborough and was admitted to the North Carolina bar in 1882, becoming the first Black attorney in Orange County.

  79. Founding or opening · Pritchard and Lloyd store, East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill William N. Pritchard and Thomas F. Lloyd open a general store on East Franklin Street

    William N. 'Captain Billy' Pritchard and T. F. Lloyd opened a general store on East Franklin Street, probably in the building where John R. Hutchins had sold clothing.

  80. Founding or opening · Carrboro Railroad service reaches West End

    The first passenger train on the University Railroad left Chapel Hill on Monday, February 6, 1882, and ran through University Station to Raleigh. The line ended about a mile west of the village at West End, where a boxcar served as the depot, and the settlement that became Carrboro grew up around it.

  81. Property or economic transaction · NC Highway 86 north of Hillsborough, Cedar Grove area The Mount Zion congregation buys an acre for its first church

    The Black congregation then known as Poplar Springs, which had met in a schoolhouse and on members' farms, bought a one-acre lot from S. W. Hughes and Margaret J. Hughes for $10. Its first church there was a small frame building with benches made by members.

  82. Disaster or outbreak · Bingham School, Mebaneville (Orange County side) Fire destroys the Bingham School buildings near Mebaneville

    A fire that started in a cadet's quarters about 9:30 in the morning burned the barracks, office and library, the academy hall, the infirmary and the mess hall. About 175 cadets were in barracks, no one was hurt, and the loss was put at about $30,000.

  83. 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.

  84. 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.

  85. 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.

  86. 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.

  87. 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.

  88. 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.

  89. 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.

  90. 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.

  91. 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.

  92. 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.

  93. 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.

  94. 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.

  95. 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.

  96. 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.

  97. 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.

  98. 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.

  99. Chapel Hill 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.

  100. 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.

  101. 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.

  102. 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.

  103. 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.

  104. 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.

  105. 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.

  106. 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.

  107. 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.

  108. 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.

  109. 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.

  110. 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.

  111. 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.

  112. 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.

  113. 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.

  114. 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.

  115. 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.

  116. 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.

  117. 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.

  118. 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.

  119. 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.

  120. 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.

  121. 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.

  122. 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.

  123. 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.

  124. 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.

  125. 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.

  126. 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.

  127. 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.

  128. 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.

  129. 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.

  130. 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.

  131. 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.

  132. 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.

  133. 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.

  134. 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.

  135. 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.

  136. 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.

  137. 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.

  138. 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.

  139. 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.

  140. 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.

  141. 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.

  142. 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.

  143. 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.

  144. 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.

  145. 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.

  146. 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.

  147. 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.

  148. 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.

  149. 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.

  150. 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.

  151. 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.

  152. 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.

  153. 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.

  154. 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.

  155. Orange County Superintendent Currie reports a teachers' institute in session for the county's white teachers

    Currie wrote to the Orange County Observer that the institute for white teachers was in session with eighteen enrolled. Professor Henry and Mr. Shields of Chapel Hill taught methods of teaching by day, and a public lecture on education was given each night.

  156. 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.

  157. 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.

  158. 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.

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

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

  160. 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.

  161. 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.

  162. 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.

  163. 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.

  164. 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.

  165. Chapel Hill Francis D. Winston becomes a trustee of the university

    Francis D. Winston of Bertie County joined the university's board of trustees in 1887, eight years after he graduated. He served on the board for more than half a century and attended sixty-one consecutive commencements.

  166. 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.

  167. 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.

  168. 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.

  169. 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.

  170. 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.

  171. 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.

  172. 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.

  173. 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.

  174. 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.

  175. 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.

  176. 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.

  177. 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.

  178. 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.

  179. 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.

  180. 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.

  181. 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.

  182. 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.

  183. 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.

  184. Chapel Hill 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.

  185. 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.

  186. 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.

  187. 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.

  188. 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.

  189. 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.

  190. 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.

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

    Organized football began at UNC in 1888.

  192. 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.

  193. 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.

  194. 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.

  195. 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.

  196. 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.

  197. 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.

  198. 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.

  199. 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.

  200. 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.

  201. 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.

  202. 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.

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