Chronology

Settlers from Pennsylvania and Virginia come down the Great Wagon Road into the Haw and Eno country

From the 1740s families moving south from Pennsylvania, Maryland and western Virginia along the Great Wagon Road took up land in the Piedmont backcountry that became Orange County in 1752. Quaker families reached the Cane Creek country by this route, and German and Scotch-Irish families entered the colony the same way.

The Granville District land office grants the land that became Orange County

The country on the Eno, Haw and Little River lay inside Earl Granville's one eighth share of Carolina, set off in 1742 and run from Edenton through agents including Francis Corbin and Thomas Child. Grants of unclaimed land were made from 1748 until Granville's death in 1763, and William Churton was the surveyor who mapped much of the district.

People: William Churton

The Great Trading Path across the Eno becomes the settlers' wagon road

The Indian route that Virginia traders had used since the 1670s crossed the Flat and Little rivers, forded the Eno at the place where the county town was laid out, and crossed the Haw near Swepsonville. After colonists reached the Piedmont in the mid eighteenth century the path was widened into a wagon road, and it is drawn on the colonial maps of Moseley, Collet and Mouzon.

Quakers set up Cane Creek Monthly Meeting in the country that became Orange County

About thirty Quaker families from Pennsylvania had settled near Cane Creek by 1751. Abigail Pike and Rachel Wright traveled 200 miles to the Perquimans County quarterly meeting for authority to organize, and the first monthly meeting was held on October 7, 1751. It is the oldest Quaker meeting in the North Carolina Piedmont.

People: Rachel Wright

Alexander Mebane, the first sheriff, returns 1,113 taxables

As Orange County's first sheriff, Mebane returned 1,113 tithables for 1752 and 1753. The book reckons this at about 4,000 people when the county was formed.

Orange County begins with fifty taxable enslaved people

When the county was organized its tax lists showed fifty enslaved Black taxables, thirty-five men and fifteen women, a small number for a county of small farms.

William Churton presents his commission as public register

At the December court, Lord Granville's surveyor William Churton showed the governor's commission naming him the county's public register, the office later called register of deeds. He went on to lay out the county seat.

People: William Churton

Mark Morgan sits in the General Assembly for Orange County

Mark Morgan, a justice of the peace and militia officer who had settled on Morgan Creek near present Chapel Hill, was a member of the colonial General Assembly for Orange County for the 1753-54 session.

Richard Caswell serves as the first clerk of the Orange County court

Caswell, a deputy clerk in Johnston County, became the first clerk of the court of the newly formed Orange County. He held the post only briefly and resigned on being appointed high sheriff of Johnston.

The Earl Granville grants 371 acres on the Eno to John Tinnin and James Taylor

The land that became the Faucette farm, lying on both sides of the Eno, began as a 371-acre Granville grant to John Tinnin and James Taylor.

Subject: David Faucette House (The Elms)

The creation of Rowan County gives Orange a western boundary

Orange had no fixed western line until Rowan was formed. The new county also left the planned courthouse site at Piney Ford only fifteen miles from Orange's western edge.

Justices recommend John Gray for sheriff

With Alexander Mebane's term running out, the court sent the governor three names, with 10 votes for John Gray, 8 for Lawrence Thompson and 6 for James Dickey. Gray, the justices' favorite, was appointed.

People: Matthew Rowan

Clerk Richard Caswell reports the county's tithables

Caswell's return for 1754 counted 950 white taxable polls and 50 Black ones, 35 men and 15 women. At a shilling a poll, the county's share of the provincial tax came to no more than 50 pounds.

People: Richard Caswell

The county court sets the price of county-made beer in the ordinaries

The justices ordered that beer brewed in the county sell for four pence a quart in Orange County's ordinaries until further notice. Fixing tavern prices was one of the court's regular powers.

A law orders a road from Orange courthouse to the Cape Fear

The act was not carried out at once, and in the meantime farmers cut their own rough roads across the county.

Subject: Orange County Courthouse, Hillsborough

Eight percent of Orange families hold people in slavery

In 1755 only 8 percent of the county's families held enslaved people, and the largest holder, Mark Morgan, held six.

People: Mark Morgan

Lawrence Thompson is appointed sheriff of Orange County

In 1755 the county court sent the governor three names for sheriff, John Patterson, Lawrence Thompson and Alexander Mebane, and Thompson received the appointment. He had run second to John Gray in the justices' vote two years before.

Orange counts 950 white taxables but only 490 men on its militia list

The book explains the gap by the county's many Quakers, whose pacifism kept them off the muster rolls.

Shubal Stearns gathers the first Baptist congregation in Orange County at Sandy Creek

In 1755 Shubal Stearns organized a Baptist church at Sandy Creek, then in Orange County and now in Randolph. Within a few years it counted more than six hundred people, and Baptist churches followed at Haw River, Rock Spring, Rocky River and Cane Creek.

Mark Morgan fails to qualify for his captaincy at the Orange regiment's general muster

Reporting on the Orange regiment's general muster, Lieutenant Colonel Josias Dickson told Governor Arthur Dobbs that Mark Morgan had notice of his appointment as captain but did not attend to be qualified. Major Alexander Mebane listed Morgan among captains who refused to act and proposed Thomas Loyd in his place.

People: Arthur Dobbs

Hugh McAden preaches to the Eno and Hawfields settlements

The traveling Presbyterian licentiate Hugh McAden preached to the Eno settlement on the second Sabbath of August 1755, lodging at John Anderson's house, and rode on to preach at the Hawfields on the fourth Sabbath. His journal is the earliest surviving description of either settlement.

Subject: Hawfields Presbyterian Church · Eno Presbyterian Church

Moravians record a visit from Indians living at a fort near the Haw River

The Moravian settlers near present Winston-Salem recorded a visit in 1756 from Indians described as Cherokees from the fort near Haw River. The Haw was then in Orange County and a long way from any known Cherokee town, and the entry places an Indian settlement in the county decades after the Piedmont was supposed to be empty of them.

Thomas Lloyd is appointed a justice of the peace

Thomas Lloyd, a settler of Welsh descent with a land grant on Mark Creek, was made a justice of the peace in 1757 and later sat in the North Carolina Assembly. He founded the large Lloyd family of southern Orange; by 1850 nineteen of his grandsons and great-grandsons lived around White Cross.

Baptists form the Sandy Creek Association

Baptist churches in the Sandy Creek country, then part of Orange County, joined in the Sandy Creek Association. During the Regulation the association expelled members who joined the movement.

The Few family settles on the Eno with four enslaved people and builds a saw and grist mill

William Few brought his family from Maryland in the fall of 1758 to 640 acres bought from James Taylor, lying on both sides of the Eno about seven miles east of the county town. Four enslaved people came with them, and Few and his brother James built a saw and grist mill on the river.

Glasgow merchants Buchanan, Hastie and Company run a store in Orange County

Scottish traders began doing business in the county in the 1760s, and this Glasgow firm kept one of its many North Carolina stores here.

John Armstrong contracts with Henry McCulloh to run a mill on the Haw River

John Armstrong of Orange County and Henry McCulloh of Halifax County made a contract about the operation of a mill on the Haw River.

Henry Pattillo becomes pastor of the Hawfields, Eno and Little River churches

Henry Pattillo moved to Orange County as pastor of the Hawfields, Eno and Little River Presbyterian churches and served them for nine years, becoming known as "Father Pattillo." He was the first regularly installed minister at Eno.

Subject: Little River Presbyterian Church · Eno Presbyterian Church · Hawfields Presbyterian Church

Henry Pattillo keeps a classical school in his Orange County home

While pastor of the Hawfields, Eno and Little River churches, Pattillo began a classical school for men in his home.

The Granville District land office is closed

The office that granted land across Orange County for the Granville proprietary stayed shut from about 1765. Governor Tryon wrote in 1770 that it had been closed for more than five years and that newcomers to Rowan and Orange, finding no land to buy, settled on vacant land, which fed their discontent.

Orange County's 1766 tax return counts 3,324 white and 649 Black taxables

The return of taxables for 1766 counted 3,324 white men and 649 Black and mulatto men and women in Orange County, 3,973 taxables in all. These were people liable for the poll tax, not the whole population, and the returns do not show the Black population growing faster than the white.

Orange is the most populous county in the province

In 1767 Orange County still ran over land later taken into Wake, Chatham, Guilford, Caswell, Person, Randolph, Rockingham, Alamance and Durham, and had the largest population of any county in North Carolina. Successive divisions cut it to about 7,560 people by 1779.

William Few takes over management of a second family farm near Hillsborough

In 1767 William Few Sr. bought another farm about seven miles from Hillsborough, and his son William, then nineteen, took over its management.

Orange farmers swear scores of depositions against county officers

They accused Sheriff William Nunn and his deputies of seizing deer skins, livestock, a gun and cloth, and one man swore he had paid clerk Francis Nash for letters of administration he never received.

People: Francis Nash

Regulator William Butler serves as an Orange County tax collector and deputy sheriff

William Butler, a farmer living near Sandy Creek, was appointed a county tax collector in Orange County in 1768 and a deputy sheriff in 1770, in the same years he emerged as a principal leader of the Regulators.

Richard Faucette buys part of the Tinnin and Taylor land on the Eno

The Faucettes, a Huguenot family by way of Ireland, reached Orange County in the 1760s. In 1768 Richard Faucette bought part of the Tinnin and Taylor grant, where his family would farm for two centuries.

Subject: David Faucette House (The Elms)

Thomas Hart begins a term as Orange County sheriff and is made militia captain and commissary

Thomas Hart began his second term as sheriff of Orange County in 1768. The same year he was made a captain in the Orange County militia and commissary for the troops of Orange and Granville counties.

Orange farmers draw up Regulator Advertisement Number Four

The paper set out the members' pledges on taxes and officers' fees, attendance at meetings, shared costs and majority rule.

Settlers west of the Haw River call Orange County's representatives and vestry to a settlement at the courthouse

Inhabitants on the west side of the Haw River addressed Orange County's Assembly men and vestrymen, asking them to fix a day before the next court to meet at the courthouse and settle accounts of taxes and officers' fees, and declaring they would pay no more taxes until they had a full settlement.

Part of The Regulator crisis, 1766–1771 · 90 events

Subject: Orange County Courthouse, Hillsborough

Regulators ask Orange County's late sheriff and a vestryman to bring the tax accounts

Meeting again, the Regulators asked the former sheriff and a vestryman to meet their committee with lists of taxables, insolvents and public spending, and asked the county's assemblymen to come and show the law for the fees charged on deeds. Two men were chosen to carry the request, but the seizure of a Regulator's mare days later overtook it.

Part of The Regulator crisis, 1766–1771 · 90 events

Tryon orders the Regulators home and puts seven counties' militia on alert

Answering Fanning, the governor issued one proclamation to the people and another to militia officers in Bute, Halifax, Granville, Rowan, Mecklenburg, Cumberland and Johnston counties to stand ready to march to his aid.

People: William Tryon · Edmund Fanning

More than 400 Orange County inhabitants sign a petition to the governor and council

At the April 30 meeting the Regulators drew up a petition to the governor and council in the name of the inhabitants of Orange County, to be held back unless the officers failed to settle. Herman Husband, not yet a Regulator, was among more than 400 signers.

Part of The Regulator crisis, 1766–1771 · 90 events

People: Herman Husband

Regulators meeting at George Sally's appoint a committee of eight to petition Governor Tryon

Having agreed after the May confrontation to submit their case to the governor, the Regulators met at George Sally's in Orange County, declared their loyalty to King George and named William Moffitt, William Cox, Harmon Cox, John Low, John Marshall, James Hunter, Rednap Howell and George Hendry to gather the complaints into a petition and to implore the governor's pardon in the most submissive manner.

Part of The Regulator crisis, 1766–1771 · 90 events

People: James Hunter

Orange Regulators send their papers to the Regulators of Anson County

Asked by the Anson County Regulators how to organize, the Orange Regulators sent them a copy of their May 21 proceedings, to keep them from running into errors, and promised more papers. Bassett thinks this advice helped turn the Anson movement toward petitioning that August.

Part of The Regulator crisis, 1766–1771 · 90 events

Ralph McNair presses Herman Husband to adopt a petition written by the officers

After the May confrontation at Hillsborough, the county officers sent Husband, through Ralph McNair, a petition of their own drafting in which the Regulators would call their conduct illegal and withdraw their charges. McNair warned that Fanning would report the case to Tryon as treason if it was refused, and the Regulators instead named their own committee to lay their papers before the governor.

Part of The Regulator crisis, 1766–1771 · 90 events

People: Herman Husband · Edmund Fanning · Ralph McNair

Regulators hear the governor's letter from the sheriff and resolve to petition the Assembly

At a Regulator meeting called to answer Tryon's reply, the Orange sheriff read a letter and proclamation telling them to submit to tax collection. The sheriff and his deputy swore the crowd refused and threatened them; Husband said the people only told the sheriff they would take the matter to the Assembly, and the meeting sent Tryon an answer saying so.

Part of The Regulator crisis, 1766–1771 · 90 events

People: Herman Husband

Justice James Thackston reports William Butler vowing not to pay the palace tax

Thackston told former sheriff Tyree Harris that Butler said the Regulators would pay nothing toward the governor's house at New Bern for three years, and that some two hundred Regulators had threatened anyone who seized their goods.

People: William Butler (Regulator)

Sheriff John Lea brings the Regulators Tryon's demand for a 1,000 pound bond

On the day set for settling accounts, the former sheriff stayed away and the new sheriff, John Lea, brought a severe letter from Tryon, endorsed by three councillors at Hillsborough. It demanded that twelve leading Regulators meet him at Salisbury by August 25 and give a 1,000 pound bond that no one would try to rescue Butler and Husband at the September court; Tryon left for Salisbury the same day.

People: William Tryon · William Butler (Regulator) · Herman Husband

Regulators refuse to give Tryon the bond he demanded

Two days after Lea delivered the demand, the Regulators answered that their peaceable leaders could restrain the rest only if they stayed free of such a bond, and that they had never meant to rescue the prisoners, only to ask the governor to dissolve the Assembly.

Tryon sends troops out to arrest the Regulator leaders

The day after the Regulators dispersed, Tryon sent a body of troops to seize the men he most wanted. Some gave themselves up and others resisted, but all who were taken were soon let go because no true bill could be found against them.

People: William Tryon

Tyree Harris reports the Regulators ready to pay their taxes

Writing to Tryon, Tyree Harris said that on recent visits to the Regulators in their homes he had found them willing to pay their taxes.

People: William Tryon

An unsigned address urges Orange County voters to change their assemblymen

When Tryon dissolved the Assembly and called a new election in 1769, an address appeared in Orange, perhaps by Husband, that set out the people's wrongs and told voters the remedy was in their own hands. Orange went on to replace its whole delegation, electing Husband and John Pryor.

People: Herman Husband

Orange and Rowan Regulators petition the Assembly for reforms

Regulators of Orange and Rowan joined in a petition asking that lawyers and court clerks be barred from the Assembly, that officers be paid salaries, that taxes rest on property, that small debts be tried before one magistrate and a jury of six, and that the county be divided. It also asked that ministers of every denomination be allowed to marry couples and that Assembly votes be recorded.

Regulators whip Orange County sheriff John Lea

The one serious disturbance Nash records in the county between October 1768 and the 1770 riot was the whipping of Sheriff John Lea in 1769.

Simon Lindley is born in Orange County

Simon Lindley, the first son of John Lindley and Sarah Pyle, was born in Orange County on January 20, 1769. He later worked as a farmer, surveyor and Predestinarian Baptist minister, and his cipher book of 1786 to 1795 is held at UNC.

Orange voters elect Regulators Herman Husband and John Pryor to the Assembly

In the elections set for July 18, 1769, Orange returned the Regulators Herman Husband and John Pryor to the Assembly over Edmund Fanning. Granville, Anson and Halifax also sent Regulator delegations that year.

People: Herman Husband · Edmund Fanning

Tryon issues a general pardon for the 1768 disturbances

The proclamation extended to fines and forfeitures for everyone involved in the Orange County troubles of the year before.

People: William Tryon

Herman Husband publishes An Impartial Relation

His account of the Regulation traced the first disturbances to Orange County while granting that Granville and Halifax had been in the same dispute years earlier.

People: Herman Husband

Northern Orange residents petition for a county of their own

They told the General Assembly that travel to the county's musters and courts was a heavy burden. Caswell County was not formed until 1777.

Orange Presbytery forms as North Carolina's first presbytery

The pastors of the early Orange County Presbyterian churches and other ministers formed Orange Presbytery, the first presbytery in North Carolina.

People: Henry Pattillo · David Caldwell

Orange County reelects Herman Husband and John Pryor to the Assembly

In the new election called after Tryon dissolved the Assembly in November 1769, Orange again returned the Regulator candidates Husband and Pryor. Fanning, who had lost, came back through the new borough of Hillsborough.

People: Edmund Fanning

Regulators name the Orange County sheriff one of two officials charging fair fees

John Butler of the Hawfields was sheriff of Orange County in 1770, at the height of the Regulator crisis, and testified to the General Assembly that the Regulators had obstructed him in carrying out his duties. A Regulator petition of October 1770 nonetheless named him as one of only two public officials charging fair fees for their services.

Part of The Regulator crisis, 1766–1771 · 90 events

Barnaby Cabe hauls supplies and prisoners for Governor Tryon's army

An expense account shows Cabe served as a wagoner for Tryon's militia in 1771, carrying supplies, hauling prisoners to New Bern and appearing as a witness against the Regulators after Alamance.

Part of The Regulator crisis, 1766–1771 · 90 events

Orange County elects Francis Nash to a seat left by Herman Husband's expulsion

With John Pryor dead and Herman Husband expelled from the Assembly, Orange County filled the two vacant seats in 1771 with Ralph McNair and Francis Nash, both strong opponents of the Regulators. Nash had fought against the Regulators at Alamance that year as a militia captain.

Part of The Regulator crisis, 1766–1771 · 90 events

People: Herman Husband · Ralph McNair

Outlawed Regulator leaders petition Governor Martin for pardon

From hiding, some in South Carolina, Jeremiah Field, Ninian Bell Hamilton, Matthew Hamilton, James Hunter, Thomas Welborn, William Butler and John Fruit asked the new governor, Josiah Martin, for pardon. The Assembly asked mercy for all but Husband, Butler and Howell, but Martin waited because Tryon had left the matter to the Crown.

Part of The Regulator crisis, 1766–1771 · 90 events

People: Josiah Martin · James Hunter · William Butler (Regulator)

Guilford County is formed from Orange and Rowan

Governor Tryon assented to the act creating Guilford County from parts of Rowan and Orange, a bill Edmund Fanning had brought in. Tryon told the Earl of Hillsborough the new county was meant to divide the Regulator districts.

People: William Tryon

Thomas Hart contracts to supply provisions for Tryon's campaign against the Regulators

Hart accepted Governor Tryon's offer to victual the militia raised to suppress the Regulators, on the terms on which he had supplied the troops at Hillsborough in 1768. His department covered nearly a thousand men from eleven counties including Orange.

People: William Tryon

Tryon's army halts at Colonel Mebane's for Sunday worship on the march to Alamance

Leaving Hillsborough on May 11, Tryon stopped on Sunday at Colonel Mebane's for divine service, then marched to the Haw River, where 23 mounted men under Captain Bullock joined as his only cavalry. He ordered his troops not to take property and reached Alamance Creek on May 14.

Part of The Regulator crisis, 1766–1771 · 90 events

People: William Tryon

David Caldwell goes between Tryon's camp and the Regulators before the Battle of Alamance

At the request of his parishioners, some of them Regulators, Caldwell visited Governor Tryon's camp on May 15 with Alexander Martin to urge mild measures. On the morning of the battle he was riding along the Regulator lines urging the men to go home when the order to fire was given.

People: William Tryon · Alexander Martin

Regulators seize Colonel John Ashe and Captain Walker and whip them

On the morning before the battle, some of the Regulators caught Colonel John Ashe and Captain Walker while they were out scouting, whipped them severely and held them prisoner. Many Regulators condemned the act, and some threatened to leave the cause if it happened again.

Part of The Regulator crisis, 1766–1771 · 90 events

People: John Ashe

Willie Jones is made Tryon's aide-de-camp on the march into Orange County

Jones marched into Orange County with Governor William Tryon's colonial militia and was appointed Tryon's aide-de-camp on May 15, 1771, the day before Tryon defeated the Regulators at Alamance. Several days later he was sent to raid the plantation of the Regulator leader Herman Husband.

People: Herman Husband · William Tryon

Tryon proclaims a pardon for Regulators who come into camp, lay down their arms and take the oath

From the camp Tryon offered the King's free pardon for all treasons and rebellions to anyone who came in by May 21, surrendered his arms, swore allegiance, promised to pay his taxes and submitted to the law, excepting the outlawed leaders and the prisoners already in camp. Further proclamations on May 21, 24 and 31 and June 11 extended the terms.

Part of The Regulator crisis, 1766–1771 · 90 events

People: William Tryon · John Rutherford

Tryon's army camps a week at Sandy Creek after Alamance

Five days after the battle the army marched to Sandy Creek, the home district of Husband and many Regulators, and stayed a week, taking supplies from the people and giving them the oath of allegiance. It moved west on May 29.

Part of The Regulator crisis, 1766–1771 · 90 events

People: William Tryon

Governor Josiah Martin complains about Orange County's roads

On his time in the backcountry in 1772, Governor Martin wrote of how poor the roads in Orange were.

Morgan Edwards reports 1,500 families have left since Alamance

The Baptist preacher and traveler wrote that many more were waiting to sell their farms and follow. The book says many former Regulators went to the Tennessee country.

English traveler J. F. D. Smyth finds German-speaking districts west of Hillsborough

Traveling in western Orange, Smyth had trouble in some places finding anyone who understood English, a sign of how many Germans had settled there.

Thomas Hart is Orange County's only member at the first Provincial Convention

When North Carolina's first Provincial Convention met on August 25, 1774 and chose delegates to the first Continental Congress, Thomas Hart alone sat for Orange County and the borough of Hillsborough sent no one.

Orange County chooses a committee of safety

Orange had no committee of safety until the summer of 1775, and Samuel Johnston wrote on August 14 that one had been chosen. By 1776 John Hogan was its chairman and James Hogg its secretary; its records for 1775 and 1776 are lost.

People: James Hogg · Samuel Johnston

The Provincial Congress names Orange County's minutemen and militia officers

Orange was to raise three companies of minutemen, and James Thackston was named colonel of minutemen for the Hillsborough district. For the county militia the Congress named John Hogan colonel, John Butler lieutenant colonel, William Moore first major and Nathaniel Rochester second major.

People: John Butler · Nathaniel Rochester

Orange County militia join Griffith Rutherford's campaign against the Cherokee

Orange was first asked for 500 men and could not raise them; the quota was cut to 300, which was met. Officers from the county included Major Hugh Tinnin and Captains William Williams and William Murray, with Jacob Albright as drummer.

Richard Bennehan buys the land that began the Stagville plantation

Bennehan bought land northeast of Snow Hill on the west side of the Flat River, the start of what became the Stagville-Fairntosh plantation complex.

Michael Holt turns back from the Loyalist march and later takes the Whig oath

Holt took a commission from Governor Martin and started for the Loyalist gathering at Cross Creek, but turned for home with some of his men. After his arrest he was permitted to take the Whig oath of allegiance, as James Hunter later was.

People: James Hunter · Josiah Martin

Methodists divide their North Carolina circuit and form the New Hope Circuit, taking in part of Orange

When the original North Carolina circuit was split in three in 1778, the new New Hope Circuit covered parts of Orange, Chatham, Cumberland and Wake counties. Hillsborough was served by its riders, beginning with James O'Kelly and Philip Adams in 1779.

Richard Bennehan lists 31 enslaved people for taxes

On the 1778 tax list Richard Bennehan of Stagville, one of the largest landholders in Orange County with 4,065 acres, reported 31 enslaved people. Most Orange households of the period held no one in slavery.

People: Richard Bennehan

The Assembly sets Orange County's quota of clothing for the state's troops

A statewide act passed at New Bern fixed each county's share of supplies for soldiers in the field. Orange owed 73 hats, 306 yards of linen, 146 yards of wool, 146 pairs of shoes and 146 pairs of stockings.

Orange magistrates tender the state oath across the county

The county court named two magistrates in each district to offer the oath to people suspected of disloyalty, and they returned lists of those who took and refused it to the May 1778 term. At that term James Hogg, William Johnston and Samuel Strudwick were cited again, and those who still declined were given sixty days to leave.

People: James Hogg · William Johnston

William Cain acquires the Pleasant Grove plantation on the Trading Path

William Cain acquired the Orange County property later called Pleasant Grove, beside the old Indian Trading Path, and held it until his death in 1834.

Subject: Pleasant Grove (William Cain plantation)

Most Orange enslavers hold fewer than ten people

By 1780, 95 percent of the county's enslavers held fewer than ten people and 3 percent held twenty or more.

Thomas Burke takes up his neighbors' complaints against army plundering

Home from Congress in 1780, Burke found troops around Hillsborough grazing horses on growing corn, pulling down haystacks and taking cattle, wagons and smokehouse stores. He warned local officials, wrote to the president of Congress and to General Gates, and Nash credits him with largely stopping the abuse in Orange.

People: Horatio Gates

Lee's Legion joins Pickens's militia camp after the Hart's Mill raid

Later the same day as the Hart's Mill raid, Henry Lee's Legion, returning from beyond the Dan River with Greene's army, reached General Andrew Pickens's militia at a farm up Stony Creek, where the camp at first took the horsemen for Tarleton's cavalry. The combined force then went after Tarleton west of the Haw, the movement that led to Pyle's defeat.

People: Andrew Pickens

Jesse Benton of Orange County writes to Thomas Hart about legal disputes

Jesse Benton of Orange County wrote to Thomas Hart about legal disputes and the pursuit of enslaved people. The letter survives in the Jesse Benton Papers at the State Archives.

People: Thomas Hart

Thomas Lloyd signs his lands and enslaved people over to his sons-in-law

To keep his property from confiscation as a Loyalist, Thomas Lloyd conveyed his lands and the people he enslaved to his sons-in-law Daniel and John Hogan for nominal sums and leased them straight back. His property was never confiscated.

Part of Slavery in Orange County · 102 events

People: John Hogan

Simon Lindley and Anna Stanley make their home in Orange County

After marrying Anna Stanley in South Carolina on July 14, 1789, Simon Lindley settled with her in Orange County. The family moved to Christian County, Kentucky, in the mid-1790s.

The Assembly lets Orange County's wardens of the poor build a poorhouse

A bill passed in December 1789 gave the wardens of the poor of Orange, Franklin and Surry counties power to put up poorhouses. The book cannot say whether Orange built one then or only in the 1820s.

Subject: Orange County poorhouse (County Home)

The first federal census counts 2,060 enslaved people in Orange County

The first federal census counted 12,216 people in Orange County: 10,055 white residents, 2,060 enslaved people and 101 other free persons. No other Piedmont county held as many enslaved people, and Richard Bennehan (24) and William Hooper (22, in Hillsborough) were the largest holders.

People: Richard Bennehan · William Hooper

Hillsborough builders add a Federal-style house at Cain's Pleasant Grove

The Cains commissioned the Hillsborough builders Martin Palmer and Samuel Hopkins to build a second, Federal-style house about ten feet from the original 1775 Georgian house at Pleasant Grove.

Subject: Pleasant Grove (William Cain plantation)

James Hogg of Hillsborough gathers Orange County land and money for the university site

Hogg, a Hillsborough merchant who sat on the commission that fixed the university's place, brought in pledges of land and about 1,600 dollars from people in Orange County for the New Hope Chapel Hill site. The ground chosen lay roughly twelve miles from Hillsborough on the road running from Petersburg through the town and on south to Pittsboro.

Orange County leads the state in pledges to the university

By July, Davie and Willie Jones reported 909 pounds 4 shillings pledged in Orange against 804 pounds in Halifax, out of $6,723 statewide. William Cain and Walter Alves of Orange were among the three largest subscribers at $200 each, and Jesse Neville of Orange gave $100.

People: Willie Jones · Walter Alves · William Richardson Davie

Alexander Mebane takes his seat as Orange County's first member of Congress

Alexander Mebane of the Hawfields, a former Orange County sheriff, sits in the Third Congress, the first on the book's list of congressmen from Orange.

John Cabe, Gilbert Strayhorn's son-in-law, sits in the legislature

John Cabe, who married Strayhorn's daughter Mary and settled near New Hope, served in the legislature in 1796.

The Haw River Circuit takes the place of the New Hope Circuit in serving Hillsborough Methodists

In 1797 the Methodists replaced the New Hope Circuit with the Haw River Circuit, whose preachers then served the Hillsborough community. The Hillsborough church organized about 1807 belonged to this circuit.

Subject: Hillsborough Methodist Church

William Courtney mortgages a man named Africa to William Cain

William Courtney of Orange County pledged an enslaved man known as Africa to William Cain as security for 200 pounds, the bill of sale to be void if Courtney repaid the debt with interest by the following February 28.

People: William Cain Sr.

The legislature lets the county court levy a tax for public buildings

The court could set the rate it needed for improvements, within caps on polls, land and town property.

The Gosling log house is built in eastern Orange County

A one-room log house, later known as the Gosling Log House, is raised in eastern Orange County in the early 1800s. The survey placed it on the state Study List.

William Cain is the largest landowner in Orange County, enslaving 30 people

By 1800 William Cain owned 4,417 acres, the most of any landowner in Orange County, and enslaved 30 people at Pleasant Grove, a number he increased to 95 by 1830.

Subject: Pleasant Grove (William Cain plantation)

William D. Paisley becomes pastor of the Hawfields and Cross Roads churches

After serving the Union and Buffalo churches in Guilford County, Paisley took charge of the Hawfields and Cross Roads Presbyterian churches near present Mebane in 1801 and stayed until 1818. The Hawfields church historian credits him with organizing the first camp meeting in North Carolina there during the Great Revival.

Subject: Hawfields Presbyterian Church · Cross Roads Presbyterian Church

Archibald D. Murphey marries Jane Armistead Scott and settles at the Hermitage

After leaving the University to read law in Hillsborough under William Duffy, Murphey married Jane Armistead Scott on November 5, 1801, and made his home at the Hermitage, her father's farm on Great Alamance Creek about eighteen miles west of Hillsborough, in the part of Orange County that is now Alamance. He built his law practice around the Hillsborough courthouse.

Grammar school under William Paisley opens west of Hillsborough

A grammar school under the Rev. William Paisley was announced to open in January 1809 about ten miles west of Hillsborough, teaching Latin, Greek, geography and philosophy for sixteen dollars a year.

Archibald D. Murphey serves Orange County in the state senate

Archibald D. Murphey was elected to the legislature from Orange County in 1812 and sat in the state senate until 1818. There he proposed a publicly financed system of schools in a report he finished on November 29, 1817, and in 1819 he followed it with his memoir on internal improvements.

A log house, later the Maynard farm kitchen, is built in southwest Orange

The half-dovetailed log building that became the kitchen on the William Maynard farm went up about 1814, and is said to have been the family's first dwelling.

Subject: Maynard Farm

Frederick Nash represents Orange County in the House of Commons

Nash sat for Orange County in the House of Commons in 1814, 1816 and 1817. He was speaker of the house in 1814.

Orange County's enslaved people are valued at nearly two thirds of its land

The 1815 valuation put the county's enslaved population at $1,216,347 and all its land at $1,917,993.

William Bingham runs his school at Mount Repose northwest of Hillsborough

After leaving Hillsborough Academy, the Rev. William Bingham kept his own academy at Mount Repose, in a house on Back Creek about ten miles northwest of Hillsborough. His son William James Bingham closed it in 1826 when he took over Hillsborough Academy.

People: William James Bingham

Senator Archibald D. Murphey of Orange moves for a legislative committee on public schools

Following Governor Miller's 1816 message, Orange County senator Archibald D. Murphey won a joint committee to study public education. Its report led to a second committee, also under Murphey, whose plan Pender credits as the groundwork of the later state school system.

Archibald D. Murphey submits his Report on Education to the General Assembly

While state senator for Orange, Murphey laid before the Assembly a plan for primary schools, academies and more state support for the university. The book calls it the first definite plan for public education offered in North Carolina.

Jacob Jeffries of the Texas community makes his will

The will of Jacob Jeffries, one of the first heads of household on the 1787 tax list, was witnessed by David Haitcock, and one of his daughters married into the Guy family. Hazel reads such ties among the Jeffries, Haitcock, Guy and Whitmore families as the marks of a single community that married within itself.

Willie P. Mangum represents Orange County in the House of Commons

In 1818, a year after his admission to the bar, Willie P. Mangum was elected to the House of Commons for Orange County, where he promoted constitutional reform.

Mary Walker is born into an enslaved family held by the Bennehans and Camerons

Mary Walker was born to Priscilla, whose mother Aggy had been one of the first enslaved children born on the Bennehan plantation in 1781. Her monument at Mount Auburn Cemetery records her birth in Orange County.

The university closes its grammar school and makes Hillsborough Academy its preparatory school

When Abner W. Clopton gave up the grammar school the university dropped it. Caldwell arranged for Hillsborough Academy, under John Witherspoon with John Rogers teaching, to prepare boys for the university, whose faculty could attend its examinations and admit its top pupils on certificate.

People: Abner Wentworth Clopton · John Knox Witherspoon · Joseph Caldwell

Subject: Hillsborough Academy · University grammar school (Preparatory School)

David Faucette builds his farmhouse above the Eno

David Faucette built a two-story frame farmhouse above the Eno about 1820. It gained Greek Revival trim in the mid-1800s and a front porch about 1880. Placed on the state Study List in April 1992, it was listed in the National Register in 1999 as the David Faucette House; the name The Elms was given by owners in 1977.

Subject: David Faucette House (The Elms)

Jeffries and other Texas community families move to Ohio and Indiana

From the 1820s to the 1840s a number of families left the Texas community for Greene County, Ohio, and some went on to Rush and Whitley counties in Indiana. There members of the Jeffries family won three court cases between 1842 and 1869 over whether, as people of Indian descent, they could vote.

Texas community families leave Orange for Sugar Fork in Macon County

In the 1820s, after the Cherokee cession opened the land, a group of Guy, Whitmore, Jeffries and Gibson families from the Texas community moved to the mountains and formed the Sugar Fork settlement in Macon County. It stayed distinct for many years; letters of 1869 and 1872 to the Indian Office described its people as Catawba who had come from Orange County.

The Beasley House is built on a hall-and-parlor plan

Thought to date from the 1820s, the Beasley House ranks among the finest hall-and-parlor houses left in Orange County. Its early story-and-a-half section keeps its original room layout and its hewn, pegged frame, though the house was changed and enlarged late in the nineteenth century.

Willie P. Mangum begins his service in the U.S. House of Representatives

Mangum, a former superior court judge, took a seat in Congress for the district in 1823 and served two terms before resigning in 1826.

The wardens of the poor buy 470 acres for a county poorhouse

Enoch Thompson deeded about 470 acres to the Wardens of the Poor of Orange County for $800, for a poorhouse and the support of paupers there. The poorhouse on this land stayed in use until 1941.

Subject: Orange County poorhouse (County Home)

Orange County votes for Andrew Jackson in the presidential election

Orange gave Jackson 638 votes to 591 for William H. Crawford, even though its congressman Willie P. Mangum backed Crawford. The county voted for Jackson again in 1828 (1,036 to 440) and 1832 (759 to 170 for Clay).

People: Willie P. Mangum

People freed by David Patterson of Orange sail for Liberia

Under the auspices of the Colonization Society, the formerly enslaved people of David Patterson left for Liberia in 1825.

The Orange County Sunday School Union asks the Assembly to fund its schools

The Orange County Sunday School Union petitioned the General Assembly for 25 cents a year per pupil for its 22 Sunday schools, which taught 800 to 1,000 children, many from poor families, to read. John Scott of Hillsborough presented it in the House of Commons, which turned it down.

People: James Webb · William Kirkland · William Norwood · John Knox Witherspoon · Dennis Heartt

Duncan Cameron records tobacco sales of nearly 30,000 pounds

Cameron's accounts for 1826 show close to 30,000 pounds of tobacco sold from the Bennehan-Cameron plantations, where the crop was grown with the labor of enslaved people.

People: Duncan Cameron

Fire destroys Witherspoon's farmhouse and the Orange Presbytery records

The fire burned the Witherspoons' rural home a mile and a half south of Hillsborough and its contents, including all but one volume of the old records of Orange Presbytery, which Witherspoon held as stated clerk. Losses were put at about 3,000 dollars and the house was rebuilt.

Subject: Tusculum (Witherspoon farm)

Farmers of Orange, Chatham and Guilford meet to talk about a railroad

In 1828 farmers from Orange, Chatham and Guilford counties met to discuss building a railroad, the first such meeting in North Carolina. Public meetings on a line through the county went on into the early 1850s.

Orange County sends Hugh Waddell to the House of Commons

Waddell was elected to the House of Commons from Orange County for the 1828-29 session and again in 1835, and then served Orange in the state senate in five sessions between 1836 and 1848, as president of the senate in 1836.

An Orange County mass meeting calls for state aid to roads and river navigation

A county meeting chaired by James Webb, with Dennis Heartt as secretary, adopted an address to the people of Orange in favor of internal improvements and had 500 copies printed for circulation in the county.

People: James Webb · Dennis Heartt

The county court levies a tax on Black polls to pay for the patrol

Along with its taxes for county costs and the poor, the August 1829 court ordered ten cents collected on each Black poll to pay the patrol, the county's slave patrol.

Fred Hartgrove, a free Black man, holds three enslaved people

The 1830 records show Hartgrove holding three people and Lucy Peters, also free and Black, holding one. No free Black resident of Orange held anyone in 1860.

The census finds Orange County's enslaved population at its peak

The 1830 census counted 7,339 enslaved people beside 15,918 white residents, a little under 31 percent of the county. The number fell afterward through sales, migration, manumission and the loss of territory to new counties.

The census lists the Texas community families as free Negro heads of household

The 1830 federal census for the North District of Orange County listed the Whitmores, Jeffrieses, Corns, Burnettes, Haithcocks and Joneses among free Negro heads of household. Through the nineteenth century county and federal records almost always classed these families as free colored or mulatto, and almost never as Indian.

The legislature elects Willie P. Mangum to the United States Senate

Mangum, then a Jacksonian Democrat, was chosen senator in 1830. He broke with Jackson over the bank deposits and resigned when a Democratic legislature instructed him to vote to expunge the censure of Jackson.

Fannie Breeze is born enslaved in the household of Samuel Breeze

Fannie Breeze was born in 1832, enslaved in the household of Samuel H. Breeze, a farmer and member of Pleasant Green Methodist church in what was then eastern Orange County. She joined Pleasant Green before the Civil War and later worked as a midwife along the Eno.

Orange County counts twenty-one academies

By 1832 Orange County had twenty-one academies, among them Hillsborough Academy, the Bingham school and Cedar Grove Academy, a pace of school founding somewhat ahead of the state as a whole.

James Phillips is licensed to preach and later serves New Hope Presbyterian Church

Mathematics professor James Phillips joined the Presbyterian church in 1832 and was licensed to preach by Orange Presbytery in 1833. He was later ordained and installed as minister of New Hope Presbyterian Church, about seven miles outside Chapel Hill, and shared the university chapel work with Elisha Mitchell.

Subject: New Hope Presbyterian Church

William A. Graham represents Hillsborough and then Orange County in the House of Commons

Graham was borough representative from Hillsborough in the legislatures of 1833, 1834 and 1835. After the constitutional reforms of 1835 he represented Orange County in the House of Commons in the 1836, 1838 and 1840 sessions, and he was speaker in the last two.

Duncan Cameron of Orange is elected president of the state Colonization Society

Cameron, a leading Orange planter and banker, took the presidency of the North Carolina branch of the colonization movement in 1834.

People: Duncan Cameron

Duncan Cameron gives his son Paul C. Cameron forty-one enslaved people

Duncan Cameron deeded his son Paul C. Cameron forty-one enslaved people, with any children the women would bear: Gabriel, Mima, Simeon and Sarah in Orange County, and families at the Mill Quarter plantation in Person County, among them Phillip and Jenny and their children Randol, Jim, Ellen, Nancy and Phill. Cameron acknowledged the deed before Justice William Gaston at Raleigh on January 1, 1835.

People: Duncan Cameron · Paul C. Cameron · William Gaston

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.

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.

People: Thomas Ruffin · Frederick Nash

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.

People: Dennis Heartt

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.

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, presided over the Senate as its Whig Speaker in the 1836-1837 session.

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.

Henry Harris, held as a suspected runaway, is charged with burning the Orange County jail

At the spring term of Superior Court the case against Henry Harris, a man of color charged with setting fire to the county jail, was moved to Caswell County for trial. He had been jailed as a runaway because he could not prove his freedom, and he escaped soon after.

Subject: Orange County jail, Hillsborough

Paul C. Cameron moves to Fairntosh to manage the Cameron plantations

Paul C. Cameron gave up the bar and moved with his wife, Anne Ruffin Cameron, from Burnside in Hillsborough to Fairntosh to manage the Cameron plantations with his uncle Thomas D. Bennehan. They lived there until 1856.

The Cane Creek Farmers and Mechanics Company starts a cotton mill

In 1837 the Cane Creek Farmers and Mechanics Company of Orange and Chatham Counties set up a cotton mill in southern Orange County, giving local farmers a place to have their raw cotton spun for sale.

Orange County citizens gather at Mount Willing each January to celebrate Jackson's New Orleans victory

Citizens met at the Mount Willing crossroads in western Orange County on January 7, 1837, to mark Andrew Jackson's 1815 victory at New Orleans with toasts, cheers and gunfire. The Recorder called the gathering an annual custom by 1842, when about 200 attended, and reported it again in 1844 with a procession from the crossroads.

Mount Pleasant Academy, later Junto Academy, operates under Daniel W. Kerr

Daniel W. Kerr ran an academy in northern Orange County, advertised as Mount Pleasant Academy in 1837 and by 1838 as Junto Academy, twelve miles northwest of Hillsborough and six miles south of Mason Hall.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Three planters grow nearly all of Orange County's cotton

The 1840 agricultural census recorded 253,437 pounds of cotton in Orange County, about 90 percent of it from the plantations of Paul Cameron, John Lipscomb and Fendal Southerland in the east of the county, worked by enslaved labor. The county also grew 262,882 pounds of tobacco that year, mostly in the north.

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.

Willie P. Mangum builds Walnut Hall at Red Mountain

Willie P. Mangum built Walnut Hall from 1842 to 1845 as an addition to his father's house of about 1800. His wife ran the 600-acre plantation, where Mangum enslaved 20 people in 1850.

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.

Elias Dodson holds Hillsborough's first known Baptist services in the courthouse

Elias Dodson, a Virginia-born graduate of William and Mary, preached in the courthouse and is the first Baptist minister the authors could find holding services in town. When the county built a new courthouse he bought the old one for the Baptists.

Giles Mebane represents Orange County in the House of Commons

Giles Mebane sat for Orange County in the House of Commons from 1844 to 1849, until the western part of the county, where he was from, became Alamance County.

Paul C. Cameron sends enslaved people from the family farms to cotton plantations in Alabama and Mississippi

Paul C. Cameron bought a cotton plantation in Greene County, Alabama, in 1844 and land for another in Tunica County, Mississippi, in 1856, and sent more than 100 enslaved men and women from the family's North Carolina farms to them.

Part of Slavery in Orange County · 102 events

The county counts 57 common schools for white children in the 1844-45 term

In the 1844-45 term, 60 teachers at 57 Orange County common schools taught 1,347 boys and 945 girls, all of them white. The schools had been set up after the county board of superintendents divided the county into districts.

John U. Kirkland is elected a Warden of the Poor for Orange County

At an election in April 1844 Orange County chose Cadwallader Jones, Dr. James Webb, Green Jordan, Nathaniel Bain, James Faucett, John U. Kirkland and Samuel N. Tate as Wardens of the Poor.

People: Cadwallader Jones · James Webb

Subject: Orange County poorhouse (County Home)

Eagle Lodge Masons lay the cornerstone of the new Orange County courthouse

Masons of Eagle Lodge, with brethren from University Lodge, laid the cornerstone of the new courthouse in Hillsborough, with Dr. James S. Smith acting as deputy grand master. The Rev. William M. Green gave the oration in the old courthouse nearby.

People: James Strudwick Smith · William Mercer Green

Subject: Orange County Courthouse, Hillsborough · Eagle Lodge

William James Bingham opens his school at the Oaks

William James Bingham gave up Hillsborough Academy after its spring 1844 session and in May announced a select classical and mathematical school twelve miles southwest of Hillsborough, to open that November on the Oaks tract he bought the same year. It became known as the Bingham School and stayed at the Oaks until December 1864.

People: William James Bingham

Subject: Hillsborough Academy · Bingham School

The Smith-Cole House is built for a Hillsborough planter

Built in 1845 for a Hillsborough planter, the frame house stands two stories over a center-hall plan two rooms deep and five bays across, with a chimney at each gable end and a porch on thin columns.

Samuel Wellwood Hughes opens a classical school for boys near Cedar Grove

Samuel Wellwood Hughes opened his own academy in northern Orange County in January 1845. First called Cedar Grove Academy and later Hughes' Academy, it offered classical and mathematical courses modeled on the Bingham School and ran until his death in 1884.

Part of Orange County’s nineteenth-century academies · 102 events

Subject: Bingham School · Hughes Academy (Cedar Grove Academy)

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, where it still hangs in the cupola. Lemuel Lynch was paid $250 for the work and afterward $25 a year to keep it running on time.

Subject: Orange County Courthouse, Hillsborough

Giles Mebane introduces the bill to form Alamance County from western Orange

On January 1, 1849, Giles Mebane, a member for Orange County, introduced a bill to create a new county from part of Orange. It passed, and he named the county Alamance.

Part of How Orange County’s boundaries changed, 1771–1881 · 11 events

Most of Orange County's common surnames date back to the 1779 tax list

Forty-nine of the sixty surnames most common in Orange County in 1850 were already on the 1779 tax list, evidence that many families stayed put even as others moved west.

Orange County has 15 academies with 470 pupils

The count for 1850 found fifteen private academies in the county, teaching 470 students.

Orange County residents put up $100,000 for the North Carolina Railroad

Orange County people pledged $100,000 in 1850 toward building the North Carolina Railroad, planned to cross the state from Goldsboro through Hillsborough to Charlotte. Its first rails went down at Greensboro in 1851.

Subject: North Carolina Railroad

The census counts 5,244 enslaved people in Orange County

The 1850 census found 11,330 white residents, 5,244 enslaved people and 481 free Black people in Orange County. The share of enslaved people had risen sharply since 1790, even though the new Alamance County had taken part of Orange in 1849.

Three-quarters of Orange County farms hold under 100 acres

By 1850 most farms in the county were small: three in four had less than 100 acres, and only a few ran past 500.

Samuel W. Hughes is named to Orange County's first board for examining teachers

On March 12, 1850, Samuel Wellwood Hughes was appointed to the first Orange County board to examine teachers for the common schools. In February 1852 he was also appointed to the county Board of Superintendents of Common Schools.

Paul C. Cameron builds new quarters for enslaved families at Horton Grove

In the decade before the Civil War Paul C. Cameron began a building campaign at the family's Horton Grove farm near Stagville. Four of the dwellings built to house families the Camerons enslaved still stand.

Part of Slavery in Orange County · 102 events

Orange County seats a Board of Superintendents for its common schools under William H. Brown

A nine-man county Board of Superintendents, chaired by William H. Brown, oversaw the common schools in 1852. That year a new state law obliged such boards to name committees to examine would-be teachers rather than merely allowing it.

People: Samuel Wellwood Hughes

James Strudwick Smith dies

James Strudwick Smith died on December 7, 1852. His family lived out their lives at the Smith Level Road house outside Chapel Hill, and his daughter Mary Ruffin Smith later gave land to the University of North Carolina.

Orange County's first recorded public school report counts 51 districts

The first written record of Orange's public schools, for 1853, shows 51 districts with schools in all but one. Of 4,447 children, 2,507 attended, and 36 men and one woman were licensed to teach.

Paul Cameron tells the county agricultural society the railroad will wake Orange up

Speaking to the Orange County Society for the Promotion of Agriculture, the Mechanic Arts, and Manufactures, Cameron predicted the coming railroad would shake local farmers and businesses out of their old habits.

North Carolina Railroad finished to Durham's Station

The railroad was completed to Durham's Station, then a single house on Dr. Bartlett Durham's plantation in Orange County, and the company gave legislators a free ride there. From then until 1882 a two-horse hack line between Chapel Hill and Durham replaced the four-horse stage to Raleigh.

People: Samuel (Samuel Field) Phillips

Subject: North Carolina Railroad

Abner Burnette is twice prosecuted for carrying a gun and once recorded as Indian

Abner Burnette of the Texas community was indicted in Alamance County in 1855 for carrying a gun, which was unlawful for free persons of color. He pled guilty and was fined thirty one dollars. Indicted again in 1860 he pled not guilty, was convicted and was fined five cents. The 1860 census for Orange County recorded him as Indian, and the 1870 Alamance County census as mulatto.

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.

People: Charles Phillips · Edmund Strudwick · Andrew Mickle

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.