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Revolution and early republic · 1775–1799
- 1780s
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Governor Burke returns to Hillsborough and raises a company against the Loyalists
Hearing that Loyalists were plundering in southern Orange and that David Fanning was active again, Burke came to Hillsborough and formed a mixed infantry and cavalry company under a Captain Allen of New Hope to guard the area's Whigs.
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Alexander Martin takes the oath as acting governor while Burke is in enemy hands
Three weeks after Fanning carried Governor Burke out of Hillsborough, Alexander Martin, Speaker of the Senate, qualified before the Council of State at Colonel Williams's in Granville County and took up the administration. He told the council that the government must be supported and the most vigorous and decisive measures taken against so daring an enemy.
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Burke is admitted to parole as a prisoner of war on James Island
Held first as a prisoner of state after Fanning's men delivered him to Major Craig at Wilmington, Burke was admitted to parole on James Island outside Charleston. Loyalist refugees on the island, outlaws from the state he had governed, left him in what he called hourly danger of assassination.
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The Assembly levies a tax on the Hillsborough District to repair the courthouse, stocks and streets
An act taxed residents of the district and the town, with the money going to repair the courthouse and stocks and the town's streets.
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A brick courthouse replaces the first one at Hillsborough
The county's second courthouse, built of brick, went up in 1782. The book says fire destroyed it seven years later and a wooden courthouse followed in 1790.
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Alfred Moore prosecutes at Hillsborough and is made attorney general
Acting as prosecutor in several major cases at Hillsborough while the state attorney general was away, Alfred Moore of Wilmington did well enough to be appointed attorney general that same year. He held the office until 1790 and built Moorefields west of Hillsborough while serving.
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Hillsborough collects meat for Greene's army and holds prisoners of war
Alexander Mebane, commissioner of specific supplies for Orange, gathered more than 2,000 pounds of salt and fresh meat at Hillsborough for Greene's army in South Carolina. The town jail held British and Loyalist prisoners while exchanges were negotiated.
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Jesse Benton's son Thomas Hart Benton is born near Hart's Mill
Thomas Hart Benton, later a U.S. senator from Missouri, was born in 1782 at Hart's Mill near Hillsborough, the son of Jesse and Ann Gooch Benton.
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The General Assembly names Hillsborough its meeting place until a seat of government is fixed
An act of the April 1782 session, held at Hillsborough, directed that future General Assemblies meet there until a proper place was fixed for the seat of government. With the war over, the April 1783 session, also at Hillsborough, repealed it.
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William Hooper makes the Nash house in Hillsborough his home
The house Francis Nash built in 1772 became the home of William Hooper, signer of the Declaration of Independence, in 1782. William A. Graham lived there in the 1860s.
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Burke escapes from his parole on James Island
Having written General Leslie on December 30 asking for a parole within American lines, Burke slipped off James Island on the night of January 16. Two days later he offered Leslie to return within British lines if guaranteed the treatment of a Continental officer, and on January 19 he asked Greene that men of honor judge the act.
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Thomas Burke returns to Hillsborough and takes up the governorship again
After leaving his parole on James Island, Burke resumed his duties at Hillsborough. His breach of parole drew criticism from many constituents and a dispute between Greene and the British.
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Three of David Fanning's men are hanged at Hillsborough
Seven captured raiders were tried before Judge John Williams, with Alfred Moore prosecuting and William R. Davie defending in his first case. Three were hanged despite Fanning's threats, and Burke commuted the other four sentences to a year in the Continental army.
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General Assembly at Hillsborough elects Alexander Martin governor and grants western land to Continental soldiers
The Assembly met at Hillsborough, heard Governor Thomas Burke's message about his capture, and elected Alexander Martin governor on April 22. Its laws granted land in a western military reservation to officers and soldiers of the Continental line and directed the sale of confiscated Loyalist estates.
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The General Assembly at Hillsborough votes its thanks to Thomas Burke
A day after choosing his successor, both houses resolved that the thanks of the General Assembly be given to Burke for his steady and constant attention to the duties of his office and his vigorous dispatch of the public business while he was governor. The resolution passes over his capture and parole in silence.
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A false alarm of a Fanning attack turns the legislators out into Hillsborough's streets
With the General Assembly in session and General John Butler guarding it with 200 county militia, members were roused from bed and paraded in the streets before the report proved false. Fanning had in fact married and fled to South Carolina.
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William Moore is named commissioner of confiscated Loyalist estates for the Hillsborough District
The April Assembly at Hillsborough appointed commissioners to deal with estates taken from Loyalists, electing William Moore for the Hillsborough District.
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Assembly at Hillsborough elects Abner Nash and Hugh Williamson delegates to Congress
On May 3, 1782, a joint ballot of the General Assembly at Hillsborough elected Abner Nash, Hugh Williamson, Benjamin Hawkins and William Blount as the state's delegates to Congress for the year. Nash had been returned to the House for Jones County, and Williamson sat for the town of Edenton.
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The Assembly names Thomas Davis state printer and tells him to set up his press at Hillsborough
On the last day of the session Davis was appointed public printer and directed to establish his press in Hillsborough as soon as he could, to print the state's laws and legislative journals there.
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A post route is opened between Hillsborough and Richmond
The route was part of a push, gaining ground in 1783, to make Hillsborough the permanent seat of state government.
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Hawfields residents petition the House of Commons against Justice John Steel
Orange County people objecting to the conduct of Steel, a justice of the peace in the Hawfields, sent a memorial to the Commons. It went to committee, and Steel resigned before any action was taken.
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Hillsborough's count at the end of the war: forty white polls and sixty-seven enslaved people
At the close of the Revolution the town listed forty white taxable men and sixty-seven enslaved people between the ages of twelve and fifty, which Nash reads as a population of about three hundred.
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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.
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General Assembly at Hillsborough opens the western land office and passes an act of pardon
Meeting at Hillsborough, the Assembly re-elected Alexander Martin governor and chose Hugh Williamson, Benjamin Hawkins, Abner Nash and Richard Dobbs Spaight as delegates to Congress. Its laws opened a land office for western lands to redeem specie certificates and pay army arrears, and an Act of Pardon and Oblivion covered wartime offenses, with exceptions.
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John DeBow, minister to the Hawfields, Eno and New Hope people, dies
DeBow died at 38 and was buried at Hawfields church. Craig was told he was the first person buried in the present Hawfields churchyard.
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Continental officers organize the North Carolina Society of the Cincinnati at James Hogg's cabin
Former officers of the North Carolina Continental line gathered near Hillsborough in a cabin owned by the merchant James Hogg and founded the state's Society of the Cincinnati. They elected Jethro Sumner president, Thomas Clark vice president and Adam Boyd secretary. Sixty-six of the roughly six hundred commissioned officers the state sent to the war joined by contributing a month's pay.
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Thomas Burke dies at Tyaquin
Thomas Burke died at his farm near Hillsborough after serving as North Carolina’s governor.
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Cross Roads Presbyterian Church is organized from the Hawfields, Eno and Stony Creek congregations
During Jacob Lake's ministry a new congregation, Cross Roads, was gathered from members of Hawfields, Eno and Stony Creek. It later shared pastors with Hawfields for more than a century.
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General Assembly at Hillsborough cedes the state's western lands to Congress
The spring 1784 Assembly at Hillsborough passed an act ceding to Congress the state's claim to lands west of the Appalachian Mountains and an act giving Congress power to levy import duties. The House of Commons chose Thomas Benbury as speaker and elected Hugh Williamson and Richard Dobbs Spaight as delegates to Congress.
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William Hooper divides enslaved people among his children
At Hillsborough, William Hooper gave his son Thomas Hogg Hooper a woman named Judah and her child Jack, in place of Tom, a man Robert Hogg had willed to Thomas and whom Hooper had sold to Samuel Campbell for 120 pounds. The same day, to put his children on an equal footing, he made over Pat and her son Alfred to his daughter Elizabeth and sold a girl named Molly to his son William, each transfer completed by handing a silver spoon to James Hogg as trustee.
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Orange County citizens petition to bar members of the Society of the Cincinnati from the Assembly
At the New Bern session county residents asked that members of the officers' society be kept out of the legislature. John Butler, Orange's representative and himself eligible to join, introduced a bill to that end, which was never acted on.
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A bill to make Hillsborough the state capital fails by four votes
Hillsborough's backers pressed the question from session to session, and in 1785 a bill to fix the capital there lost 41 to 37.
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Alfred Moore of Wilmington builds Moorefields near Hillsborough as a summer home
Moore, whom President John Adams later appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court, built Moorefields as his summer place. Local tradition held that Senator Thomas Hart Benton and Mrs. Henry Clay were born there, but both were born before the house was built, on Hart and Benton family land somewhat to the north.
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Hillsborough Academy opens in the old Anglican church
The school chartered as Science Hall opened as Hillsborough Academy in the old Anglican church, which an act of the 1784 Hillsborough session had ordered repaired for a school and a free meeting house. It never thrived and closed in 1790.
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Joseph Dunn Hughes keeps a school in the Eno Church community
Pender lists a school run by Joseph Dunn Hughes near Eno Presbyterian Church in 1785, the earliest of the Hughes family schools that later produced Cedar Grove Academy.
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The North Carolina Gazette begins publication at Hillsborough
The North Carolina Gazette of Hillsborough, apparently the county's first regular newspaper, appeared in 1785. The only surviving copy with an imprint, dated February 16, 1786, was printed by Robert Ferguson for Thomas Davis.
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William Cabe and thirty neighbors on the Eno post a warning against hunters
William Cabe published a broadside, signed by his brother John and 28 neighbors, warning that people hunting with dogs and guns on their land had driven off their cattle and hogs and would be prosecuted.
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David Craig's 1785 stone is the oldest dated marker in New Hope's old graveyard
The earliest date Craig could find in the old graveyard beside the first church site reads 'D. C. - N. 2. - 1785', which he took for David Craig, a son of William Craige, who died November 2, 1785. Earlier graves there were marked with rough, unlettered stones.
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Sterling Harris builds the house on East Queen Street later called Heartsease
Sterling Harris built the one-and-a-half-story core of the house about 1786. Polly Burke bought it in 1810 and added a bay, and Dennis Heartt's family named it Heartsease after 1837.
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The William Whitted House is built facing East Queen Street
A two-story frame house with a massive stone chimney is built about 1786 for William Whitted at East Queen and North Churton streets. A five-bay Italianate wing facing Churton Street was added later, possibly designed by Jules Korner of Kernersville.
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The county court names a jury to lay off a road from McCauley's mill to Hillsborough
At the week-long August 1786 term, held by justices John Butler, William McCauley and William Ansley, the court named a jury to mark the best and most direct road from McCauley's mill to Hillsborough. The same term licensed three taverns and named tax collectors for all seven taxing districts.
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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.
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The Assembly orders the state treasurer and comptroller to move their offices to Hillsborough
Meeting at Fayetteville, the Assembly directed both officers to take their offices and records to Hillsborough so they would be convenient to most of the state's people. The comptroller was slow to comply, and a year later the order was repeated.
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A one-story Federal house is built on West Queen Street, later the John Newman House
The hall-and-parlor house at 230 West Queen Street dates from about 1787; a deed of February 25, 1790 already describes the lot as improved. Its earliest recorded owner was Vincent Peter Williamson, and Governor Thomas Burke's widow Mary Burke Doherty owned it for a time before the Newman family bought it in the 1860s.
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Indian families from Virginia settle the Texas community in northern Orange County
Charles Whitmore, Jesse Whitmore and Jacob Jeffries appear on the Orange County return used for the 1790 federal census, which was compiled from a tax list of 1787. Families of the same names had moved southwest from Greensville County in Virginia, and by 1820 the settlement later called Texas, or Pleasant Grove, was intact, with the Corn and Jeffries families holding tracts of several hundred acres.
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Richard Bennehan buys land from Judith Stagg and opens the Stagville Store
After William Johnston's death in 1785 Bennehan opened his own store, on land he bought from Judith Stagg, which became the Stagville Store.
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Samuel Strudwick's long Haw Fields lawsuits come to an end
Litigation between Strudwick and settlers on the Haw Fields tract, begun a few years after his 1766 meeting with them, ended in 1788 with Strudwick having lost about a third of the property.
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A county bridge over the Flat River at Island Ford is finished
James and John Carrington, appointed to let and oversee the work, reported the bridge on John Carrington's land completed to contract. The court allowed their account of 370 pounds.
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Hillsborough Convention declines to ratify the Constitution
Meeting at St. Matthew's Church in Hillsborough, delegates defeated a motion to ratify the Constitution 184 to 84 on August 1, 1788. On August 2 they voted to neither ratify nor reject it until a declaration of rights and amendments went before Congress.
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The convention appoints a committee of privileges and elections with three members from each district
The convention set up a 27-member committee of privileges and elections, three from each district, which went on to rule on the disputed returns. Alexander Mebane of Orange County sat on it with Thomas Person, William R. Davie and James Iredell.
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The convention names a select committee to draft its rules of debate
On its first day the convention asked William R. Davie, Thomas Person, James Iredell, Elisha Battle, Richard Dobbs Spaight, Samuel Spencer and a member named McDonald to propose rules for its discussion of the Constitution.
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The ratification convention opens at Hillsborough and elects Governor Samuel Johnston its president
A majority of the elected delegates met at the church in Hillsborough and chose Governor Samuel Johnston president without a dissenting vote. They then named John Hunt and James Taylor clerks and appointed doorkeepers.
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The convention adopts eighteen rules for the conduct of its members
The rules committee reported and the convention agreed to its rules with one article left out. The rules let any two members call for a recorded yea-and-nay vote and excused Quaker members from the ban on wearing hats in the house.
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William Lenoir brings a petition against the Dobbs County election before the convention
On Lenoir's motion the convention read the Dobbs County return and a petition from county residents complaining of an illegal election, and sent both to the committee of elections. Richard Dobbs Spaight added the sheriff's deposition and copy of the poll with other depositions, and Stephen Cabarrus two more depositions.
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The Grand Lodge of North Carolina holds its first regular meeting at Hillsborough
Seven months after Masonic delegates organized the Grand Lodge of North Carolina at Tarboro, it held its first regular meeting in Hillsborough, while the ratification convention was in session there.
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The convention has the state and federal founding documents read and receives news of two states' ratifications
On James Galloway's motion, seconded by Macon, the clerks read the state Bill of Rights and constitution, the Articles of Confederation, the act naming North Carolina's deputies to Philadelphia and the resolve of Congress sending the Constitution to the states. Johnston then laid before the members official accounts of ratification by Massachusetts and South Carolina.
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The convention unseats the Dobbs County delegates and voids both of the county's elections
The committee of elections reported that a riot at the first Dobbs poll had carried off the ballot box before all the ballots were counted, and that a majority of the county had not approved the second election the governor recommended. The convention agreed that the sitting members vacate their seats and that both elections were void.
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Willie Jones moves that the Hillsborough Convention vote on the Constitution at once
Jones moved that the question on the federal Constitution be put immediately, arguing that members had long since made up their minds and that a long sitting would waste public money. Thomas Person seconded him and James Iredell objected. The convention took up the Constitution clause by clause instead, debating it for eleven days.
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The convention resolves itself into a committee of the whole with Elisha Battle in the chair
After David Caldwell's attempt to fix governing maxims for the debate was set aside, the delegates went into committee of the whole, Elisha Battle presiding, and began reading the proposed Constitution clause by clause. The committee sat each day through July 31 except Sunday, July 27.
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Samuel Spencer argues that the Constitution's elections clause strikes at the state legislatures
In his first long speech at the Hillsborough convention, Spencer called the clause giving Congress control over the time, place and manner of elections reprehensible because it took from the states a power over elections he believed was theirs, and said it looked toward a consolidated national government.
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The convention rules that Fayetteville has no right to a delegate and seats Thomas Devane for New Hanover
Adopting a second report from the committee of elections, the convention held that the town of Fayetteville had no right of representation, so John Ingram, returned for the town, could not sit. It seated Thomas Devane Sr. for New Hanover County, finding that ballots for him written two ways were meant for the same man.
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James Galloway speaks on the slave trade clause at the Hillsborough convention
In committee of the whole, Galloway said he wished to see the "abominable trade" in enslaved people ended, objected to a federal tax on all immigrants, and warned that freeing enslaved people would destroy the property of the southern states. He said the state could not be happy if freed people stayed among the white population after manumission.
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Samuel Spencer objects to the reach of the federal courts at the Hillsborough convention
Spencer objected to the federal courts' jurisdiction over all cases arising under the Constitution and federal laws and over suits between citizens of different states, warning that it would be oppressive and would carry people far from home in cases the state courts could decide.
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Samuel Spencer presses for a bill of rights at the Hillsborough convention
Answering a Federalist claim that powers not granted were retained, Spencer argued that without an express bill of rights nothing marked the boundary the new government could not cross, and that the people would want one before accepting the Constitution.
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Governor Johnston moves in committee that the convention ratify and propose amendments afterward
When the committee of the whole reached the seventh article, read without objection, Johnston moved that North Carolina ratify the Constitution and at the same time propose amendments to be made by one of the methods it provides. His motion put the question of ratification before the committee for the first time.
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Samuel Spencer defends the Constitution's ban on religious tests for office
When delegates complained that the Constitution required no religious test for office, Spencer argued for freedom of worship and against any established religion, saying religious tests had caused persecution everywhere and would shut conscientious people out of office.
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William Lenoir speaks against the Constitution at the Hillsborough convention
In committee of the whole at Hillsborough, Wilkes County delegate William Lenoir said his constituents had instructed him to oppose the Constitution. He argued that its framers had exceeded their powers, that it secured no rights and lacked protection for trial by jury and the rights of conscience, and that it led to a dangerous aristocracy.
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Willie Jones's previous question carries 183 to 84, setting aside Johnston's ratification motion
Jones answered Johnston by moving the previous question, meaning to bring in his own resolution calling for amendments before North Carolina adopted the Constitution. After long argument the committee carried it 183 to 84, and its chairman, James Kenan, reported resolutions not yet put in form.
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The committee of the whole adopts Willie Jones's resolution for a declaration of rights and amendments before ratification
After a day of debate on the resolution, Davie asked that the amendments be taken one at a time, but the committee approved the resolution as it stood by a large majority. Kenan reported it to the convention, which ordered it to lie on the table overnight.
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Iredell's motion to ratify and recommend amendments afterward is defeated 184 to 84
Declaring all debate at an end and the majority irresistible, James Iredell moved that the convention ratify the Constitution and recommend amendments afterward, so that the minority's view would stand on the journal. The yeas and nays were taken and the motion lost, 84 to 184.
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Orange County's delegates vote against ratifying the Constitution before amendments
In the 184 to 84 roll call that defeated Iredell's amendment to ratify, Alexander Mebane, William Mebane, William McCauley, Jonathan Lindley and William Shepperd of Orange all voted no, as did A. Tatom. The next day the same members voted to concur in the declaration of rights and amendments.
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The majority votes to keep Iredell's ratification motion off the journal, then agrees to let it be offered as an amendment
When Samuel Spencer moved to concur with the committee's report, Iredell moved to postpone it for his own resolution, and the house fell into confusion, with Whitmill Hill warning that the minority would secede. Willie Jones carried a motion that Iredell's motion had no right to a place on the journal, but while the yeas and nays were being taken the two sides agreed that Spencer would withdraw and Iredell would offer his resolution as an amendment.
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The convention adopts a declaration of rights and twenty-six amendments to be laid before Congress before ratification
On Thomas Person's motion the convention concurred with its committee of the whole, resolving that a declaration of rights of twenty articles and twenty-six amendments to the most ambiguous and exceptionable parts of the Constitution be laid before Congress and a convention of the states before North Carolina would ratify. On Willie Jones's motions it also recommended a state impost matching whatever Congress laid, urged redemption of the paper currency, and ordered the resolutions sent to Congress and the twelve other states.
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The convention directs its president to send its resolutions to Congress and the other twelve states
A unanimous resolution asked Samuel Johnston to forward the resolution on the Constitution, with the impost and paper money resolutions, to Congress and to the executives of the twelve other states.
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The convention recommends that North Carolina collect an impost for the use of Congress
Having neither ratified nor rejected the Constitution, the convention adopted by a large majority Willie Jones's resolution asking the legislature to lay a duty on goods imported into North Carolina whenever Congress laid an impost in the ratifying states, and to pay the money to Congress.
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The convention unanimously urges the Assembly to redeem the state's paper currency
On Willie Jones's motion, seconded by James Galloway, the convention asked the General Assembly to retire the state's paper currency as quickly as the people's circumstances allowed.
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The convention adjourns sine die after fixing the seat of government at Isaac Hunter's in Wake County
With the Constitution neither ratified nor rejected, the convention turned to its second charge, the seat of government. A ballot on August 2 fixed it at Isaac Hunter's in Wake County, and on Monday, August 4, after approving the ordinance for it, the convention adjourned sine die.
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Daniel Mallett buys the West King Street lots where Twin Chimneys stands
On September 4, 1788, Daniel Mallett bought Lots 21 and 31 on West King Street, the first deed since 1768 to mention buildings or improvements on the property now called Twin Chimneys.
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Benjamin Smith serves as a trustee of the university
Benjamin Smith of Brunswick County, the university's first donor, sat on its board of trustees from the charter of 1789 until 1824, and was president of the board in 1810 while governor.
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Cane Creek Baptist Church is organized
Thomas Cates and members of the Cates family organized Cane Creek Baptist Church, the oldest Baptist church on the chapter's list. It later planted Antioch and Mars Hill churches.
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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.
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William McCauley serves as sheriff of Orange County
Lefler and Wager's list of Orange County sheriffs gives William McCauley for 1789 to 1790, between John Nichols (1787) and John Sloss (1791 to 1793).
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The House pays the men who carried the state treasury out of Hillsborough
On November 10, 1789 the House of Commons voted to pay John Armstrong of Orange County three pounds for taking the Treasury's books and papers from Hillsborough to Fayetteville, and five pounds each to nine men of the Orange Company of Horse who guarded the money on the road. The treasurer's office had been kept in the town since 1786 in the confiscated store known as the Blue House, and its records had already been carted to Tarboro and back in 1787 and 1788.
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A second convention at Fayetteville ratifies the Constitution 195 to 77
Sixteen months after the Hillsborough convention withheld ratification, a second convention that opened at Fayetteville on the third Monday of November 1789 voted to adopt and ratify the Constitution, 195 to 77, and adjourned the next day. Congress had by then sent the states the amendments that became the Bill of Rights.
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A road jury reroutes the road from Hillsborough to General Person's around a hill
On Theophilus Thompson's petition, a jury of twelve laid off a new line taking the road from town to General Person's around a hill. The court ordered Thompson to open it and Richard Williams and his hands to keep it in repair.
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The founding of the university and Chapel Hill
The General Assembly chartered the university on December 11, 1789. Meeting at Hillsborough in August 1792, the trustees voted to build within fifteen miles of Cyprett's Bridge, and that November their commissioners chose New Hope Chapel Hill. The Old East cornerstone was laid October 12, 1793, and the first student, Hinton James, arrived February 12, 1795.
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University of North Carolina is chartered
Meeting in Fayetteville, the General Assembly adopted William R. Davie's bill chartering the University of North Carolina. The act named some forty trustees and, instead of an appropriation, gave the school escheated property and uncollected debts; the trustees later placed it in southern Orange County, where Chapel Hill grew up around it.
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Benjamin Smith gives the university 20,000 acres of western land
Davie announced at the trustees' first meeting that Smith of Brunswick County had given land he received for Revolutionary service, in what became Obion County, Tennessee. It sold some 25 years later for $14,000, and Smith Hall, now the Playmakers Theatre, bears his name.
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The university's trustees hold their first meeting, at Fayetteville
Senate Speaker Charles Johnson chaired the meeting, and Alexander Mebane and James Hogg attended for Orange County; House Speaker Stephen Cabarrus was among the other trustees present. Davie and Hogg were charged with printing the two subscription papers, one under the charter's terms and one for outright gifts.
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The Assembly grants the university the proceeds of escheated property
Alongside the charter, a second act gave the new university the proceeds from property that fell to the state for want of heirs.
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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.
- 1790s
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Eno and Little River form a charge of their own, apart from Hawfields and Cross Roads
When Jacob Lake left about 1790, the old Pattillo field was split: Hawfields and Cross Roads shared one pastor, and Eno and Little River another. The two Orange churches were still paired when the history was written, apart from short breaks.
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Jacob Lake ends his ministry to New Hope
Lake followed DeBow and served New Hope with the Hawfields and Eno churches in the same way until about 1790. He left Orange Presbytery in 1794 after about ten years in it. Later pastor tablets give his years as 1784-1792 (Hawfields) and 1786-1794 (Eno).
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The county tax list counts 36 white polls and 82 taxable enslaved people in Hillsborough town
Orange County's 1790 tax list returned 2,272 polls and 406,106 acres across its eight districts, with a separate list for Hillsborough town showing 36 white polls against 82 black polls. William Hooper was charged for 22 of them, John Taylor for 10 and Francis Childs for 5.
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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.
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Fire destroys the greater part of Hillsborough
A letter written at Hillsborough early in March 1790 reported that the greatest part of the town had been destroyed by fire a few days earlier, news that reached New Bern by March 18 and was printed in the State Gazette of North Carolina on March 27. The district and county courthouse was among the buildings lost, the courts moved into a private house, and the General Assembly ordered a replacement built on the same lot before the year was out.
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Richard Stanford opens an academy in the Hawfields
Richard Stanford, who had come to the Hawfields district of Orange County from Maryland in 1789, opened an academy there. Thomas Hart Benton was among his early pupils.
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William Hooper dies in Hillsborough
Hooper, one of North Carolina's three signers of the Declaration of Independence, died at Hillsborough in his forty-ninth year and was buried there.
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William Lenoir is chosen the first president of the university's trustees
At the board's second meeting, held at Fayetteville, the trustees made William Lenoir of Wilkes County their president on the nomination of House Speaker Stephen Cabarrus, and elected State Comptroller John Craven treasurer. Lenoir soon gave up the chair and Governor Alexander Martin succeeded him.
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General Assembly orders a new district courthouse built at Hillsborough
Alexander Mebane of Orange brought in the bill, and the act named William Watters, Absalom Tatom and Jeduthan Harper commissioners to raise a courthouse on the lot where the burned one had stood and to sell off its brick and remains. It was paid for by a poll and land tax on Orange and by lighter taxes on Wake, Chatham, Caswell, Granville and Randolph, the counties of the Hillsborough district.
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The university's treasury receives its first money
John Harvey, clerk of the Perquimans court, paid over $2,706.41 recovered from a delinquent state collecting officer under the arrearages the Assembly had granted the university. As the charter required, the trustees invested it in United States stock.
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Eagle Lodge is chartered at Hillsborough
Eagle Lodge No. 19 was chartered at Hillsborough in 1791, among the first lodges under the Grand Lodge of North Carolina, with George Doherty as its first secretary. It stayed active until 1799 and then lay dormant until the masons revived it in 1819 under a new charter and a new number.
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John B. Tenney is said to build a farmhouse northeast of the village
Local tradition credits John B. Tenney with building the one-story frame farmhouse now at 381 Tenney Circle around 1791, and says it stayed in the family into the mid-twentieth century and took in boarders early in the 1800s.
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Trustees adopt a university seal showing Apollo and the rising sun
A committee of James Hogg, Alfred Moore and John Haywood, given sole power to choose a device for the corporation's seal, picked the face of Apollo with the rising sun, meant to stand for the dawn of higher education in the state.
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University trustees ask Benjamin Hawkins to gather information on American colleges
At their July 1791 meeting the university trustees named Senator Benjamin Hawkins, Samuel McCorkle and Hugh Williamson to gather information on the laws, rules and buildings of American colleges, with their income and spending, and to estimate what the university's own buildings would cost.
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The Assembly lends the university trustees 5,000 pounds for its buildings
Trustees meeting at New Bern named a committee to seek the loan, and Davie argued for it before the Commons. It passed 57 to 53 in the Commons and 28 to 21 in the Senate.
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Catherine Lockhart's burial in 1792 is the earliest known grave in the Lockhart-Phillips family cemetery
The small walled cemetery on East Tryon Street holds seventeen marked graves; the earliest is probably that of Mrs. Catherine Lockhart, who died in 1792. Saddler James Phillips, a founder of the Presbyterian church, probably built the fieldstone wall around 1820 and was buried there in 1847.
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David Faucette buys the home tract and a grist mill from his father
David Faucette paid his father Richard 400 pounds for two adjoining tracts of 100 acres where he was already living, with a grist mill and other improvements. He later built the two-story frame house that still stands above the Eno.
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Faucett's grist mill is working at the Eno ford northwest of Hillsborough
The county's architectural survey records the Faucett Mill in operation by at least 1792, at a place where a wagon road forded the Eno River northwest of Hillsborough, and says it may have been built as early as the 1760s by the Quaker milling family of Isaac Lowe. Mills of this kind ground the corn and wheat that Orange farmers hauled north to Petersburg or south toward the Cape Fear, and doubled as gathering places; the Faucett family later added a house that served as an inn and tavern.
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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.
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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.
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William Hodge, raised in the Hawfields congregation, is ordained its pastor
Orange Presbytery ordained William Hodge as pastor of Hawfields and Cross Roads after James McGready's revivals of 1789-1791 renewed his wish to preach. He served until about 1799, when he left for Tennessee and Kentucky.
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The House of Commons rejects a bill to withhold the university's loan
John Leigh of Edgecombe County had offered the bill on the last day of 1791, two days after the loan passed.
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Gilbert Strayhorn deeds two hundred acres to New Hope church
Soon after Lake left, the aged Gilbert Strayhorn gave two hundred acres 'to the subscribers of the church and their successors.' Every New Hope church stood on this land, and seventy acres of it were still the congregation's in 1891.
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Willie P. Mangum is born in the part of Orange County that is now Durham County
Mangum, who went on to four elections to the U.S. Senate and a term as its president pro tempore, was born in eastern Orange County.
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Meeting in Hillsborough, UNC's trustees adopt the ordinance placing the university within fifteen miles of Cyprett's Bridge
Twenty-five of the university's forty trustees gathered at Hillsborough on August 2, 1792. They balloted for Cyprett's Bridge as the center point on August 3 and on August 4 adopted the ordinance fixing a fifteen-mile radius and naming the site commissioners. In early November a commission chaired by Frederick Hargett toured the area and recommended New Hope Chapel Hill in southern Orange County.
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Willie Jones views New Hope Chapel Hill as a university commissioner and signs for the site
Jones was one of six commissioners the trustees sent to fix the seat of the university. On November 5, 1792 he handed the commissioners Joel Lane's offer of 640 acres in Wake County; the commissioners then went on to view New Hope Chapel Hill in Orange County, where they took offers of 1,390 acres and about 798 pounds. Jones signed the report.
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The university village takes the name Chapel Hill from New Hope Chapel
Before the Revolution a small Church of England chapel of ease in St. Matthew's Parish, New Hope Chapel, stood near the later site of the Carolina Inn, and the rise it stood on was called New Hope Chapel Hill. The university's site commissioners wrote that name on November 5, 1792 and the short form Chapel Hill the next day, and the village laid out and sold in lots in 1793 kept the shorter name.
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Trustees fix the university at Chapel Hill and list its Orange County land donors
Meeting on December 5, 1792, the trustees voted unanimously to place the university at New Hope Chapel Hill and recorded nine donors of Orange County land, among them Matthew McCauley (150 acres) and William McCauley (100 acres). Each donor could have one student educated free of tuition.
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Trustees name John Williams to the committee that will build the university and lay off Chapel Hill
On the day they fixed the university at New Hope Chapel Hill, the trustees appointed seven commissioners to erect its buildings and lay off an adjoining town of 24 two-acre and six four-acre lots.
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A trustee committee under Samuel McCorkle reports the university's first plan of studies
Named at New Bern on December 4, 1792, the committee proposed teaching languages with English first, history, mathematics, natural philosophy, botany, agriculture and architecture, and buying scientific apparatus. A newspaper notice of December 12 inviting teachers for this course drew no applicants.
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James Hogg moves across the Eno to Poplar Hill
Hogg, who owned the land along the south bank of the Eno opposite the town, lived east of Hillsborough on the later Cameron property until 1793 or 1794. He then moved across the river to Poplar Hill, later the site of Julian S. Carr's Occoneechee Farm.
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The building committee buys Hardy Morgan's 80-acre tract beside the university site
Finding that Morgan's land ran too close to the planned buildings, the committee bought the 80 acres for $200. Battle took it to be the oldest cleared land on the university grounds, lying east of the buildings along the Raleigh road.
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William Kirkland opens his own store in Hillsborough
William Kirkland, who left Ayr, Scotland, to work in the mercantile trade, had married and opened his own store in Hillsborough by 1793.
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Hillsborough gets the first post office in Orange County
David Ray was appointed Hillsborough's first postmaster about December 18, 1792, and the office appears in post office lists from March 20, 1793, the first in the county; Chapel Hill followed on July 1, 1795. Letters were left at the office for recipients to collect, and for decades it moved from one Churton Street or King Street business to another.
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Building commissioners contract with George Daniel for 350,000 bricks for the university
Meeting at Hillsborough, the commissioners engaged Daniel, of Orange County, to make and deliver the bricks at forty shillings per thousand.
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James Patterson of Chatham County is hired to build the university's first building
The commissioners contracted with Patterson for 2,500 pounds to build a house about 96 feet long and 40 feet wide. It became Old East, the first building raised on the campus of a state university in the United States.
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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.
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Commissioners mark out the sites of the university's buildings and grounds
Davie, Alfred Moore, Alexander Mebane and Thomas Blount met on the Chapel Hill tract and fixed the building sites, with land set aside for offices, avenues and ornamental grounds.
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James Patterson buys two lots at the first Chapel Hill lot sale
At the sale held the day Old East's cornerstone was laid, Patterson, the building's contractor, bought village lots 4 and 5 for 108 pounds 10 shillings. The cornerstone procession that day set out from his inn.
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Old East cornerstone is laid
William Richardson Davie and fellow trustees laid Old East’s cornerstone; October 12 is observed as University Day.
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The first town lots in Chapel Hill are sold at auction
After the Old East cornerstone was laid, the commissioners auctioned the village lots on the spot; 29 lots brought more than 1,500 pounds, and one was held back for the president's house.
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Richard Bennehan gives shells for mortar for Old East
Bennehan donated fifty bushels of shells for making mortar for the university's first building. In 1796 he gave an air pump and thirty-two books.
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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.
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James H. Bowman becomes pastor of Eno and Little River
Bowman took the Eno and Little River charge and held it for about twenty years, gathering many members during the revival that began in 1802. His ministry at Eno ended in 1815.
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The trustees elect David Ker presiding professor of the university
Balloting on January 10, 1794, the trustees elected David Ker, who had come from Fayetteville, the university's first professor, with the title of presiding professor. He took charge at the opening in January 1795, lived in the house meant for a future president and held the post until July 1796.
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Trustees adopt the plan of instruction and set the university's opening for January 15
The board ordered the McCorkle committee's scheme into effect, fixed tuition by subject and created a presiding professor at $300 a year plus fees. It also resolved to build a steward's house before the opening and set a bill of fare for Commons with no drink but water.
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The General Assembly grants the university unsold confiscated lands
The act gave the trustees confiscated Loyalist lands still unsold, chiefly the forfeited claims of Henry Eustace McCulloch, but sent anything above $20,000 to the state. The university's suits to collect under it angered landholders in Mecklenburg and nearby counties.
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A school begins to be kept at New Hope church
Thompson urged the congregation to take up schooling, and after his time the church generally kept a school for many years. His successor James H. Bowman is said to have taught school there while supplying the pulpit.
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Black workers and campus labor
Enslaved men built and served the university from its first buildings, Wilson Caldwell led its labor force after Reconstruction, and the janitors organized an association in 1930 that became a CIO local in 1942. The university named the laundry for Kennon Cheek and Rebecca Clark in 1998, dedicated the Unsung Founders Memorial in 2005 and published the names of 119 enslaved workers in 2018.
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Enslaved men owned by contractor James Patterson paint the roof of Old East
James Patterson, the slaveholding contractor who built Old East between 1793 and 1795, reported in a 1795 letter that several of his own enslaved workers had painted the building's roof. Their names were not recorded.
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James Mebane serves as the first president of the Dialectic Society
Orange County student James Mebane is the first president of the university's Dialectic Society, one of the two student debating societies formed in the university's first year.
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James Strayhorn, John Strain and John Freeland become ruling elders at New Hope
Three men were ordained and installed as elders about 1795, joining James Hart. The four made up the whole session when the church was reorganized in 1820.
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New Hope builds a parsonage with a farm on the church tract
At William F. Thompson's urging the congregation built a parsonage where William C. Claytor later lived and laid off much of Gilbert Strayhorn's two-hundred-acre gift as a farm to go with it.
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Old East is finished as a two-story dormitory of sixteen rooms
The university's first building was ready in 1795 as a two-story brick dormitory with sixteen rooms. Its plan is in effect two center-hall houses joined end to end, with a fireplace for every room, and it kept that height until a third story went on in 1822.
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The university finishes a house for its president at Cameron Avenue and Columbia Street
A Federal side-hall house for the head of the university was completed in 1795 at the northeast corner of what are now Cameron Avenue and South Columbia Street. Each of its two bedrooms had a pair of built-in closets, uncommon at the time.
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Walter Alves serves as a university trustee and board treasurer
Walter Alves of Orange County was a trustee of the University of North Carolina from 1795 to 1813 and treasurer of its board from 1795 to 1799.
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William Nunn buys James Patterson's inn and adds a tavern
Captain William Nunn, a Revolutionary War officer and former Orange County sheriff, bought Patterson's inn. He and his wife Betsy enlarged the rooms for lodgers and added a tavern, and the business stayed in the Nunn family for more than half a century.
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UNC opens to students
The University formally opened at Chapel Hill on a cold, rainy January 15, 1795, with Governor Richard Dobbs Spaight and trustees present, but no students had yet arrived. Hinton James came on February 12, and by March two professors taught 41 students; UNC was the only public university to graduate students in the eighteenth century.
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Trustees adopt the university's first by-laws
Drafted by Samuel McCorkle and amended in committee, the by-laws set four classes, prayers at sunrise and evening, a monitor in each class to report absences and misconduct, and punishments from admonition to expulsion. Students could not keep liquor in their rooms or gamble.
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Hinton James arrives as UNC’s first student
Hinton James became UNC’s first student on February 12, 1795.
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Charles Wilson Harris joins the new university as professor of mathematics
Harris joined the faculty in March 1795, weeks after the university opened, as professor of mathematics. On June 3, 1795 he organized the students into the debating club that became the Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies.
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Harris sets up a small store of medicine for students and neighbours
Writing from the university on June 1, 1795, Harris told his uncle, a physician, that with no doctor nearer than Hillsborough he would keep a small stock of medicine for students and the neighbourhood, at cost. He enclosed a plan of the university lands and village.
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UNC’s Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies take shape
UNC students held the first recorded meeting of a Debating Society on June 3, 1795, and voted on July 2 to split in two, the new body being the Concord Society. They took the names Dialectic and Philanthropic in late August 1796 and for over a century served as debating clubs, student government and keepers of large libraries.
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Samuel Hopkins opens the accounts of Chapel Hill's first post office
Samuel Hopkins, the first postmaster appointed for Chapel Hill, files his first account with the Post Office as of July 1, 1795, the earliest record of the village post office.
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UNC holds its first public examination, announced by Governor Spaight
The University's first public examination took place at Chapel Hill on July 13, 1795, after notice appeared in the newspapers over the signature of Governor Richard Dobbs Spaight. The governor's wife, Mary Spaight, was the only woman present, and about a dozen men attended, including William R. Davie, James Hogg, Alfred Moore and James Glasgow.
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Trustees vote to build a house for the university's grammar school
With Old East crowded and many students too young or unprepared for college classes, the board ordered a separate preparatory school building with lodging rooms, in the woods south of Rosemary Street. Richard Sims, an advanced student, seems to have been its first master.
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Joseph Green becomes the first student dismissed from the university
Green and Frank Burton went to a cotton-picking frolic after being forbidden. Burton accepted public admonition, but Green refused and was dismissed by the faculty under David Ker.
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Orange Presbytery holds its earliest recorded meeting at New Hope
The oldest surviving Orange Presbytery minutes record a meeting at New Hope church, the first after Concord Presbytery was set off. James Bowman was moderator, William McGee was ordained with William F. Thompson, John Gillispie was licensed, and two candidates, Robert Foster and Robert Tate, sat part of their trials.
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William F. Thompson is ordained at New Hope as its first pastor
Thompson, said to be a native of Connecticut, was ordained at New Hope and apparently installed as its pastor at the same meeting, the first pastor the church had. Earlier ministers had served it as supplies alongside the Hawfields and Eno.
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Trustees adopt William R. Davie's plan dividing the university into a preparatory school and professorships
Davie's plan put English at the center, let French stand beside the classics and set up chairs of moral and political philosophy, natural philosophy, mathematics, chemistry with agriculture and the mechanic arts, and languages. The board elected Samuel McCorkle a professor, but he declined when refused extra pay in place of the president's house.
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Charles Wilson Harris acts as presiding professor
After David Ker resigned under pressure from the trustees in the summer of 1796, Harris acted as presiding professor until his own resignation that December. He had persuaded Joseph Caldwell to join the faculty in October 1796.
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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.
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Richard Stanford begins about twenty years as congressman for the Hillsborough district
Richard Stanford, who was not born in Orange, won the Hillsborough district seat in Congress in 1796 and kept it for about twenty years. He started out a Jeffersonian Republican and later broke with Jefferson.
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The two student societies stage a play in place of their regular exercises
Both societies voted to give up their usual exercises for a dramatic performance, probably urged on by tutor William Richards, a former strolling actor, and bought scenery at Williamsboro. One member who failed without excuse to take his two parts was expelled from his society.
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Thomas Person gives $1,050 to complete the university chapel, later named Person Hall
Trustee Thomas Person gave $1,050 to finish the chapel then under construction at Chapel Hill. The trustees thanked him for his liberality and the building, completed in 1798, was named Person Hall.
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Trustees forbid students to visit village taverns without leave and allow dancing lessons
Meeting at the July examinations, the board barred tavern visits without a professor's permission and gave the preparatory teachers authority over all students. The same meeting let students attend dancing schools with faculty consent.
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David Gillespie receives the earliest document resembling a university diploma
Leaving to help Andrew Ellicott fix the southern boundary of the United States, Gillespie was given a certificate of his studies signed by professors Charles W. Harris and Samuel Holmes and teacher William Richards. Governor Samuel Ashe attached a certificate under the state seal.
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Joseph Caldwell arrives in Chapel Hill as professor of mathematics
Joseph Caldwell, a Princeton graduate and tutor, moved to Chapel Hill in October 1796 to teach mathematics at the new university. He became presiding professor the next year.
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James O'Kelly organizes Damascus Christian Church
James O'Kelly, who had broken with the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1792, organized Damascus Christian Church near the Orange, Durham and Chatham lines and served as its first pastor.
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James Smiley Gillaspie is made principal of the university
To keep Joseph Caldwell, who meant to leave rather than carry the executive duties, the trustees elected Gillaspie professor of natural philosophy with the title of principal. Caldwell stayed as professor of mathematics and taught French in the preparatory school.
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Student John Pettigrew draws Old East
Pettigrew sent his father a colored drawing of the building, then two stories high and two-thirds its later length, with a white band between the stories and a platform at each door. Battle reproduced it as the frontispiece view of Old East.
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The Assembly orders the sale of the ruinous St. Matthew's church building
An act of 1797 authorised the sheriff to sell the old Anglican church on Lot 98, described as in a ruinous and decayed situation and not used for divine worship for a number of years. The building went soon afterwards, and around 1800 the town had no church at all.
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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.
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Mumps spreads among the students
John Pettigrew wrote home that thirty or forty students had the mumps, none badly. Smallpox brought by a man from Norfolk was seven or eight miles away, but Battle says it never reached Chapel Hill.
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Trustees attend the university's July examination and praise its teachers
Governor Benjamin Williams, Judge John Williams, James Hogg, Adlai Osborne, Willie Jones and Walter Alves attended the examination. Their report thanked the professors and tutors and said complaints against the steward had ended.
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Pleasant Henderson is chosen steward of the university
Pleasant Henderson moved from Mt. Pleasant to Chapel Hill in 1797 and was chosen steward of the University of North Carolina, following John Taylor in the post. A UNC Libraries exhibit records that he owned nineteen enslaved people.
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Charles Gerrard leaves the university his Tennessee lands
Gerrard, a Revolutionary lieutenant living in Edgecombe County, bequeathed his 2,560-acre service tract on the Cumberland River below Nashville, asking that it stay university property forever, along with warrants for 11,364 more acres. The gift emboldened the trustees to begin the Main Building.
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Duncan Cameron sets up as a lawyer at Hillsborough
Cameron was admitted to the North Carolina bar in 1798 and, after a brief practice at Martinsville in Guilford County, established himself as a successful attorney at Hillsborough. A rivalry with another young Hillsborough lawyer, William Duffy, followed.
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Eagle Lodge meets in Chapel Hill and initiates Joseph Caldwell
By special dispensation, Hillsborough's Eagle Lodge met in Chapel Hill and made Masons of Joseph Caldwell, then presiding professor of the university, and three other faculty members.
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George Clarke is buried in the ground that becomes the Chapel Hill town cemetery
The oldest dated stone in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery, at Raleigh and Country Club roads, marks the 1798 grave of George Clarke, a member of the university's Philanthropic Society. It shows the burial ground in use by that year.
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The legislature authorizes another district jail at Hillsborough
The act provided for a new jail to serve the Hillsborough district.
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UNC holds its first commencement
UNC’s first graduating class included Hinton James and six other students.
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The cornerstone of the Main, later South, Building is laid
A special Grand Lodge of Masons met at the university to lay the cornerstone of the principal building. Its walls rose a story and a half and then stood roofless for years for want of money.
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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.
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A free Black distiller works on East King Street as the county counts its Black residents
Africa Parker, a free Black man, was running a distillery on East King Street near William Courtney's house in Hillsborough in 1799. The census the next year counted 3,327 enslaved people and 100 free Black people in Orange County alongside 12,222 white residents.
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Archibald D. Murphey graduates from the university and joins its faculty
Archibald D. Murphey graduated with honors from the University at Chapel Hill in 1799 and was hired at once as a tutor. The next year he became professor of languages, one of three faculty members, and also served as librarian before resigning to study law in Hillsborough.
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John Taylor Sr. opens a tavern on Franklin Street
By 1799 the former steward had put up a tavern on Lot #13, which he had bought in 1796. The lot stayed in the hotel trade for decades: Alsobrook's hotel, the Watts Hotel, the Eagle Hotel and the Union Hotel all stood on it.
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Richard Bennehan builds the Stagville house
Bennehan built the house he called Stagville. By then he owned about 4,000 acres, worked by 44 or more enslaved people. The same year he joined the university's board of trustees.
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Samuel Chinny buys the East Tryon Street land later called BelleVue
Samuel Chinny bought land at the east edge of town that had first belonged to James Hogg, and probably built the house that became the eastern part of the Phillips-Hill-Webb House; a deed of 1801 mentions a house on the lot.
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Students rise against the faculty and beat principal Gillaspie
In the term before the 1799 commencement students beat Gillaspie, waylaid and stoned tutor William E. Webb and threatened Caldwell and Archibald Murphey, and for a week exercises stopped. Three leaders were dismissed and the faculty offered to resign, and by that November Caldwell was chosen again to head the university.
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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.
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The Philanthropic Society adopts rules for marking its members' graves
When its minutes resumed in January 1799, after George Clarke's burial, George Long of Halifax County moved that the society honor members buried at Chapel Hill. Three weeks later a committee called for a black-painted oak or poplar railing around each grave with the name, date and society lettered in white, and a black armband worn for three months.
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Judge John Williams falls ill while holding court at Hillsborough
Williams, on the superior court bench since 1779, became ill while presiding at Hillsborough. He died at Montpelier, his Granville County plantation, on October 10, 1799.
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William F. Thompson deeds a hundred acres of New Hope church land to John Strayhorn
As he was leaving, Thompson sold about a hundred acres of the church tract to Gilbert Strayhorn's son John, stating that Gilbert had conveyed the land to him. No such conveyance was ever seen or recorded, and Craig judged the deed a forgery; the land left the church's hands.
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William F. Thompson resigns as pastor of New Hope
Thompson gave up the charge at a called meeting of Orange Presbytery at Cross Roads church and left the presbytery's bounds. In April 1802 the presbytery suspended him from the ministry for false charges he had made against it.
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Hillsborough's Dr. James Webb helps organize the first state medical society
Dr. James Webb, the leading physician in Orange, was among the small group who organized the North Carolina Medical Society at Raleigh on December 17, 1799; its charter was dated December 23. Webb served as one of its censors, who examined men wishing to practice.
Antebellum and Civil War · 1800–1865
- 1800s
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A great camp-meeting revival is held at New Hope
People came from long distances and camped on the church grounds for days, and the revival spread into other neighborhoods. Craig thought it did much to prompt the building of a third church.
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A saddle-notched log house is built on the Webb Farm on St. Mary's Road
The Webb Farm's one-room log house, with a fieldstone chimney, dates from the early nineteenth century; a two-story frame house was built across its front late in the century with no inside door between them.
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Francis Asbury visits Chapel Hill and the university
Bishop Francis Asbury stopped at Chapel Hill in 1800 and recorded a warm welcome from Joseph Caldwell, the students and people from the village and countryside. Nicholas Snethen, traveling with him, preached in the village, and Asbury baptized some children afterward.
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