Skip to content

Orange County Indexed

Chronology

Key events from Orange County history: 100 highlights to start, expand to see all 1,473 dated entries and where they connect to the index.

Filters · 2 active
Entries may appear under more than one subject.
A town matches the place recorded for each entry.

News, Journalism & Broadcasting, Antebellum and Civil War: 6 dated entries from the full dataset. Back to the highlights →

Earliest first. Scroll sideways, or use the arrows.

6 dated entries
1818Antebellum and Civil War
  1. Antebellum and Civil War · 1800–1865
  2. William Woods Holden is born near Hillsborough

    Birth · Hillsborough

    William Woods Holden, later editor of the North Carolina Standard and governor, was born near Hillsborough to Thomas Holden and Priscilla Woods. His grandfather had moved to Orange County to farm, and from age six he was raised by his stepmother, Sally Nichols Holden.

  3. The Hillsborough Recorder begins publication

    Founding or opening · Hillsborough

    Dennis Heartt began publishing the weekly Hillsborough Recorder in February 1820, at three dollars a year. The paper ran until 1879, and its surviving issues are a main record of nineteenth-century Hillsborough and Orange County.

    Part of The Hillsborough Recorder begins publication, 1820

    People: Dennis Heartt

  4. Josiah Turner Jr. is born in Hillsborough

    Birth · Hillsborough

    Josiah Turner Jr. was born in Hillsborough, the eldest son of Josiah and Eliza Evans Turner. His father was a longtime sheriff and large landowner in Orange County.

  5. William W. Holden serves as an apprentice printer at the Hillsborough Recorder

    Apprenticeship · Hillsborough

    At about age ten Holden was apprenticed as a printer's devil to Dennis Heartt, editor of the Hillsborough Recorder, who was responsible for his early education and political views. He struck out on his own at about sixteen, working first for the Milton Chronicle.

  6. Josiah Turner Jr. is admitted to the bar after studying law in Hillsborough

    Career · Hillsborough

    After schooling at the Caldwell Institute in Greensboro and a year at the University of North Carolina, Josiah Turner Jr. studied law for two years in Hillsborough and was admitted to the bar in about 1845. He soon built a large practice.

  7. Frederick Strudwick graduates and begins practising law in Hillsborough

    Professional milestone · Hillsborough

    Frederick Nash Strudwick, born in Hillsborough on 27 June 1833 and schooled there, graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1851 and then began a law practice in Hillsborough.

The other dated entries wait behind a subject, a place, an era, a month, or the All dated entries switch, and each storyline’s page carries its own component entries. Dates come from the sources named on the cards and from the index’s event pages; where sources disagree, the card follows the county records. Entries marked approximate or needing research say so on the card; the rest were checked against the source named on it. Each card’s “Correct this” link opens the contact form with the entry already named. Suggest an event →

Compiled and maintained by the Friends of the Orange County Public Library from county records, the sources named on each card, and the index’s event pages. Last updated September 14, 2026.

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