Chronology

Reconstruction and the New South: 11 highlights. Back to the highlights →

1. Reconstruction and the New South · 1866–1899
2. 1866 Freedpeople register their marriages in Orange CountyCountywide

   An 1866 state law declared formerly enslaved couples who had lived together as husband and wife legally married and required them to register their unions, most often with the county register of deeds. Orange County’s cohabitation records from that registration survive at the State Archives and are digitized in North Carolina Digital Collections.

3. November 19–20, 1867 Black men vote in Orange County's first Reconstruction electionPolitical milestone · Countywide

   Under the 1867 Reconstruction Acts, Black men registered and voted alongside white men in the November 19-20, 1867 election for a state constitutional convention. Orange County elected E. M. Holt and J. W. Graham as delegates.

4. 1869–1898 Racial-terror lynchings in Orange CountyStoryline · Countywide

   Six people are documented as lynched in Orange County: Washington Morrow, Thomas Jefferson Morrow, Daniel Morrow, Wright Malone and Cyrus Guy in 1869, and Manly McCauley in 1898. In September 2022 the county commissioners apologized for racial-terror lynchings and approved markers, citing five cases without naming the victims.

5. August 7–October 14, 1869 Washington Morrow, Thomas Jefferson Morrow and Daniel Morrow are lynchedDisaster or violence · Countywide

   Early on August 7, 1869, about 100 disguised white men took Washington Morrow and his brother Nelson from the Hillsborough jail, where they were held on barn-burning charges, and shot Washington as they fled; he died of the wound. On October 14 a mob hanged their father, Thomas Jefferson Morrow, and their uncle, Daniel Morrow.

6. October 1869–March 1871 Orange County in the Kirk–Holden WarStoryline · Countywide

   Governor Holden named Orange County in his October 1869 warning about Klan violence, Hillsborough men were named in a Klan plot against Senator T. M. Shoffner, and Kirk's militia arrested Josiah Turner Jr. at Hillsborough in August 1870. Orange men Frederick N. Strudwick, William A. Graham and John W. Graham then helped bring, prosecute and decide Holden's impeachment.

7. c. 1870–1874 John and Mary Jane Pope build their farm near Cedar GroveAgricultural development · Cedar Grove

   John S. Pope, a Confederate captain, and his wife Mary Jane McDade Pope built a two-story I-house on land she inherited from her father's estate in 1869; it was likely finished by 1874, when her brother's share brought the tract to about 73 acres. Tobacco was the farm's main cash crop, and its oldest surviving barn dates to about 1875.

8. September 6, 1875 UNC reopensFounding or opening · Chapel Hill

   The university resumed classes on Monday, September 6, 1875, after more than four years closed, with Charles Phillips as chairman of the faculty, and held a public celebration on September 15. Kemp P. Battle, then secretary of the trustees, was elected president in 1876.

9. 1882–1913 From West End to Carrboro: railroad, mills, and a new townStoryline · Carrboro

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

10. January 5, 1886 E. H. Pogue & Co. hold the opening sale at the Hillsboro Tobacco WarehouseBusiness opening · Hillsborough

    The Hillsboro Tobacco Warehouse, run by E. H. Pogue & Co., held its opening sale on Tuesday, January 5, 1886, and the Observer reported a heavy break with good prices. Three days earlier Pogue and fourteen other men had incorporated the Orange County Tobacco Association to buy and sell leaf tobacco.

11. June 1, 1898 Sallie Walker Stockard becomes UNC's first woman graduateEducation milestone · Chapel Hill

    Sallie Walker Stockard, a Guilford College graduate, entered UNC's senior class in the fall of 1897, the first year the university admitted women. She became the first woman to graduate from UNC when the class of 1898 received its degrees on June 1, 1898, and she earned a master's degree there in 1900.

12. Late October 1898 Manly McCauley is lynched near CarrboroDisaster or violence · Carrboro

    Manly McCauley, an 18-year-old Black farmhand, left Milton Brewer's farm west of Chapel Hill with Brewer's wife on October 26, 1898. A posse caught them beyond Jonesboro, and on the way back masked men took McCauley from the officer holding him and hanged him. His body was found on November 6, about three miles west of Chapel Hill.

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.