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Libraries, Archives & Public Memory, Reconstruction and the New South: 4 dated entries from the full dataset. Back to the highlights →
- Reconstruction and the New South · 1866–1899
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David L. Swain dies after a buggy accident
Weeks after the Reconstruction board of trustees accepted his resignation, David L. Swain was thrown on August 11, 1868, from a buggy pulled by the horse General Sherman had given him. He seemed to be recovering but died on August 29 and was buried in the garden of his Chapel Hill home; Charles Phillips preached his funeral sermon.
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U.S. Senate committee hears Orange County testimony on Klan violence
A Senate select committee created on January 19, 1871 took testimony in Washington on Klan violence in North Carolina. Orange County witnesses, including Hillsborough constable W. G. Turrentine, court clerk George Laws and editor Josiah Turner Jr., described the 1869 jail raid, hangings and whippings in the county. The committee reported on March 10, 1871.
Part of Racial-terror lynchings in Orange County · 3 events
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Manly McCauley is lynched near 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.
Part of Racial-terror lynchings in Orange County · 3 events
People: Manly McCauley
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R. D. W. Connor graduates from the university and edits its student publications
Connor took his Ph.B. at Chapel Hill in 1899, the year he served as editor-in-chief of all three student publications.
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.
