Chronology

News, Journalism & Broadcasting, Reconstruction and the New South: 7 dated entries from the full dataset. Back to the highlights →

1. Reconstruction and the New South · 1866–1899
2. February 1870 Frederick Strudwick takes an unexpired Orange County seat in the HouseElection · Orange County

   In February 1870 Strudwick, a Democrat, was chosen to fill the unexpired term of J. J. Allison in the North Carolina House of Representatives. He was elected to a full two-year term that August.

3. August 5–19, 1870 Kirk's militia arrests Josiah Turner Jr. at HillsboroughMilitary · Countywide

   On August 5, 1870, a detachment of Kirk's state militia seized Raleigh Sentinel editor Josiah Turner Jr. at or near Hillsborough, took him by rail to Company Shops and then held him with Kirk's other prisoners in the Caswell County courthouse at Yanceyville. U.S. District Judge George W. Brooks ordered him discharged on August 19, 1870, on his habeas corpus petition.

4. December 1870 Strudwick is kept off the impeachment managers because of his Klan reputationPolitical episode · Orange County

   After guiding the impeachment resolution through the house judiciary committee and the full house, Strudwick was not chosen as a manager for the senate trial. It was feared that his widely known association with the Ku Klux Klan would make the proceedings look like a Klan prosecution.

5. August 11, 1887–March 8, 1888 Frederick Strudwick co-owns and edits the Hillsborough RecorderNewspaper ownership · Hillsborough

   On 11 August 1887 Strudwick and C. E. Parish became co-owners and editors of the Hillsborough Recorder. Their first issue promised a firm and conservative stand on matters of public welfare and a thoroughly Democratic line in politics. Strudwick left the paper after the issue of 8 March 1888.

6. July 29, 1890 Frederick Strudwick dies and Hillsborough holds a meeting in his honorDeath · Hillsborough

   Strudwick died on 29 July 1890 after an illness of several months and was buried in the Hillsborough Cemetery. A special town meeting led by C. E. Parish was convened in his honor. Between the legislature and his death he had served as solicitor for the Fifth District for eight years.

7. February 23, 1893 The Tar Heel publishes its first issuePublication · Chapel Hill

   The first issue of The Tar Heel, volume 1, number 1, appeared on Thursday, February 23, 1893, as a weekly published under the auspices of the University Athletic Association, with Charles Baskerville as editor in chief. The student paper took the name The Daily Tar Heel in 1929.

8. October 1893 The Chapel Hill News, forerunner of The News of Orange County, begins publicationPublication · Hillsborough

   The weekly that became The News of Orange County began in Chapel Hill in October 1893 as The Chapel Hill News. Renamed The News, it moved to Hillsboro between 1936 and 1941 and took the title The News of Orange County in 1944. The paper still dates its founding to 1893.

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.