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Orange County Indexed

Chronology

Key events from Orange County history: 100 highlights to start, then the full chronology of 6,368 dated events and 63 storylines, each connected to the index. A storyline gathers many dated events into one history, such as the Regulator crisis.

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7 dated events match your filters.

Searched the full chronology of 6,368 dated events and 63 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1–7.Back to highlights

Entries

  1. Early twentieth century · 1900–1944

  2. Construction or physical change · Chapel Hill Masons lay the cornerstone of the Carnegie library

    On the Saturday of the 1907 commencement the Grand Lodge of Masons, led by Grand Master Francis D. Winston, laid the cornerstone of the new library built with Andrew Carnegie's gift. Construction had begun in October 1906.

  3. Chapel Hill Dr. Eric A. Abernethy leaves his Chapel Hill practice for the Army medical corps

    Abernethy gave up his medical practice in Chapel Hill in May 1917 to enter the Army medical corps as a first lieutenant. He rose to lieutenant colonel, was wounded in Belgium in July 1918, and then commanded the 78th Division sanitary train in the St. Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne campaigns.

  4. Chapel Hill Eric A. Abernethy becomes the university physician

    After he came home from the war, the university hired Dr. Eric A. Abernethy as its campus physician, in charge of the infirmary. UNC A to Z calls him the first person to hold the post and says he brought modern ideas about sanitation and medical practice to the campus.

  5. Health or relief action · Chapel Hill Hundreds take typhoid vaccine at Chapel Hill clinic after new cases

    After several new typhoid cases were reported in late June 1932, about 600 people received typhoid vaccine at the Chapel Hill public clinic in a single day, and the Infirmary gave the treatment on any day. Town health authorities said the water supply was not the source.

  6. Appointment, election or service · University infirmary (Abernethy Hall), 131 South Columbia Street, Chapel Hill Dr. Eric A. Abernethy resigns as university physician

    Abernethy, appointed university physician in charge of the infirmary after he came home wounded from the First World War, resigned because of poor health and went into private practice in Chapel Hill with his son. Dr. Foy Roberson of Durham took temporary charge of the infirmary.

  7. Civil rights era · 1945–1975

  8. Chapel Hill The old campus infirmary is renamed Abernethy Hall

    The university renamed its 1907 infirmary building Abernethy Hall in honor of Dr. Eric A. Abernethy, the university physician from 1919 to 1933. The infirmary itself moved to a new building in 1946.

  9. Closing or ending · 117 South Columbia Street, Chapel Hill The University tears down the Abernethy house on South Columbia Street for Ackland grounds and parking

    UNC bought the house from the widow of Dr. Eric A. Abernethy, long the director of the University Infirmary, and tore it down to extend the Ackland Art Center grounds and make a gravel lot of about 60 faculty parking spaces. The house dated from 1905 and had housed many students.

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A dated event is a fact, filed on the page of the subject it belongs to: a person, a place, a theme, or a named event or history. Pages are subjects, with their own works and sources; the Place, community, or institution filter also gathers the institutions that recur in the entries without a page of their own. The page opens on the highlights; a search or any filter looks through every dated event and storyline, and each filter’s counts say how many entries choosing it would show alongside the others. A storyline is a longer history that gathers related dated events, and each storyline’s page lists its own. Counts give dated events and storylines separately. 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. The correction link under the entries opens the contact form; name the entry and its date and the Friends will check the source. 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 October 2, 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