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Orange County Indexed

Chronology

Key events from Orange County history: 100 highlights to start, then the full chronology of 6,171 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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6 dated events match your filters.

Searched the full chronology of 6,171 dated events and 63 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1–6.Back to highlights

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6 dated events
1775Revolution and early republic
  1. Revolution and early republic · 1775–1799
  2. Provincial Congress at Hillsborough elects a Provincial Council to govern between sessions

    Appointment, election or service · Hillsborough

    On September 9, 1775, the Congress at Hillsborough elected a thirteen-member Provincial Council to direct the army and militia during its recess: Samuel Johnston for the province at large and two members for each of the six districts, among them Abner Nash and James Coor for New Bern and Thomas Person and John Kinchen for Hillsborough.

    People: Samuel Johnston · Samuel Ashe · Willie Jones · Samuel Spencer · Waightstill Avery · Thomas Person · Cornelius Harnett

  3. The superior court sits at Hillsborough for the first time in five years

    Law, policy or court · Hillsborough

    Judges Samuel Ashe and James Iredell opened the March 1778 term in the old courthouse, with Waightstill Avery prosecuting and John Henderson of Granville as grand jury foreman. The district court had not sat since September 1772, when the quarrel between Governor Martin and the Assembly over the court law shut the courts.

    People: Samuel Ashe · James Iredell · Waightstill Avery

    Subject: Orange County Courthouse, Hillsborough

  4. The Assembly lends the university trustees 5,000 pounds for its buildings

    Property or economic transaction · New Bern

    Trustees meeting at New Bern named a committee to seek the loan, and Davie argued for it before the Commons. It passed 57 to 53 in the Commons and 28 to 21 in the Senate.

    People: Samuel Ashe · John Sitgreaves · Richard Dobbs Spaight · William Richardson Davie

  5. A trustee committee under Samuel McCorkle reports the university's first plan of studies

    Law, policy or court · Chapel Hill

    Named at New Bern on December 4, 1792, the committee proposed teaching languages with English first, history, mathematics, natural philosophy, botany, agriculture and architecture, and buying scientific apparatus. A newspaper notice of December 12 inviting teachers for this course drew no applicants.

    People: David Stone · Samuel Ashe · Hugh Williamson · Samuel Eusebius McCorkle

  6. Trustees forbid students to visit village taverns without leave and allow dancing lessons

    Law, policy or court · Chapel Hill

    Meeting at the July examinations, the board barred tavern visits without a professor's permission and gave the preparatory teachers authority over all students. The same meeting let students attend dancing schools with faculty consent.

    People: Samuel Ashe · William Richardson Davie

  7. David Gillespie receives the earliest document resembling a university diploma

    Award or honor · Chapel Hill

    Leaving to help Andrew Ellicott fix the southern boundary of the United States, Gillespie was given a certificate of his studies signed by professors Charles W. Harris and Samuel Holmes and teacher William Richards. Governor Samuel Ashe attached a certificate under the state seal.

    People: Samuel Ashe

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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