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Orange County Indexed

Chronology

Key events from Orange County history: 100 highlights to start, then the full chronology of 6,531 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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11 dated events and 1 storyline match your filters.

Searched the full chronology of 6,531 dated events and 63 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1–12.Back to highlights

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11 dated events and 1 storyline
1833Antebellum and Civil War
  1. Antebellum and Civil War · 1800–1865
  2. Job, later Rev. Job Berry, is baptized at St. Matthew's

    Life event · Hillsborough

    Job, enslaved by George W. B. Burgwyn, was baptized at St. Matthew's Episcopal Church by William Mercer Green and confirmed the next April. As Job Berry he later led Hillsborough's first Black congregation.

    People: William Mercer Green · Job Berry

    Subject: St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church

  3. Job is sold with 25 other enslaved people to Hillsborough merchant Stephen Moore

    Hillsborough

    To pay a debt to the Bank of Cape Fear for land bought in Tennessee, Francis Nash Waddell sold Job, later Rev. Job Berry, and 25 other enslaved people to the Hillsborough merchant Stephen Moore. Job probably kept painting for builder John Berry, his wages going to Moore.

    People: Stephen Moore · John Berry

  4. Hugh Waddell buys Job at auction after Stephen Moore's failure

    Hillsborough

    When the merchant Stephen Moore went bankrupt, Job was offered to the highest bidder and bought for $800 by the Hillsborough attorney Hugh Waddell, who made him his personal servant at Twin Chimneys on West King Street. When Waddell was away Job was hired out, painting for John Berry, his wages going to the Waddells.

    People: Hugh Waddell · Stephen Moore · John Berry

  5. Job Berry and Billy Payne begin the congregation that became Dickerson Chapel

    Founding or opening · Hillsborough

    Dickerson Chapel AME Church dates its founding to 1851, when Job Berry, an enslaved painter and its first pastor, began gathering the congregation with Rev. Billy (William) Payne, enslaved by Dr. Edmund Strudwick. With state law barring Black preachers, they met in homes; the congregation moved into the old courthouse on Queen Street in 1866.

    People: Job Berry

    Subject: Dickerson Chapel AME Church · Orange County Courthouse, Hillsborough

  6. Job Berry calls a fair to buy a building for a Black school

    Protest or organizing · Hillsborough

    The Hillsborough Recorder printed Job Berry's notice that the colored citizens of Hillsborough would hold a fair on September 23 to raise money for a school building. The school later met in the old courthouse at Queen and Churton streets.

    People: Job Berry

    Subject: Orange County Courthouse, Hillsborough

  7. Freedom, schools, and Black community-building after emancipation

    Storyline · 45 events · Hillsborough

    After emancipation, Black residents of Orange County built their own institutions. Chapel Hill's First Baptist Church formed in September 1865; Job Berry and Philadelphia Quakers opened Hillsborough's freedmen's school in the old courthouse on June 5, 1866; Black residents bought land for a Chapel Hill school in 1866; and St. Paul AME bought its church lot in 1878.

    People: Job Berry

  8. Job Berry buys an acre on South Wake Street

    Property or economic transaction · Hillsborough

    Months after emancipation, Job Berry paid Henry N. Brown $300 for parts of lots 20 and 17 off South Wake Street, next to the Nash and Kollock School, where his wife Rebecca Nash had been enslaved.

    People: Job Berry

  9. Reconstruction and the New South · 1866–1899
  10. The AME congregation later called Dickerson Chapel begins worshipping in the old courthouse

    Founding or opening · Hillsborough

    The AME congregation later known as Dickerson Chapel moved into the 1790 courthouse building on Queen Street in 1866, sharing it with the freedmen's school the Philadelphia Friends ran there. Lefler and Wager date its formal organization to 1873, and the Friends conveyed the building to the church's trustees in 1886.

    Part of Freedom, schools, and Black community-building after emancipation · 45 events

    People: Job Berry

    Subject: Orange County Courthouse, Hillsborough · Dickerson Chapel AME Church

  11. Rev. Job Berry and the Philadelphia Friends open Hillsborough's first school for Black children and adults

    Founding or opening · Hillsborough

    Job Berry, who had advertised a fair in September 1865 to raise money for a school, worked with the Friends of Philadelphia to buy the former Orange County courthouse on Queen Street for twelve hundred dollars and open a freedmen's school in it on June 5, 1866. More than three hundred children and adults learned to read and cipher there.

    People: Job Berry

    Subject: Orange County Courthouse, Hillsborough

  12. Rev. Job Berry officiates at more than forty weddings of freed people

    Hillsborough

    Between 1867 and 1877 Job Berry officiated at more than forty weddings of Black couples in and around Hillsborough, among them one held at the Freedmen's School House on September 17, 1868. Orange County marriage books record him as minister, later as AME minister of Bethel.

  13. Job Berry is admitted as a preacher by the A.M.E. Church

    Appointment, election or service · Greensboro

    Meeting in Greensboro, the church's North Carolina Conference admitted Job Berry on trial and sent him to Mebanesville and Graham, making formal the ministry he had carried on while state law barred Black preachers.

    People: Job Berry

  14. Job Berry is named a delegate to the Republican state convention

    Appointment, election or service · Hillsborough

    The Orange County Republican convention chose Rev. Job Berry as a Hillsborough delegate to the 1872 state convention, which backed Ulysses S. Grant and Governor Tod R. Caldwell.

    People: Job Berry

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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