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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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5 dated events match your filters.

Searched the full chronology of 6,171 dated events and 63 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1–5.Back to highlights

Entries

  1. Revolution and early republic · 1775–1799

  2. Pleasant Grove, Orange County William Cain acquires the Pleasant Grove plantation on the Trading Path

    William Cain acquired the Orange County property later called Pleasant Grove, beside the old Indian Trading Path, and held it until his death in 1834.

  3. Pleasant Grove, Orange County Hillsborough builders add a Federal-style house at Cain's Pleasant Grove

    The Cains commissioned the Hillsborough builders Martin Palmer and Samuel Hopkins to build a second, Federal-style house about ten feet from the original 1775 Georgian house at Pleasant Grove.

  4. Slavery and freedom · Orange County William Courtney mortgages a man named Africa to William Cain

    William Courtney of Orange County pledged an enslaved man known as Africa to William Cain as security for 200 pounds, the bill of sale to be void if Courtney repaid the debt with interest by the following February 28.

  5. Antebellum and Civil War · 1800–1865

  6. Pleasant Grove, Orange County William Cain is the largest landowner in Orange County, enslaving 30 people

    By 1800 William Cain owned 4,417 acres, the most of any landowner in Orange County, and enslaved 30 people at Pleasant Grove, a number he increased to 95 by 1830.

  7. Founding or opening · Hillsborough Hillsborough Academy reopens for boys and girls under Andrew Flinn

    The academy's trustees announced that it had reopened on a larger plan for youth of both sexes under the Rev. Andrew Flinn, teaching Latin, Greek, English, mathematics and bookkeeping.

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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