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Orange County Indexed

Chronology

Key events from Orange County history: 100 highlights to start, then the full chronology of 6,577 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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3 dated events match your filters.

Searched the full chronology of 6,577 dated events and 63 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1–3.Back to highlights

Entries

  1. Reconstruction and the New South · 1866–1899

  2. Founding or opening · Chapel Hill John W. Canada starts the Canada School in Chapel Hill

    Soon after graduating from the university in 1896, John W. Canada organized a private school in Chapel Hill that prepared students for college. He ran it with his brother Charles, Sallie Wilson and a Miss Hendon until he left for Texas soon after 1900.

  3. Chapel Hill The Canada School takes over Dr. Roberson's Patterson Hotel building

    The Canada School had outgrown its rooms behind the post office, so in 1896 John W. Canada hired more teachers and moved into the Patterson Hotel building, which Dr. Abner Benton Roberson owned. The building's run as a hotel was short.

  4. Early twentieth century · 1900–1944

  5. Closing or ending · Former Patterson Hotel, southwest corner of Franklin and Columbia streets, Chapel Hill John W. Canada's school closes and its building becomes a rooming house

    The John W. Canada School closed, and the old building on the southwest corner of Franklin and Columbia streets where it had met became a rooming house. The brick building beside it was used as a Masonic hall.

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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